Scaling Up Excellence

Mushtak Al-AtabiDean. School of Engineering. Taylor’s University. Malaysia

University Science Malaysia17 April 2014

Photo credit: Intel Free Press

Andy Grove- ex intel CEOEngineer

Photo credit: Remy Steinegger/World Economic Forum/Wall

Mike Duke- Wallmart CEOIndustrial Engineer

Don Thompson- McDonald’s CEOElectrical Engineer

Daniel Akerson- GM CEOEngineer

Carlos Ghosn- CEOEngineer

Ian Read- Pfizer's CEO Engineer

Rich Lesser- BCG CEO Chemical Engineer

Robert A. McDonald, Procter & Gamble CEO Engineer

Education has a dark side

Steve JobsDropoutReed College

Bill GatesDropoutHarvard Engineering

Mark ZuckerbergDropoutHarvard Computer Science

Observations

• We seem to be able to educate good graduates• We also educate very good graduates• But great, world changing graduates seems to happen

despite the system, not because of it!• Why?• I think there are 2 reasons

– Our education systems are industrial and standardised to cater for equipping the students with discipline specific knowledge

– We do not have many people who can teach innovation, creativity, collaboration, communication and entrepreneurship

Black Swan

• For centuries, all the swans we observed were white.

• “All swans are white”• Until a black swan was

spotted in Australia

Black Swans

• Highly unpredictable events and occurring• 11/9 (negative)• Financial Crises (negative)• Google (positive) • Facebook (positive)• Twitter (positive)

Fragile Systems

• Fragile (adj): breaks when exposed to stress• What is the opposite of “Fragile”?• Anti-Fragile (adj): A system that gets stronger

when it is stressed

FragileAntifragile Robust

Antifragile

• Complex systems can be antifragile

• Biological Systems , Culture, Ideas, information

Midnight’s Children

• A Novel• Do you know the writer?• He wrote another book• Satanic Verses• Do you know the writer now?• Why?• Ideas are antifragile, when they are attacked

they get stronger

Antifragile Examples

• The airline industry• Every air crash makes the entire system safer• Small errors and mistakes will benefit the

system in the long run• Posttraumatic growth• Tell someone a secret and beg him/her not to

tell anyone

What Makes a Fragile System

• When a bank fails, the government bails it out• A bigger bank bank is created that makes the

financial systems even more fragile• Infection can improve the immune system of

the human body. Prevent it and you will have a fragile immune system

Fragile SystemLo

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Robust SystemLo

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Antifragile SystemG

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• We have the choice of being fragile, robust or antifragile

• Wind extinguishes a candle (fragile) and energises fire (antifragile)

• How to make our graduates antifragile?• How to make our education systeme

antifragile?• With all the Grand Challenges, a fragile system

is not an option

How to Antifragalise Education

• Encourage small failures• Return on Failure• Entrepreneurship• Multiple intelligences

MOOCs and Malaysia

• Enable students access to the best professors (scaling up excellence)

• Brand education in Malaysia• Attract international students• Enable our students to work with students

from all over the world• MOOCs is an Antifragile opportunity for

Malaysia

MOOCs for MalaysiaG

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MOOCs @ Taylor’s

• We deployed the first MOOC, Entrepreneurship, in April 2013

• 2294 students from 125 different countries• Success with Emotional Intelligence, is

underway with 1984 students• Global Entrepreneurship 1329 students• And more

Global Entrepreneurship

• Students are working in teams. Taylor’s students need teams from the online community.

• Teams will need to raise funds using crowdfunding

• Daily Brain Rewiring• MOOC Tools

Success MOOC

Brain Rewiring

Final Remark

• Education Systems are in the Fragile-Robust domain• The more antifragile components that we

introduce, the more the entire system becomes antifragile

• Antifragile education system will produce more antifragile graduates

• MOOCs on Open Learning are addictive• You can always scale up excellence, but it has to

exist in the first place

Dream.Big.Be.Different.Have.Fun Be.Antifragile