PANEL DISCUSSION: Beyond the Classroom: Fueling Business Inovation with Future-Ready Talent

This panel discussion focuses on the intersection of technology and education, emphasizing the necessity of evolving educational practices to meet future skills demands. The speakers advocate for a collaborative approach between businesses and educational institutions to foster innovation and develop talent in Bulgaria, which is vital for the country's economic growth. They highlight the importance of critical thinking, self-management, and adaptability as key competencies for students entering the workforce. The talk underscores the need for teachers to transition from traditional information delivery to facilitating experiential learning, enabling students to actively engage in their educational journey. Furthermore, the discussion includes a call for community involvement in educational initiatives and support for organizations like Teach for Bulgaria, which aims to improve educational standards and outcomes.

Okay, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here and thank you to for giving us a stage to talk not only about technology and innovation but also about education or about volleyball. I have to ask Tan about this bow in your hands. Please tell us what it's all about. Yeah, there's a little story behind it. Uh I just want to take a moment to thank our hosts

uh Easter for uh having us today. Uh happy 15th anniversary to all of them. Uh and it's also the 15th anniversary of Teach uh for Bulgaria and we're very happy that we are celebrating our anniversary together. Uh and for this reason uh we're organizing a raffle. So, anyone today who donates uh 50 level or more uh to um teach for Bulgaria and our STEM project uh will

be eligible to participate in a raffle and there are three very cool prizes that you can win. And the first one is this volleyball which has the uh signatures of our national team players. Uh we have this ball thanks to uh the uh one of the presidents and owners of the Lefki volleyball club who is a Teach for Bulgaria uh board member and supporter. And we have

two more awards. Uh one of them is uh the chance to have a personal meeting, lunch or coffee uh with Zaku Gear who is the founder of Teric, one of uh uh the most successful Bulgarian technology companies uh of the of the previous decade. Um and also the chance to have a personal meeting uh with Spillin Rangiof who is the founder of Dronomamics. They're all uh friends

of Teach for Bulgaria and great supporters and they'll be happy to meet you uh join our movement and make a donation today. >> That's wonderful and I'm sure many people here will be happy to support the STEM project. >> Okay. And let's hear from our audience. We have a QR code. Can we show the QR code? and we ask you about the skills of the future. What

do you believe are the most important skills of the future? And when we see the QR code, you can scan it and type your answers. And until then, I will present our uh participants in this panel. Trayan Trian Trianov CEO of Teach for Bulgaria Zion of Chess Don Reichov who is a teacher of mathematics and Ivan Rusev head of software development at Experian. When you see the

QR code, please scan it and type your answers and we'll see the results in a few minutes. And uh let's put our conversation into context. We are here at the biggest technology conference in Bulgaria, but we will talk about education. Trian, why is important to talk about education on a tech stage like this one? >> Um, I think the state of education concerns us all in our

different roles. uh whether uh we are um working in business or whether uh we are citizens or whether we are parents, we have to care. Um people disagree today on almost every issue, but I think everybody would agree that if you want Bulgaria to be a wealthy country, we need to make sure that Bulgaria can innovate. And innovation really depends on on talent. And talent you don't

just find and you know dig from the ground. you need to develop and you need to cultivate over many years and all the countries that Bulgaria is competing with have been investing in education and we need to invest in education as well. Um and if you run a business or if you manage a team your job number one job is to find the right talent. Uh and

if you're struggling to find the right talent or you have to invest extra in order to develop people and develop skills that you would otherwise expect that they would have when they join your team. This is because there's a problem with education. So we need to talk about education. It affects us >> especially in a poor country like Bulgaria. >> Especially in our country which doesn't have

a lot of natural resources, which has a declining population, which is in a tough neighborhood. Uh we need to make sure that we are competitive and that we invest in people. I just want to mention that um a few days ago the Nobel Prize of Economics was won by a researchers who explained how innovation and creative disruption can force the economic growth and can lift living standards

