Topic: "Buiding a Movement for Freedom in Learning"
Manish Jain is deeply committed to regenerating our diverse local knowledge systems and cultural imaginations. He is one of the leading planetary voices for deschooling our lives. He has served for the past 22 years as Coordinator and Co-Founder of Shikshantar: The Peoples’ Institute for Rethinking Education and Development based in Udaipur, India and is co-founder of some of the most innovative educational experiments in the world - the Swaraj University, the Jail University, the Complexity University, the Creativity Adda, the Learning Societies Unconference, the Walkouts-Walkon network, Udaipur as a Learning City, and the Families Learning Together network. He launched the global Ecoversities Alliance with 120+ members in 40 countries. He has worked as a coach/facilitator/trainer with Social Labs, Art of Hosting and World Cafe. He has been invited to give inspiring public keynote speeches in many countries such as USA, England, Portugal, Brazil, Mexico, India. He has edited several books on Vimukt Shiksha (liberating learning) on themes such as hacking education, learning societies, unlearning, gift culture, community media, and tools for deep dialogue. Prior to this, Manish worked as one of the principal team members of the UNESCO Learning Without Frontiers global initiative in Paris Headquarters. He has also been a consultant to UNICEF, World Bank, USAID in Africa, South Asia and former Soviet Union. Manish worked as an investment banker with Morgan Stanley. He has been trying to unlearn his Master's degree in Education from Harvard University and a B.A. in Economics, International Development and Political Philosophy from Brown University. He and his wife Vidhi have been unschooling themselves with their 18 year old daughter, Kanku, in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Manish is passionate about masti yoga, urban organic farming, filmmaking, simulation gaming, bicycling, trekking, compassionate clowning, intercultural dialogue and slow food cooking.