Shift Happens
by Karl Fisch
Did you know?
Sometimes size does matter.
If you’re one in a million in China…
there are 1,300 people just like you.
In India, there are 1,100 people just like you.
The 25% of the population in China with the highest IQs…
is greater than the total population of North America.
In India, it’s the top 28%.
Translation for teachers:
they have more honors kids
than we have kids.
Did you know?
China will soon become
the number one English-
speaking country in the world.
If you took every
single job in the U.S.
today and shipped it
to China…
it still would have
a labor surplus.
During the course of
this presentation…
60 babies will be born in the U.S.
244 babies will be born in China.
351 babies will be born in India.
The U.S. Department of
Labor estimates that
today’s learner will have
10 to 14 jobs…
by age 38.
According to the U.S.
Department of Labor…
1 out of 4 workers today
is working for a company
for whom they have been
employed less than 1 year.
More than 1 out of 2
are working for a
company for whom
they have worked
less than 5 years.
According to former
Secretary of Education
Richard Riley…
the top 10 jobs that
will be in demand in 2010 didn’t
exist in 2004.
We are currently
preparing students
for jobs that
don’t yet exist…
using technologies
that haven’t yet
been invented…
in order to solve
problems we don’t
even know are
problems yet.
Name this country…
Richest in the world
Largest military
Center of world business and finance
Strongest education system
World center of innovation and invention
Currency the world standard of value
Highest standard of living
England
in 1900.
Did you know?
The U.S. is 20th
in the world in
broadband Internet
penetration
(Luxembour just
passed us).
Nintendo invested more
than $140 million in
research and development
in 2002 alone.
The U.S. federal geovernment
spent less than half as
much on research and
innovation in education.
1 of every 8 couples
married in the U.S. last
year met online.
There are over 106 million
registered users of MySpace
(as of September 2006).
If MySpace were a country,
it would be the 11th-largest
in the world (between
Japan and Mexico).
The average MySpace
page is visited
30 times a day.
Did you know?
We are living in
exponential times.
There are over 2.7 billion
searches performed on
Google each month.
To whom were these
questions addressed B.G.
(before Google)?
The number of text
messages sent and
received every day
exceeds the population
of the planet.
There are about
540,000 words in the
English language…
about 5 times as
many as during
Shakespeare’s time.
More than 3,000
new books are published…
daily.
It is estimated that
a week’s worth of
New York Times…
contains more information
than a person was likely
to come across in a
lifetime in the 18th century.
It is estimated that
1.5 exabytes (1.5 x 1018)
of unique new information
will be generated
worldwide this year.
That’s estimated to be
more than in the
previous 5,000 years.
The amount of new
technical information is
doubling every 2 years.
For students starting a
four-year technical or
college degree, this
means that…
half of what they learn
in their first year of study
will be outdated by their
third year of study.
It is predicted to
double every 72 hours
by 2010.
Third-generation fiber optics
has recently been tested by
both NEC and Alcatel…
that pushes 10 trillion
bits per second down
one strand of fiber.
That’s 1,900 CDs, or 150
million simultaneous phone
calls, every second.
It’s currently tripling about
every 6 months and is
expected to do so for
at least the next 20 years.
The fiber is already there.
THey’re just improving the
switches on the ends, which
means the marginal cost of
these improvements is
effectively $0.
Predictions are that
e-paper will be cheaper
than real paper.
47 million laptops
were shipped worldwide
last year.
The $100 laptop project
is expecting to ship between
50 to 100 million laptops
a year to children in
underdeveloped countries.
Predictions are that
by 2013 a supercomputer
will be built that exceeds
the computational capability
of the human brain.
By 2023, when 1st-graders
will be just 23 years old
and beginning their
(first) careers…
it only will take a
$1,000 computer to
exceed the capabilities
of the human brain.
And while technical
predictions farther out
than about 15 years
are hard to make…
predictions are that
by 2049 a $1,000
computer will exceed
the computational
capabilities of the
human race.
What does it
all mean?
Shift happens.