Dear Friends:

Whether you are a current or potential participant in the upcoming US-Italia Ed Innovation Festival, or just one of our many friends or colleagues, I wanted to write personally about our current strategy for this event in two months time, at the end of April.

It goes without saying that we share your concern about the health situation particularly in Italy where the Festival is scheduled. We are talking to our colleagues and officials there in real time. So far there is no cause for alarm anywhere in the south of Italy, though we understand for many that travel could become an issue regardless.  

The US-Italia Ed Innovation Festival was born of a unique opportunity to connect US Ed Tech and transformational strategies with a growing innovation community in Italy. That community is also very plugged into other global efforts, and this intimate, highly influential event has potential to revolutionize with more velocity student learning at all levels and the serious workforce skills gaps we all face.

 When great progress is made on educational advancement, we all benefit. This is more important today than ever before as students throughout the globe become physically disconnected from schools because of COVID-19.  But imagine if we had a seamless education continuum that allowed students to switch of an onto education regardless of space and place, be able to communicate with instructors, classmates and students from other cities, towns and countries, and that doing so isn’t only necessitated by a virus but by intentionality and ambition.

This is our main goal, and to help achieve that goal we want to make it as easy as possible for all who want to participate in the US-Italia Ed Innovation Festival. The ecosystem we are building has already begun to bear fruit, as participants are already getting to know one another. In addition, we have new partnerships building daily, such as with EdTechX, which will amplify the work we are all doing.

So, the Festival is proceeding as planned.  We will be assessing where we are in a month’s time, and should the situation change due to the health situation, we will honor the cost of your registration. Our hotels will also be easy to work with, and we believe that airlines will also be accommodating so we hope those attending or hoping to attend will simply wait and watch.

 Thank you for your commitment to this bold, innovative gathering and we are optimistic we will be seeing you in Bella Italia!

                    Best Regards,

Jeanne Allen 
on behalf of The US-Italia Ed Innovation Festival Team

Festival Program
Now Available! 

WHY NAPLES? Why Italy?

Countries like China, Israel, England and Brazil–to name just a few–have hosted and boasted innovative education expertise for many years.   When it comes to education, however, there are few better places in the world which can inspire not just the sciences to be delivered in better and innovative ways (think aqueducts) but could help transform the teaching of the humanities just by staging an event with the beautiful backdrop of Napoli, where so many great advances of civilization were largely developed.