EIEIO... Fusion
My keynote at the 2026 ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego
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I opened the 17th Annual ASU GSV Summit by honoring two recently lost mentors — my father and Coach Lou Holtz — using the metaphor of “the dash” between birth and death dates to distinguish mere success from lasting significance. I argue that the U.S. education system, designed by Horace Mann in 1837 for an industrial era, is badly broken — with 4 in 10 fourth graders reading below grade level, ballooning per-pupil spending consumed largely by bureaucracy, and college degrees delivering diminishing returns. I also champion the growing school choice movement and propose a reimagined “new school” built on mastery-based learning, his “Seven C’s” framework, AI as a ubiquitous learning companion, and universal pre-K as a fundamental right. Closing on an optimistic note — and introducing my newborn grandson — I urged the audience to embrace the fusion of human creativity and AI as an unprecedented opportunity, and to “make your dash count.”
🎥 Watch my keynote here:
Connecting the Dots & EIEIO…
Old MacDonald had a farm, EIEIO. New MacDonald has a Startup…EIEIO: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Education, Impact and Opportunity. Accordingly, we focus on these key areas of the future.
One of the core goals of GSV is to connect the dots around EIEIO and provide perspective on where things are going and why. If you like this, please forward to your friends. Onward!
Make Your Dash Count!
-MM