Please find featured below and attached the Spring 2019 issue of the newsletter Ripples, from the Australian Learning Communities Network (ALCN):

The XVIth PASCAL Conference on “Learning for Resilience: People, Place and Partnership in Urban and Rural Communities” which had been scheduled for 16-19 October 2019 has been canceled. We are grateful to  the Centre for Adult Continuing Education at University College Cork which, in co-operation with the Skellig Centre for Research and Innovation in County Kerry for the invitation to host this ambitious and exciting programme, and we are grateful to those who indicated their interest to speak at or to participate in this event. 

Many congratulations to Prof Balazs Nemeth, Associate Director of PASCAL in Europe, who has been elected to become president of the European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN). This is a very well-deserved honour and PASCAL looks forward to continuing to work with EUCEN under the leadership of Professor Nemeth.

UALL held another successful conference hosted in partnership with the University of Wolverhampton at the state-of-the-art Telford Innovation Campus, April 10^th – 12^th. Drawing inspiration from this venue and the legacy of the Ironbridge Gorge – the birthplace of the first Industrial Revolution – our conference theme was Lifelong Learning and Innovation.

The recent PASCAL and PIMA report on Good Active Ageing, which I edited with Denise Reghenzani Kearns, discussed the implications of the convergence of the demographic and technological revolutions. The demographic revolution with ageing populations is occurring at a time when revolutionary changes in digital technologies associated with artificial intelligence, robotics and biotechnologies are impacting on society with this impact certain to increase. How soon superintelligence arrives is a matter of lively discussion.