I had the honor of giving a commencement speech to the graduating class of Hult Business School in London. I tried to reflect on the best lessons learnt and advice I would have for this group of people on such and important day. I thought I would share what I said here:

You are graduating into a world of opportunity. Never before have we seen such exponential change taking place throughout the world. As an entrepreneur I know 'where there is change, there is opportunity'. However, there are also winners and losers around change. You want to make sure you are on the right side of change.

Today, you have the opportunity to be part of the future and create the world you want to see. I honestly believe there is no better time to be an entrepreneur.

Dead Poets Society, the 1989 film starring the late, great Robin Williams, offers a view into the melding of formal and informal learning in one community. By day, the young men learn about poetry through formal instruction in Robin Williams’s class. In the evening, they gather in their clandestine, students-only, "dead poets society" for some informal learning, peer-to-per sharing and older student mentoring. The works of the "dead poets" come alive for these students who begin learning on a deeper, more profound level.

In today’s world, platforms such as BraveNewTalent are working to replicate for the enterprise that seamless transition from formal to informal learning in an online community environment. These platforms have broadened the traditional definition of blended learning to that of one umbrella knowledge-sharing community that supports and integrates formal and informal learning for the enterprise.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last month, I joined 2,500 global leaders in business, government, academia and the arts to discuss the state of the world. This was my 7th visit to Davos and this time as a full participant.

I participated in conversations on the future of education, learning, employment, youth employment, gender diversity, the skills gap among many other things. I spoke at the Shaping Davos session on Rethinking Education and gave a 5 minute speech on Knowledge sharing Communities in the Congress Centre.  

We are experiencing the Second Human Potential Movement, and this time it has the potential to be much more inclusive. The first Human Potential Movement started in the 1960s with places like Esalen in Big Sur and people like Aldous Huxley, Abraham Maslow, and Alan Watts. It was formed around the belief that humans have extraordinary untapped potential that can be cultivated to enable our lives to be filled with happiness, creativity, and fulfillment.

Now we are experiencing a similar Enlightenment moment. However, there is something historically unique about this moment–technology is democratizing access to it. The internet is enabling much larger numbers than ever before to benefit from this “Digital Enlightenment” period, which is giving birth to the Second Human Potential Movement.

In an episode of the popular sitcom "Parks and Recreation," the citizens of Pawnee, Indiana, entertain officials from their sister city of Boraqua, Venezuela. The Pawnee officials prepare their staff for poverty stricken Latin Americans; the oil rich Venezuelans assume that their greeters are their servants. Hilarity ensues with multiple misunderstandings and missed opportunities. No knowledge-sharing occurs, no investment for Pawnee’s parks is proffered. Pawnee decides that it can go it alone without international engagement.

I thought of this episode when I attended Diplomatic Courier’s conference "Global Cities + Social Good" in early July. As Marek Gootman, Director of The Global Cities Initiative at The Brookings Institution, stated, "Becoming a global city is a goal accessible to any city. Every city can and should be one". A city of any size can align itself with and learn from others around the nation and the world with similar issues. No real city can go it alone without at least considering international engagement