I listened to a fascinating Ted Talk the other day, by researcher Charles Leadbeater. After visiting slums around the world, he affirms that radical innovation does indeed often take place out of necessity.

He is particularly interested in innovation in education and the young people he met in South America, Africa and Asia all illustrated that to be effective, education needs to pull rather than push. He asks us to

"imagine an education system that started from questions, not from knowledge to be imparted? Or started from a game, not a lesson? Or started from the premise that you have to engage people first before you can possibly teach them?"

And how do you engage young people? Through the arts, sports and technology – areas that are often regarded as extracurricular rather than integral. Additionally, education needs to be relevant (something that the school model inherited from the 19th century definitely isn't) and it has to have immediate pay-offs. In other words, it needs to be useful.

This barely begins to summarise his incredibly insightful talk – I highly recommend hearing it for yourself …