Rethinking university in the age of AI

In this episode of Education Futures, Svenia Busson speaks with education entrepreneur Ed Fidoe, founder of London Interdisciplinary School and co-founder of School 21 in London.

Ed has spent the last decade building new kinds of educational institutions from the ground up. His work challenges one of the core assumptions of higher education: that students should specialize in a single discipline.

Instead, the London Interdisciplinary School is built around a radically different idea: teaching students to tackle complex real-world problems using knowledge from multiple disciplines.

In this conversation we explore:

• Why universities are facing a structural crisis

• Why the traditional single-discipline degree may no longer make sense

• How AI is reshaping what students need to learn

• Why universities should teach students how to identify the right problems to solve

• Why innovation in education requires experimentation and new institutions

We also discuss the Education Futures Master’s at LIS, a new interdisciplinary program designed for educators, learning leaders, and anyone interested in how education systems must evolve in an AI-driven world.

Ed also shares lessons from School 21, including the development of oracy education, teaching students how to think and communicate effectively through speech.

We mentioned:

https://www.lis.ac.uk/

https://school21.org.uk/

https://voice21.org/