across the globe. So if we want this these results, we really need to invest in innovation in business and innovation in the classroom, business and education. Ivan, where do you see the intersection between business and education in practice? >> I would like to say that it's a family. Uh but when we think of families, we think of all the passion uh all the war between the partners,

loving the kids, focusing and doing everything for the fix uh for for the kids and this family that is the education and the and the business sector is a bit twisted. So we need to be reminded almost every day that we need to w each other uh and we need to spend the time. So uh the kids that is the focus of the family typically uh we

practically need to invest in them and we need to invest as partners not the two parents having a very different agenda but actually focusing on what makes sense and of course that was a uh a metaphorical response to to to the answer to the question. uh if I need to respond with the good and with the bad news, the good news is that uh we have a

really wellestablished uh uh non-governmental sector that is supporting the business and teach for Bulgaria is a good example of that because they come with uh uh with all the guidance of how you run a school. I mean typically schools we think of them as the institution that is there to teach the the kids but it's also how you run the school and if you run the school

properly basically properly as as it sounds uh then you are able to achieve the right results and the the nos around are actually pretty good ones and they know how to support the system uh the second one is that we we say that Bulgaria is a poor country but uh actually our GDP is growing well uh and uh if we think of an index that uh that

is there to represent the wealth of a nation. Uh we should start to think of the index that represents the talent that is able to achieve results. Uh and Bulgaria has the talent. It is about how to channel that talent so we achieve the uh and uh with having an education as a as a core value uh I think that both the families and businesses are more

and more actually demanding that kids that go out of the schools and university actually have good education so in in short uh the good news is that there is this pressure to the system so it delivers a better talent out of the system and of course I'm not ignoring all the problems of the system and and so on the main problem for me is that it's a

big system and and and all big systems. They're actually SW systems. Um we currently work on the future programs for high schools for for it. Uh and you cannot imagine but it would take 10 years between now and the first kid that would come back to the business from this school and all the future skills. Can you imagine what the society will be like in 10 schools

and in 10 years and how you prepare the schools for all that. So yeah, the education system needs to be faster and everyone that is involved uh needs to uh stay focused, invest and be really quick in their response and in their involvement. >> And from from your business perspective, what uh specific skills business expects from young people entering the workforce today? And where is the the

biggest gaps? uh and because I cannot see the response from the from the audience, I just wonder if I'm going to uh to respond with any of the skills that they mention as well. Uh first of all, I would call this the self-management skill. Uh so when you go out of of the school, you should a kid should know how to manage themselves. So time management, priority

management, communication uh and so on is something that you could practically learn in schools and no one has really an excuse not to learn that in uh in school. Uh the second one uh you go to the economy. So there so you deliver a service and a product and there is a customer. So maybe the second skew is understand your customer and and deliver to your customer

with whatever you uh you actually work on. Uh, of course we cannot expect that the kids out of the system would not what would know in detail what the customer is and and so on. But creating the mindset that uh there is someone that you serve uh and you need to understand so you come with the right solution is is a skill that needs to be there.

We as a society are not doing uh well over there. I could tell you that. And the third one is u uh critical thinking and decision making and problem resolution. And I I'll put this in a single bucket because it it comes from uh being able to understand the different alternatives, score them and do what is what is right for the uh for the event for the

for the occasion. Of course, we could not expect that the kids would know that out from school because they don't have the wife experience to know all of that and you don't have an application out there because we want to have applications that are giving a smart suggestion. Now there is no application out there that prepares you for wife and is giving you the wife choice that

you need to make. Uh but what the businesses and the kids needs to do is understand that that's a gap and try to invest as much as possible in the first I don't know three to five years of their development so they get that critical thinking skill and they are able to resolve problems. Resolving problems is a is an everlasting critical skill that all of all of

us need to have. And speaking of skills, another try. Can we show the QR One, two, three. Perfect. Okay. If you want to share your thoughts about the future skills and the most important skills of the future, please, this is the QR code. And my next question is to Dale. You are a teacher. And what are the skills of the future in your point of view? and

