A versatilist and somewhat of a polymath, Carla started her career in the performing arts, before moving into the digital domain. Becoming captivated by the international education landscape and the role of technology for learning, her focus turned to learning with technologies in diverse contexts.

For many years, Carla managed international transformation programmes and innovation initiatives for education publishers. She was Global Digital Director of Education for Cambridge University Press and Director of Futures at UCL – Institute of Education, where she led the mentoring and training of 250 edtech start-ups. This summer Carla launched the Refracted! Inter- and transdisciplinary learning community - free to join - in order to facilitate essential dialogue and knowledge sharing that pierces through the education silos.

Prior to this, Carla also set up and ran the Tmrw Institute, a thought leadership and catalyst organisation focused on the role of technologies for education and learning, from policy to practice. She runs the Next Billion EdTech Prize for start-ups working in resource-poor contexts, a Varkey Foundation initiative.

Carla speaks at international conferences: including Les Rencontres à Aix, Global Education and Skills Forum, FT Live, Reimagine Education, EdTechX, e-Learning Africa, etc. Carla was involved in the 2019 workshop that led to the publication of the World Economic Forum Generation AI report, developed in partnership by UNESCO, CIFAR and WEF.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/underthebanyan/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlaaerts/

The Transformative Potential of Edtech - A Conversation with Carla Aerts

Future Learning Design Podcast