Keynote: "A New Reality" Featuring Anya Kamenetz

Anya Kamanetz

Lead Education Reporter for NPR & Acclaimed Author | Educational Futurist

Anya Kamenetz offers a fresh take on the evolution of education and learning, with clear ideas about what reforms and actions are necessary to advance workforce training and reduce student debt.

After 2020, the world of education will never be the same. With more than a decade of experience and prescience forecasting trends in the evolution of education and young people’s use of technology, Anya Kamenetz is unusually well positioned to help your organization think through what comes next.

She stoked a national debate on the value of college and the unprecedented economic challenges young people face when she burst onto the scene at age 24 with her debut book, Generation Debt. She followed with a cutting-edge look at the future of higher education, DIY U, a book that directly inspired the founding of at least one $400 million education company, and that prompted Huffington Post to name her an ‘Education Game Changer.’ The Test in 2015 forecast today’s trend of colleges dropping the SAT and states rethinking their assessment systems. And The Art of Screen Time, which has been translated into 6 languages, provides an astonishingly prescient guide to the research on young people’s screen use. As an education correspondent for NPR and the co-host of the chart-topping podcast Life Kit for Parenting, Anya continues to shape the dialogue around education, parenting and technology.

Since the coronavirus pandemic kicked off the largest distance learning experiment in history, Anya has been deluged with requests to unpack what the future might bring for colleges, the K-12 education system, and businesses that need to rethink training and recruitment. Her presentations have been called both reassuring and inspiring as they draw people to think about their own experiences in a broader historical context, and help students get excited for their role in shaping a better future. Anya engages audiences with insightful perspectives on the evolution of learning, and how to apply it all to advance one’s purpose.

Renee Patton

Global Education and Healthcare Director | Cisco

Renee Patton is the global leader of the Education and Healthcare Industries at Cisco. She and her team help education and healthcare institutions envision the future of learning and care and execute on their vision today. With over 25 years of business, management, sales, and marketing leadership experience, Renee is excited about the future of both education and healthcare and the trends driving massive shifts in how always-connected people are learning and delivering care today.  She is particularly interested in the role of culture in organizations and taking integral coaching approaches that help leaders, teams, and companies to succeed.