are we actually preparing students for them now? >> Uh thank you for the question. First of all um as Tan and Ivan already said um business and education are closely connected. So the the skills that we develop in the classroom should be the skills that uh that that will help the students uh into the future job market. And um from my point of view as an as

a teacher in mathematics I can give an example from my perspective. Um one of these skills is uh mathematical literacy. Uh and it's not about uh remembering formulas or solving equations but it's about uh critical thinking as we can see. Uh it is about uh problem solving and um it's about um translating real world uh situations uh into the language of mathematics. Um, and this also allows

us to develop other important skills such as analytical thinking, such as uh digital literacy and uh even creativity which might might sound unusual for uh subject like mathematics. And yeah, in Bulgaria, the education system still has a long way to go from just um accumulating knowledge to developing skills. But the fact that we are here today discussing is a step in the right direction and uh teach

for Bulgaria uh has been working towards this goal for 15 years now. >> may I ask to show the results on the screen please? Okay, let's see. Critical thinking, empathy, focus, consistency, adaptability, analytical skills. Trian, do you want to uh comment this results? And I know you have a lot of information from international researches and studies. What do you think? Yeah, I think uh there are many

uh organizations and uh kind of trend watchers who are trying to answer these questions try to figure out how do you need h what skills children need to develop today so that they are uh ready for a world that um we can't quite uh predict and imagine. uh the World Economic Forum had a study uh earlier this year the top five skills that they listed number one

was analytical thinking. So it's a cognitive skill. >> Number two was u resilience and adaptability. So that's more a non-cognitive uh uh kind of socio emotional skill uh which requires you to manage yourself as you said. And they also talk about leadership, they talk about self-awareness, they talk about creativity. So the I think the bottom line is that um in the 20th century education systems had to

really focus on on helping students develop technical skills. Uh whether you master a language very well that you're going to use in your job after that or whether you learn to operate a machine and then you're going to operate that machine uh you know for a long while that that's going to be your career. Uh you master these skills and you're all set. But today we you

know technical skills are easy to master. Anyway, technology changes too fast. Uh and uh it's now well established that you really need to focus on this cognitive and non-cognitive skills of children. They're harder to develop. They take longer. Uh and as Danny said, yeah, uh you know, our system is not yet quite uh prepared. Uh and I think that's that's where organizations like ours and other nonprofit

organizations play an important role. they basically try to experiment and innovate and then share good practices with the rest of the education system so we can start developing skills uh at scale for all >> That's interesting. But I'm wondering how do we prepare students for jobs that even don't exist now and um and is the role of uh teacher is changing somehow in this new reality. Danny.

>> Uh well yeah uh again I will return to the idea of uh education that should be focused on skills. Um so we cannot know that uh how the future job market will look like in 10 or 20 years. Um but we can help um our students develop skills such as self-regulated learning as uh Ivan said which means uh setting goals uh which means uh planning and

uh also reflecting on their progress and of course again uh using technology effectively uh of course critical thinking. So um of course the the role of the teacher has changed uh more towards uh uh being mentors and guides uh so we can create uh learning experiences for our students uh so they can develop skills but not just being source of uh knowledge. Um and if I can

and since we're in um technology forum, I want to share a quick story about um two of my students. Their names are uh Tahelia and Natano. They are brother and sister who came in our school from Surinam last year. Uh and they don't speak Bulgarian yet. uh and I can't uh teach in English really because most of my students would probably s u >> yeah I need

far to understand especially algebra which sounds like another language for them >> and for me >> um but yeah uh since um using online online and digital platforms uh and adopting technology in my class uh uh class. Um, these these students actually improved a lot. They now learn in their own language, not their own language, but a language that they understand. Uh, they ask a lot more

questions. Uh, they are more and more motivated each time we work. So uh this is just an example how uh technology and digital literacy can can improve uh what we are doing in the classroom and how can I uh how I can uh differentiate based on each student level. So uh yeah of course this is just an example but uh we can see that technology does does

helps helps and um yeah it's it's a skill that we should should develop in the classroom. Thank you for sharing this story and thank you for what you do every single day in your classroom and I'm so happy that we have space to talk not only about the skills of the future but also about the teachers of the future and trian um what is the change of

