Being a witness to the historical transformative change going on the Arab world, I want to pay tribute to the human spirit and dignity shown by the Egyptian people over the past three weeks of wrenching drama. Through their sheer belief in themselves and the rightness of their cause, they ousted a tyrannical dictator who had terrorized them and patronized his people for 30 years. It has been a deeply moving experience to witness the triumph of the human spirit.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. This is at the core of the work we do at OneSmartWorld. We believe in the basic human goodness that was on display everyday in the streets of Cairo. Under extremely difficult conditions, people of different ages, religions, economic backgrounds joined together in a common cause of wanting a better life for themselves and their fellow citizens. They finally refused to be put in a position to waste their intelligence or park their feelings of self worth any more. This was never about religion or resisting outside influences. It was about a compelling and emergent drive for a people wanting a better life and finally arriving at a tipping point in a courageous refusal to bow down any longer. I was astonished when Mubarak gave his speech on Thursday night. Seeing the defiance, the pride and the raw courage and commitment of the Egyptian people, a better man than he would have wept in awe for the promise his country now has going forward. The people of Egypt exhibited a powerful spirit in their unyielding resolve. Tyrants everywhere beware.

In a small way, the work we are doing at OneSmartWorld is all premised on helping people, teams and enterprises build their own better, smarter world. I developed OneSmartWorld because I believe that we need 21^st century tools to help us all figure things out. We built a universal common language to help people achieve a better mutual understanding and as a way to tap into the total intelligence that is always latent in groups and teams. I do believe that all of us are smarter than any one of us. The 21^st century leader knows that too and works hard to understand and release the minds, hearts and spirit of their people to build solutions. Our 21^st century tools are designed to enable people to think better and work smarter together. The 4D-i , our approach to smarter meetings and our RIP IT/Rapid Innovation Program are all about helping people to tap into and harness  their own minds and hearts and the collective intelligence of the people they work with to make positive change.

There will be tough times ahead in Egypt. The end of the beginning. Democracy is messy but is built on the values we believe in. The people of Egypt adapted to the events and found ways to reinforce each other and collaborate after 30 years of intimidation. The Egyptian military had a dignity and a commitment to their own people, that was absent in places like Burma, Iran, China, and even in Toronto at the recent G20. In the chaos and uncertainty of the past 10 days, President Obama was a clear beacon for positive change. He exhibited his own values-driven leadership. He was not afraid to stand up for what was the right thing to do for the people of Egypt in their moment of crisis. He trusted them to come through and they did. We need more people in leadership roles to stand up for the greater good.

The 21^st century is an intelligence economy. It will no longer be about how much you know, like the 20^th century knowledge economy, but more about how well you can think, how well you can problem solve and how well you can collaborate with others. Given the inequities that exist in our societies, education for all ages is crucial for giving everyone a shot at success. Learning will be the real work as Michael Fullan so ably describes. Education must now deliver the skills kids need to give them a chance to compete in the 21^st century intelligence economy, to find work and craft a decent life. But the education they need is not in textbooks and ‘subjects’ alone. It is in the skills of critical thinking, in creative thinking, in analysis, in problem solving skills, in appreciating others who are different from us and learning how to work collaboratively in teams. How we transform education will be a critical success factor in our social evolution.

The Egyptian people now face a phenomenal learning challenge – learning how to build and live in a democracy. They deserve all our support.  It won’t be easy, but learning anything of value never is. We are all on the same path to find ways to build a smarter, better world. We will all need to tap into our total intelligence to make that happen together.