Rodrigo Arboleda

Co-Founder and CEO Fastrack Institute
Previous CEO of One Laptop Per Child
Serial Entrepreneur in the US and Colombia
MTP: Consolidating Democracy Through Technology and Education.
Inquire About Rodrigo

Rodrigo Arboleda is a senior executive with 50 years of experience in the fields of Architecture, International Business Development, Education and Technology, Civic and Philanthropic endeavors. After graduating from MIT as an architect in 1965, he became an award‐winning architect in his native Medellin, Colombia, as well as the president of the Colombian Society of Architects in that city. Rodrigo was later honored as the only honorary living member due to his work in fostering the teaching and practice of architecture.

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As an entrepreneur he entered into several different businesses, both in Colombia and later in the U.S., ranging from developing one of the largest fresh‐cut flowers farms for export and later in the transportation and distribution of flowers and other perishables and regular oceanic and airline cargo.  Rodrigo managed for Latin America, Spain and Portugal the expansion of Ogden Corporation, a large US multinational in the service industry in the fields of airport management, development of entertainment and sports venues, and the production of energy by burning municipal solid waste, known as Waste‐to‐Energy.  He was the first president of the Aeropuertos Argentina 2000 consortium, managing 33 airports. He also managed the construction of the largest Fair and Exhibit grounds in Buenos Aires, and the Isla Mágica theme park in Seville, Spain.

For more than 33 years, he contributed to the advocacy of the use of technology in education with his friend and classmate Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the renowned Media Lab at MIT, first in Colombia and later as the worldwide CEO of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. He managed the logistics, implementation, training, and deployment of the latest versions of the emblematic XO Laptop, and managed the delivery of most of the three million laptops in developing nations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. For several years he was in the BOD of Save the Children Foundation and is currently on the board of several other philanthropic institutions his current endeavors are related to advocating global digital learning ideas, especially as they apply to developing nations.  He is focused on the impact of inexpensive mobile devices in education, the promotion of free internet access for children in remote areas of the world and the idea of coding‐to‐learn, areas of endeavor acquired while at the helm of OLPC.

Currently, Arboleda is the CEO of Fastrack Institute (FTI) , a non‐profit foundation co‐founded with Salim Ismail Ph.D. (Singularity University co‐founder) and with Dr. Maurice R. Ferré MD, (co‐founder and ex CEO of Mako Surgical and current CEO of Insightec of Israel. FTI’s Massive Transformative Purpose (MTP) is to help accelerate viral, exponential and disruptive technologies into societies, minimizing in the process of most of the negative impacts on those segments of societies that will be transformed by those technologies. He has also been appointed to the BOD of the University of Miami School of Architecture and to the University’s Center for Computational Sciences as well.

In addition, he has been appointed as a Member of the Board of Advisors on Innovation and Technology to the City of Coral Coral Gables Mayor’s Office, effective June 2017.

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Topics

Learning About Learning, Thinking About Thinking

Rodrigo will cover the educational philosophy imbedded in the One Laptop Per Child Project and the modern concept of education is based on learning, not on teaching, One Laptop Per Child empowers a child so they become an Agent of Change. Learning By Doing and Learning By Building.

Democracy and Technology

Rodrigo will discuss solutions provided to aid in the reform of judicial system of countries in an effort to rid their systems of superfluous legal cases overwhelming the courts, using technology. Case in point: Fastrack Institute conducted a program in Bogotá, Colombia to reform the administration of the judicial system. Inherited in the project a stealth opportunity to end corruption.

Profile of the New Citizen for the XXI Century.

This session will cover a blend of lessons learned from the One Laptop Per Child project, Singularity University Programs and Fastrack Institute developments. Changing the mindset of not only executives of private sector enterprises, but public servants, academic institutions and NGOs, so they can manage challenges brought by exponential technologies.

Accelerating Technologies into Societies

This is the MTP of Fastrack Institute. Explanation of why, how and when to adapt to these drastic changes into society.

Industrial Revolutions: Past, Present and Future, or Where Do We Come From, Where Are We, Where Are We Going?

A comprehensive explanation of what this all about and the important consequences of both understanding the relation between technology and society, or remaining ignorant about it.

Testimonials

“Whenever I hear his presentations, they inspire me, and makes me fight for the same cause that I am convinced is what the world needs to make it better.”

- Juan José Zuluaga, CEO of Tech Innovation Group

“I have attended several of Rodrigo’s conferences in various parts of the world, and it has always been a pleasure to enjoy them, learn from their great knowledge, and be inspired by their way of being, as well as their way of understanding the world.”

- Elkin Echeverri Garcia

Interested in booking Rodrigo?

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