the transformation of teachers role >> um so I think the first thing is that teachers need to change their mindset that they're not a source of information, but they're designing an experience for students. And in that experience, students basically need to do stuff because to bust skills, you need to do things, right? You need to explore, you need to experiment, you need to debate, uh you need

to create things. Uh so you need to have the space for that. Uh and the the f the the the first leap that teachers need to make is to understand that their role has changed. Um and uh some teachers are doing that, others are not. Uh I have a uh uh vivid memory when we were starting. Um some of our teachers um were changing the arrangement of

desks in classrooms. They wanted students to work in groups or sit in a circle so they can talk to each other and see each other. And every day they would rearrange the classroom and they would leave and on the next day they'll come back and you know the custodian would have changed the room and and just you know back in roles and that that that would keep

happening and it's something that still happens in schools. Uh actually it's uh even changing the space or you you you change the dynamic between students is something that our education system is very slow to adapt. Um another example is uh something that I saw in a classroom uh earlier this year. Um so uh we have a colleague Danielle uh Simeonov. He teaches uh in a in a

village near Wukovit. He's an English teacher but he teaches also through film making and photography. So uh he was working with a new class um all Roma children and he was basically telling them okay so now we need to create the rules for our classroom. You know this will be you know this is you know we'll be doing a lot of creative work here so we need

to agree on the rules. you know what do you think the rule should be and the kids were giving some ideas and then one one child said well one of the rules should be that we should not interrupt or talk back talk back to the teacher it's something that they had heard somewhere else and Danny said no no no this I I cannot accept this rule right

so we're going to we'll be doing creative work here if you don't you know question my ideas or give me ideas or challenge me we're not going to do anything creative so I'm not accepting that rule so this this again an example of how you know the teacher has the basically the power to change the dynamic and create a space where students can be practicing all of

these skills that we want them to develop. Uh and the of course a key principle here that we need to to remember is that if we want uh students to develop certain skills then we have to make sure that teachers have the same skills. If they don't have them there's no way they can embody them and and students cannot learn them. So it's a question of uh

how do we develop teachers in our education system at scale to make sure that we have more teachers like that. Ivan uh how do you see the role of business in this process and I don't know what kind of collaboration or support business can provide to help this quality of education in Bulgaria we >> I could come with a with a several different recommendations depending on the

standpoint and I I'll try to come with examples on on all of them. Uh first of all we need to understand that we are a community and it might be a secret it might not be a secret but we actually as a business associations we actually work with teach for Bulgaria and unless we act as a as a community and we come with a common voice and

we act as watchd dogss from time to time and so on. uh we won't be able to achieve the change of that massive system that once again it is difficult to move the system the walls of physics that if you're bigger it takes more effort to move move you in a different direction is it's the same walls that appl to that system as well uh to each

one of the people in the room uh go back to your school there are some students in the in the audience so guys when you 20 years from now go back to your school uh is is the same principle that that you to apply uh and go back and understand uh what kind of help the school needs. Uh try to teach not just the students but the

teachers as well. Uh and if you could become a member of the parenting body of the school that's a way that you could influence the different programs, how the school performs, how the how the teachers perform and on and on but be active in that uh in that process. uh and as a business uh when I started my own involvement I I thought that we should go

back to uh as many schools as possible and interact with as many people. Now I don't think like that to be honest. Uh to me the key factor is actually working with the with the schools directors and with teachers because that's the way that you could scale uh all the involvement and all the efforts that goes to the uh goes to the to to working with the

schools. What changed your mind from students in the center to teachers and principles in the center of this uh change? I I've went to too many schools and I saw that my energy being spent there is maybe not giving as much effort when I compare to the fact that I could go to a to a principal and I could have a conversation and I could influence with

the scale because uh the school's principal they go to the teachers and they go to the kids and it's like uh this is how you could move the system. I mean the the principle themselves they are much bigger factor in in their own universe than just talking with the kids >> and this is why I like by the way teach for Bulgaria because they practically work with

those principles and teachers and that's the way to influence the Danny Tan, let's use our final minutes to make it personal. What each of us, not only on the stage, but here in this room can do to be part of this change we talk about. >> Daniel, >> should I begin? Uh yeah, as um again from my perspective as a teacher, um the the school that I

teach in has entrepreneurship profile. So each year we have uh open doors day and our high school students can meet with uh representatives of uh different businesses in Bulgaria or abroad and you're all welcome there. So you can see how um how our students are developing these skills that we talk about. But um even though I am a teacher of uh younger students from grades 5 to

