In memory of his extraordinary legacy
22 Aug202024th September 2020

In memory of his extraordinary legacy

In MyMachine GlobalTags:

It is with a heavy heart that we have heard about the passing of Sir Ken Robinson yesterday. Our sincere condolences to his family.

We have had the pleasure to meet Sir Ken multiple times both in Belgium and in the USA.  The last time we met in person was in 2015 in Oklahoma City, USA. At the occasion of the Creativity World Forum. We were humbled by the fact that we could present MyMachine at this event, where Sir Ken was the keynote.
The evening before we were invited to the Creative Oklahoma Gala. We remember talking to him about where MyMachine was going. The very first time we met, was a couple of years prior to this event, at a moment when MyMachine was not yet growing outside of Belgium. This time around though, we were proud to explain to him how we were growing on a global scale. And he was really delighted about that. To this day, we still remember his joyful smile when he heard us talking about how our model was growing.
Backstage at the Creativity World Forum in Oklahoma, we had a – we would say –  typical Sir Ken moment. We had asked him if he was willing to write an introduction to this book of ours, we still needed to start writing. When we explained to him we were surprised he said “yes” to our question, he replied: “I was surprised myself I said “yes” to your question. But now that this answer is given, let’s make it happen”. We all laughed out loud.  And indeed, some 6 months later we had our first call with him about the writing process of the book and how he would be following up on it.

We are so grateful to have met you and to have collaborated with you. We are still tremendously proud of your foreword to our book “What Is Your Dream Machine? How Children Change Education Worldwide“.  It wasn’t just a foreword, he insisted to see the material as it developed. It was indeed a unique experience to work with him on our book.

Sir Ken gave voice to all those who believed in a better way, was a friend to the subversives and a beacon to this who understood education’s true moral purpose. His total commitment to education, creativity, the arts and human potential were carved from his own life and the challenges he had experienced and overcome from is childhood. We are all so lucky that his epiphany, his element, was to work with us and all our children for their futures.

We owe Ken so much. His legacy in many ways is us and the best we can do now, is through our behaviours, our commitment to each other, our children and the future, do what we can to live by his principles and endeavour to make him proud.

We are still so passionate about the extremely insightful knowledge of education, creativity, and the arts, which we learned from you, your incredible books, and the amazing TED-talks and other conference talks.
We will miss you Sir Ken. You were an incredible inspiration.
Piet Grymonprez
On behalf of MyMachine co-founders Jan, Filip and myself.
On behalf of all co-writers to our book.
On behalf of all MyMachine partners around the world.
On behalf of the MyMachine community worldwide.