Obviously the first one that comes to mind is school. Our elementary, middle and high schools.
Then, if you’re lucky, you might experience college or university.
Along the way, you have museums, concert halls, and national parks that often support learning.
Some businesses may also fall into this category, but the learning they support is primarily an investment in their own company’s success. When they invest in training programs it is to ensure their workers are competent, not necessarily to improve the community and world around us.
There seems to be a niche here that we will see the need for in coming decades: a non-profit entity that pays people to learn. It’s a little like an apprentice model where people can take a few years to learn a craft while helping out in the process. But, the explicit purpose would be for the betterment of the community, rather than the increased profitability of the organization.
While colleges and universities provide great programs, they rely on tuition costs that are rising rapidly. There will come a time when the bubble bursts. Also, most colleges are more about credentialing and socialization rather than the actual learning.
Museums, concert halls and national parks are great for inspiring learning, but since they are typically one-touch, non-enrollment programs, few people leave the experience with a skill that can help them become employed.
In my ideal world, there is an organization that is a community hub where everyone can go to learn, and to provide value back to their community. Instead of watching a lecture on video production, you will be filming a video for a local non-profit. Instead of practicing the rules of HTML, you will be building a website for a small business in the community. In return, you get compensated either in dollars or in the joy of giving back.
The point of view here is that with the right mindset and the right new technology, you can provide value to an organization with little formal training.
If we can prove this to be true, I believe we can build a next generation institution that exists for the benefit of the local community and its people.