7, my my class uh classroom is always open for initiatives that will uh help my students prepare for the future and that will help you guys uh see that the future is in good hands. Um so I think we all have a role to play. Uh I I I was talking to a a very successful Bulgarian venture capitalist, somebody who is helping incubate um strong successful companies

uh and he told me uh an interesting family story. So his greatgrandfather comes from a village uh in the uh Elena uh >> mountain >> the mountain in the in the Balkan mountain. uh and during Ottoman times basically this was a small village that didn't even have a church or didn't have a graveyard you know for those things they would go to the next village but they

decided that they need to educate the children there so 30 families who live there basically put all their money build a uh single room school found a teacher from another town and pay that teacher a salary so the teacher can live in their village teach their children uh each family would cook uh uh on you know take shifts to cook for for that teacher and provide for

them so that the the children are educated. And now four generation the the impact of this you can see now four generations later this person now is helping uh several uh generations of entrepreneurs. He's helping our organization. Uh and this is how you kind of give back uh and and and spread the good. And uh I think we need to realize that we all have a role

to play. We have a responsibility. If we want Bulgaria to be a uh good place for our children and grow children to live, we need to in a similar way contribute. Now um uh Ivan mentioned that we have a strong uh um strong civil side sector. Uh uh it's not that strong. You know, it is getting stronger, but you know, it is also fragile. uh and we

might not have it and there are politicians who think that uh you know nonprofits should be banned or that nonprofit shouldn't work in schools uh and this can happen at any moment. Uh we don't know. So it's important to be vocal. Uh it's important to be active as a citizen and will be also very grateful if you consider joining the movement and donating. Uh and I should

say since I saw some people joining later that uh we have a raffle and uh just to remind everybody if you donate 50 level or more uh you're eligible to win meetings with two very successful entrepreneurs and you're eligible to win this volleyball with signatures from the national volleyball >> Perfect. Thank you. >> Can you just pass me the ball? >> Yes, here it is. So you

remember that famous internet me and it was it was it was really popular around the time when the volleyball team became second in the world and it says these are the sons of um Vonikov and this is the son of Bobby Mkhov you remember that right? Uh so so to the guy that said that a is a critical skill. When a is your critical skill, this is

partly who you become. That's it. That that's life once again. And that's a real life example. And when I was 25, Vadon Nikov was the best volleyball player in the world. I mean, I don't know know if you remember that. And he was not just a one year star, he was the best player for ages. And now at least his elder son Alexander Nikov I don't even

remember the name of the younger one to be honest >> Simon. Okay. Uh but you see that when you have a father that is there uh to teach the kids and and to pass that champion mentality actually the result happens pretty well. uh so if you feel that you are worldclass engineer product manager whatever I don't know your roles and I know that this has a lot

of variety of different participants but think of that uh if you want your kids to be like you and to be the next generation of the world class engineer or product manager it's about yourself uh and it's about you recognizing your own role in that future development and playing that role because unless you act as the vadonico both of your future uh kids that won't just happen

because someone wants to achieve a goal. So you have a role to play and that internet me and once again put that on on your memory and let that let that stick in the next 20 years until the next generation come. If you want to be Vadun Nikov and Alexander Nikov, you have a real chance and just go and do that. It takes time, it takes effort,

it takes ambition, there is pain, it's a marathon and on and on. But this is how you become a world champion at the end of the day. >> I like your metaphors today. Thank you so much and triumph for this inspiring conversation. And thank you for all of you for uh thinking together with us about the future.