Gustavo Calderón De Anda

Gustavo is passionate about education, technology and innovation. At his School in the City of Guadalajara, México, he works on projects with disadvantaged communities who deal with very difficult challenges.

When Gustavo worked in a public school in a very disadvantaged environment, Gustavo was initially teaching a coding class at his school but, realizing the need to challenge his students so they could be prepared for the upcoming tech based economy, he posted a video to his LinkedIn network requesting volunteers and mentors who could assist them in creating an Android app, and soon had collaborators signed up from as far afield as Romania and Finland.

Working on the project his students also acquired basic knowledge, realizing there are time differences in European countries, developing life skills from working with people from different cultural backgrounds and managing a project in a real work setting. Some of the students were gamers and their role in the development teams were as translators since the enlisted tutors were English speakers. Years later, those same students have gone on to become software developers at multinational corporations and change makers as designers of social impact projects teaching coding to boys and girls from unprivileged zones in Guadalajara.

Currently Gustavo works at an all girls school at Instituto Alpes San Javier and is dedicated to the cause of improving STEM education and career paths for girls. In 2017 he had just 11 girls in his Computer Science lessons, but it is now the most popular course at his high school. Winning a fundraising contest in 2017 he put the money towards creating a collaborative Maker Space at the school, and as well as preparing them to compete in science fairs and take part in Skype-a-thons annually at the school where they communicate with fellow students in over 20 countries, the girls take part in a social impact program teaching public school students skills needed for the 4th industrial revolution.

Gustavo is convinced that every teacher can change their teaching practices and offer their students a significant learning experience in order to prepare them for future jobs and to be able to design innovative solutions for the problems they may encounter. He views it as essential to foster in his students collaborative and global citizenship skills. For this, he underlines the importance of using communication channels like Skype and generating or promoting events where good classroom practices are shared in order to speed up innovation processes and improve educational systems worldwide.