Solving the most important problems facing humanity –including the climate crisis, human rights violations, and global health issues– requires the younger generations. However, most universities cannot teach them how to deal with an increasingly complex world.

“Universities have evolved under the selective pressure and constraints of local nations and powers,” said Francois Taddei, founder of the Learning Planet Institute.

According to the researcher, humanity is not on the right track to achieve the sustainability goals set by the United Nations (UN), partly because no one taught us how to solve intricate problems like the ones we face today.

In his perspective, in order to really achieve a better future, we need to consider the perspectives of the new generations and improve current teaching programs.

That’s why he and a group of researchers founded the Planetary Academy, an initiative designed to transform education -through different types of technologies- into a catalyst for the systemic changes we need to make to achieve global peace and sustainability.

Taddei presented the project during his conference Towards a Planetary Academy: Where Students Can ‘Learn to be the Change They Want to See in the World’ which was part of the activities of the IFE Conference 2025.

The researcher recalled a moment during the UN Summit of the Future 2024 when one of the students who attended the event told him that she would like education systems to be designed to teach her how to be the change she wants to see in the world.

“This stuck to my brain and heart, and it’s what we’re trying to do,” Taddei recalled.

Planetary Academy: Empowering Youth For a Peaceful and Sustainable Future

The Planetary Academy will offer different courses, both online and on the ground, for three distinct groups: students, to help them develop key skills to face 21st century problems, teachers, to train them to guide students to acquire these skills, and leaders interested in designing the training programs.

“That may sound like a dream, and I admit that I may be a dreamer, but I hope there are others in the world and that we could start connecting,” said Taddei.

The idea is that the programs will focus on teaching essential skills to face complex problems, such as collaborative problem solving and critical thinking, as well as conservation and sustainability sciences and practices.

To put their idea into practice, the researcher and his team have begun designing Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools that fulfill different functions.

One asks students questions to help them understand who they are and find their true purpose, what they are most passionate about, and the problem they would like to solve.

Once they have found this purpose, this AI can connect them with other young people around the world who have the same purpose, to create projects that seek to solve a specific problem. Then, that same AI can help them recognize their skills and the capabilities they lack to put their solution into practice.

Also, each year there will be a Youth Design Challenge where young people from all over the world will present ideas to create innovative educational programs that encourage students to have a real impact in their communities.

All of this will be based on scientific research and existing initiatives that lay the theoretical foundations for creating planetary citizens committed to the future of humanity.

The World Will Only Improve if We Try Something Different

In collaboration with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN, the idea is that these programs will have curricular validity and be be recognized by national and international institutions to encourage students and teachers to participate.

In the future, some of the most important aspects they want to work on is to create programs that consider how global problems affect different countries and populations in different ways.

“The idea is to create a space where we can co-create this planetary curriculum, taking into account what is the best way in which it can be adapted to the local context,” explained Taddei.

On the other hand, they will seek to incorporate Indigenous knowledge and make the programs available in most languages spoken worldwide.

It will also be important to create implementation mechanisms so that the ideas that emerge from these courses and challenges can be brought to real life.

For now, the idea is for those students who are the authors of a theoretical solution to test it at their university or city, so that it can then be scaled up to a national and then international level.

“I guess this must sound a little utopian, but for me utopia is to believe that the world is going to get better if we don’t try something different,” Taddei said.

Were you interested in this story? Do you want to publish it? Contact our content editor to learn more marianaleonm@tec.mx