One woman said something powerful on stage that made me pause and ponder. “In Cambodia, the first national resource is intelligence.” She said this during the first-ever TEDxBerlin Women event, and it stayed with me.
“Human capital with both soft and hard qualities is the key to all development processes, a strong society, and a robust economy … it is a top priority in the national development strategy,” said Hun Manet, Prime Minister of Cambodia, in a speech at the Royal School of Administration.
The same sentiment was echoed in an article I recently read in Bulgaria on Air’s Inflight Magazine. “According to Alvin Toffler’s futuristic vision, the wealth of a country is no longer measured only by natural resources or industrial capacity, but by its intellectual capacity and its ability to generate new knowledge.”
Bulgaria now faces a tremendous opportunity to grow its “intelligence”, or, as it is more formally known, its knowledge economy, and so do many other countries. Going down this path requires understanding what truly constitutes intellect, how it’s fostered, and looking beyond overly linear approaches to developing it. It demands a rethinking of education.
Intellect is not produced solely through formal or traditional education. It emerges from all the small components of life we rarely label as “education,” yet they contribute largely to the forming of intelligence, and that’s what differentiates countries with a good intelligence profile from those who don’t. As Hans Westlund argues in Social Capital in the Knowledge Economy, a nation’s strength lies not only in its formal institutions, but in the networks, relationships, and cultural practices that shape how people learn, collaborate, and innovate.
What makes a mind intelligent?
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Léa Peersman, the TEDxBerlin Women speaker, went on to share her perspective on intelligence, both human and AI, through the lens of parenting. “The most important job is when your grey matter expands,” she shared. Léa drew a parallel between raising a child and raising AI. In many ways, that is what we’re doing now: parenting AI as it learns, grows, and evolves
As a parent, education is always on Léa’s agenda. Preparing individuals not only to contribute to the knowledge economy and thrive in the world, but also to remain sovereign beings capable of making decisions for themselves and deciphering truth, is key.
Education, however, is plural. Beyond formal schooling, there is informal education – what Léa calls the “human village”.
The “village” includes practices such as bread therapy, community gatherings, gardening, and daily cultural exchanges – everyday experiences that build social, emotional, and intellectual intelligence.
So how do we nurture this kind of intelligence today? And how do we balance it with the rise of AI?
We cannot ignore the lens of AI-engineered intelligence. As Léa Peersman warns, “AI has a promise of augmenting human intelligence. But we’re recreating it, not augmenting it anymore. The biggest risk is the dismantling of this human village and losing its social nature.”
The village mentality
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It’s high time we stopped viewing education as a straight line. The curriculum is just a small part of what education is about. It’s the raw material, the building block for cultivating learning, but how we architect around it is up to institutions, policies, and people. What we want is to architect strong, stable “walls of knowledge,” a kind of educational temple where individuals grow and fortify those walls over time.
This is only possible when we also have forward-thinking minds who design entire learning ecosystems sans their ego.
The education we imagine must blend rigorous curriculum with the orchestration of personality – building human intelligence through a range of activities and challenges within the temple of education.
It must allow students to walk through the dusty library of ancient and modern knowledge, while giving them a holistic solution for surviving and thriving in today’s world.
The living classroom
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To build these temples of learning, we need to dismantle the old, rigid structures that no longer serve us and raise new walls – ones that guard knowledge, kindness, values, and intentional innovation within.
We implement extra-curricular activities. Clubs and exciting initiatives that allow students to develop their entire profile and skills beyond the classroom, such as collaboration, leadership, and creativity. In Cambodia, school collaborations with NGOs like PSE for a Child’s Smile offer hands-on projects where students learn entrepreneurship, design, and community service simultaneously. In Bulgaria and across Europe, there is a strong focus on civic engagement and entrepreneurship, with accelerator programs and innovation hubs where students build real solutions before they even graduate.
We take students into nature. When students become collaborators with the natural world, they develop empathy and curiosity. There are many examples of nature-based learning approaches. Consider the microcollege model at Thoreau College in Wisconsin, developed by Jacob Hundt. There, students spend a year learning sustainable practices, farming, craft-making, and philosophy, reconnecting with the natural world and with authentic ways of doing and being.
We build gardens. University community gardens, such as those at the University of Arizona and Michigan State University, serve as “living laboratories” where students, staff, and often the local community, engage in growing food, composting, and managing green spaces. At the Michigan State University Student Organic Farm, these activities are part of over 35 courses ranging from ecology and agriculture to social sciences, entrepreneurship and even occupational therapy, which points to its interdisciplinary function.
We offer practical, real-world education. Field trips to companies, government agencies, research facilities, and environmental organizations show students how theory becomes practice, which they can replicate in their professional pursuits or be inspired by.
We create simulations. EU model conferences, UN simulations, and hackathons give students the chance to debate, negotiate, and solve complex challenges in dynamic, team-based environments.
We prepare them for the technological world. Today’s knowledge economy is largely ruled by the digital, and we must teach students to navigate information, interpret data, question algorithms, and create responsibly. Data literacy, media literacy, and AI literacy must become core subjects.
We build soft skills — the 5 C’s. Creativity, critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and compassion are the true currencies of the future. Machines may replicate tasks, but they cannot replace emotional intelligence, curiosity, or empathy. We must train students to think for themselves, to think across disciplines, and to consistently fall back on their human understanding, capabilities, and kind nature.
None of this is achieved through the curriculum alone. It requires a spark of curiosity and the deep engagement with real human experiences – storytelling, meaningful interaction, and immersion in cultural traditions and the natural world. It’s hands-on, human-experienced vs mechanic, algorithmic, and repetitive.
In the Bulgaria on Air article, the author notes that the jobs most likely to survive are those rooted in creativity and communication. Simply using AI tools is not enough. Without critical engagement, users remain prompt-generators rather than informed thinkers.
Creating a temple
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But activities alone aren’t enough. We hire teachers who become mentors, sources of light and knowledge for the students, who can conduct that next-level educational experience, recognizing students’ unique personalities, strengths, and needs.
We design educational buildings that feel like sacred temples of learning, combining libraries infused with the smell of old books and spaces equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
We surround them with nature and lots of light. Think biophilic design, but in this case – bringing nature indoors and bringing learners outdoors. We teach them crafts and traditions. We encourage students to get their hands dirty, whether in a garden or in a workshop.
We blend the new with the ancient treasure of knowledge and with what’s truly authentic – nature and the human values that arise from it. We cannot remove any part of this equation, even if it seems unfruitful, unwanted, or hostile. It’s holistic: everything that exists must be held in balance.
In the same way, we cannot exclude AI. We can learn it, understand it, and use it as an assistant in our work. Its necessity and growth will only continue, and we must learn how to tame it. AI, data, and media environments create as many opportunities as challenges – think data poisoning and disinformation. To navigate them, we must take them “by the reins” and steer them thoughtfully in the direction we choose.
Harvesting intelligence
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This holistic approach to education is what builds a country’s knowledge economy.
As Léa Peersman reminded us, “it takes a village to raise a child”. Educational institutions are villages, but so are countries. True values must be fostered at every level.
And so, we need to build educational villages that raise people with values, knowledge, creativity, traditions, a care for nature, and practical know-how for a new, awakened era. It takes mindful people, forward-thinking policies, visionary leaders, and united communities willing to architect the age of love and kindness. And it all starts with education.
