Hello ISC2026!
I am so looking forward to facilitating our time together at this inspiring conference. I’ll be playing hooky from my work as a Waldorf high school physics and math teacher in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, just to be with you all. Already it feels well worth the flight to Switzerland.
I was asked to share a bit about myself, so here we go.
By the time I had finished a masters degree in aerial robotics (drones) at age 25, I was convinced that the current tsunami of hyperautomated technologies was inevitable. It didn’t really need my help. But I desperately wanted to be involved in shaping our creative human responses to these technological upheavals. I was especially sensitive to where education could adapt itself to our rapidly changing world situation. So I decided to leave technology as a profession and train to become a Waldorf high school teacher instead. Having been one now for eight years or so, I can confidently say that this was a good choice for me.
With this life-context in my backpack, I feel well poised to engage this year’s theme with you: disconnect to connect. Without shrinking into technophobia, what are the new, creative ways we can intentionally come together in a world of increasing isolationism? How can we engage this technological initiation in ways that make us even more human than we are now?
Outside of teaching, I mostly spend my time organizing with the Youth Section, performing and recording music, and showing up for meaningful co-created initiatives like this one. I was asked by the ISC2026 planners to bring a dose of musical flash mob energy to our time of descent upon Basel. I learned that last year’s field trip was a big-puppet street show. What shall we do this year? I look forward to wrangling you all into workshops, cooking up some tasty ideas to chew on, and flinging together a pop-up public act of resistance to isolation through the powerful sounds of your hundreds of voices harmonizing together.
See you soon,
Gareth