28 | BBC NEWS
What’s NEXT for business Eight thought-leading students from Brisbane Boys’ College attended one of the biggest and most prestigious business events in Australia in May to ask the big questions that could change the future of business.
Piecing together the puzzle Boys in Years 7 joined forces to piece together the puzzle, taking home silver in the Inaugural Primary Maths Team Challenge held earlier in the year at All Hallows’ School. The team comprising of Robert Macarthur, Maximillian Kirsch, Declan Morgan, Auguste Peters and Jack Stuart (pictured above) were required to compete in two rounds, working as a team to solve a number of complex problems in round one and later in rotating pairs. According to Year 7 teacher Jan Wilkinson, the boys approached the challenge with great enthusiasm and logic. “The second round of the boys’ performance was particularly impressive; boys were required to solve as many of the 20 questions as possible in pairs without any assistance from other team members,” Ms Wilkinson said. “Whilst they are able to submit answers as they come to hand and make more attempts until they succeed or pass, for every wrong attempt they lose marks for the question; which kept all contestants on their toes,” she said. BBC also entered a Year 6 team (Benjamin Arya, Junsung Oh, Taehwan Kim, Ethan Rose, Sam Williams and Alastair Petfield) who secured fourth place on the day, behind three other Year 7 teams.
More than 1500 people attended NEXT? The Future of Business Q&A event to witness Sir Richard Branson and a panel of future thinkers answer some tough questions. The panel addressed issues such as: Are education systems failing 21st century students? What should be the focus for change in education? How and where should students be taught and how would this benefit business/society in the future? Sitting alongside Sir Richard Branson on the panel were the Dean of UQ Business School Professor Andrew Griffiths, acclaimed futurist Tim Longhurst and award-winning businesswoman Chris Cameron, who is the Director of Rockcote. On Tim Longhurst’s blog, he shared that education is a lifelong journey that should begin with curiosity, collaboration and creativity. “Education isn’t something for kids… It’s something for each of us throughout our lives. But since we’re going to be talking about formal education today; we’ll know we’re rocking formal education when kids are RAVING about what they’re learning and participating actively and with energy in their learning... The qualities we ought to instil in learners include: curiosity, collaboration and creativity. Curiosity, because it’s the spark that turns us into lifelong learners—essential in a fast changing world; collaboration because knowing how to bring out the best in others and work in team environments is such a big part of realising our own potential; and creativity because that it is an act that puts these amazing supercomputers between our ears to work in ways that inspire ourselves and others. We want to create a generation of creators of amazing content… Not just consumers.” Hosted by the UQ Business School, the gathering of the brightest future-thinkers stimulated wider debate on the future of business and how we can best prepare the next businessmen and innovators for the future.