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Celebrating Knowledge Media Institute’s 30th Birthday In 1995, two visionary The Open University professors; Marc Eisenstadt and Tom Vincent, were matched together by another visionary OU staff; Lady (Kitty) Chisholm who was OU’s Development Director, to create an OU institute where innovation could thrive. Their shared passion was to R&D future technologies to support OU’s students. That vision was endorsed by Sir John Daniel; OU’s Vice Chancellor at the time, who later said that “Of all the OU innovations in the 1990s, this is the one of which I’m most proud.” KMi was born out of sheer vision, ambition, and strive for the OU to lead High-tech higher education. These pioneers understood the critical value of research-based innovation, culture, and environment. They envisioned a place where creativity, risk-taking, rapid design and prototyping, and challenging the status-quo are every day’s business. They aimed to cultivate a rare yet essential skillset: the ability to see and invent the future. Once you’ve cultivated a culture that embraces innovation; one that’s unafraid of colouring outside the lines, pushing boundaries, experimenting freely and boldly, you gain the necessary agility to redirect talent swiftly to tackle new challenges and seize new opportunities. For example, when COVID19 arrived, KMi succeeded in diverting its AI data analysis skills to develop social-proximity tracking tools, and to address the rise of false information during the pandemic. When increasing students’ retention and decreasing awarding-gaps became top priorities, KMi developed AI tools to boost affected students’ progression. When generative AI stormed the world, KMi was ready to explore it fully and develop prototypes to boost teaching delivery and students’ experience. By the time ethical concerns around AI entered public and media discourse, KMi was already leading debates on how AI is reshaping power dynamics. When Open Science came under the spotlight, KMi produced the world’s largest collection of open access research papers. As Carroll Shelby (played by Matt Damon) says in the 2019 film Ford v Ferrari: “All due respect, sir, you can’t win a race by committee.” The race of innovation in Higher-Education is on, and here’s to the next 30 years of KMi, continuing to shape the future of education and innovation at the OU and beyond. Harith Alani Director of KMi Read full article: https://lnkd.in/diFE_rMz and https://lnkd.in/dt-xHJNY #KMi30 #OpenUniversity #InnovationLeadership #AIinEducation #EdTechInnovation #OpenScience #FutureOfLearning #HigherEducationInnovation