Speaker Details

Dr Francois Sauer

Biography

Education: MD, with honors University of Mexico, UNAM; MBA, IPADE (Harvard Business School program in Mexico City); and MS Systems Analysis, Spanish-American University, Mexico City Author of “Relearn, Evolve and Adapt” An essay to integrate creative imagination with socially conditioned thought and behavior. http://relearnevolveandadapt.com/ Positions: Present CEO of Trans Am Group. TAG promotes importing and exporting between Mexico, Canada and the United States. Prior to this, he was the CEO of BCEC a business incubator and before the CEO of Cerner International, which produces IT products for health industry applications with presence in Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, and Europe. At Transquest, Inc., he developed an expansion strategy for the AT&T joint venture with Delta Airlines. Before that, he was at AT&T's Global Information Solution (old NCR) and DEC. Affiliation in social initiatives: Co founder and developer of Global Health Network/Supercourse Pittsburgh, PA. Faculty member of the “William Glasser Institute” Board member at Baker University Board member of the International Relations Council Former board member at American Red Cross of Kansas City Member of System Dynamics Society (MIT Cambridge, MA) Founding member of National Athenaeum of Arts, Letters, Sciences and Technology in Mexico Published more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals including: British Medical Journal, Lancet, Military Medicine & Nature Medicine.

Abstract

The Bibliotheca Alexandria Supercourse: Expanding the Role of the Educator
Until a little more than 200 years ago, the existing perceived world of knowledge was essentially manageable by encyclopedists as Voltaire (1694-1778). They were able to process all the available knowledge in their head. The conceptual processing of knowledge was reserved for a very small and powerful elite of thinkers, i.e. clergy, philosophers or civil leaders. The role of the Educator was initially to educate the elite. But the industrial revolution necessitated a significant shift. Knowledge became more specialized and teachers whose role was to identify appropriate specialized content and to follow a program to teach the masses to a required standard then undertook the dissemination of this knowledge. But today the communication information technology has resulted in yet another significant shift, with social structures scrambling to adapt. Today the variety and abundance of knowledge means that one-person can only processes a fraction of all the knowledge available, because it is not possible to assimilate all of it for its use when later needed. This new requirement creates the need for people to connect and work cooperatively in co-creative relationships. We claim that as connectedness and understanding increase they create a greater space for invention, which is necessary for innovation (commercialization of inventions). This has the potential to level the playing field for developing nations as associations can be digitally developed across national and political boundaries. This connectedness will happen, as diversity of views is a requisite for higher creativity. This holds a promise to move the relationship of Educator and Student from the level of how to apply knowledge to the level of how to assess the value of the current knowledge in a specific context and how to create new knowledge to address a specific challenge. The educator becomes then a catalyst with an ethical responsibility to, in the application of knowledge, balance individual development with community development. This presentation provides an overview of these significant historical shifts and the forces at work on the Educator – Student relationship, and new commitments that can be structured through leveraging information technologies. Bibliotheca Alexandria is front-and-center as an exemplary model of these shifts towards enabling the Educator as a Catalyst in the life of the Student and the Community. A blue print for problem solving is examined. In this model the Educator enables the Student to, with courage, access his/her own resourcefulness, to think systemically and creatively fostering an environment of respect for the opinions of others when asserting his/her own values. “The student of tomorrow will need to be prepared for a higher calling. This higher calling will be to preempt crisis before they occur, anticipate disasters before they happen, and solve some of mankind’s greatest problems, starting with the problem of our own ignorance” (Frey, 2009). The role of the Community and Government are critical in facilitating the reorganization and restructuring of this Educator-Student relationship leveraging information technologies, towards a superior outcome for our communities and our planet. “Science sans conscience n’est que ruine de l’ame” – François Rabelais.