21st Century Mathematics Without the University?

Next week April 22-24 the conference 21st Century Mathematics: What should students learn in the 21st century? takes place in Stockholm, Norra Latin - Stockholm City Conference Center.

The conference is part of a series of global conferences organized by the Center for Curriculum Redesign in close cooperation with the commercial software Mathematica and Computer-Based Math.

The conference is co-organized by The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv).

A remarkable fact is that none of the speakers comes from Swedish university mathematics. Yet the conference is supposed to end with “The Stockholm Declaration: Mathematics for the 21st century” (All participants, led by CCR).

 It thus appears that 21st Century Mathematics will be formed by commercial actors outside the university. If this is true, (Swedish) university mathematics has a serious problem to deal with.

 Notice that 21st Century Mathematics directly connects to my announced appearance on Swedish Public Television SVT which was abruptly cancelled by intervention from university mathematics, as recorded in recent blog posts.

 University mathematics in the 21st Century is in a state of serious crisis, unable to reform to the computer of the 21st century, and unable to make the traditional eduction without the computer to work.

Curriculum redesign in mathematics education will not be initiated by the university math department, where tradition reigns, but from outside intervention and the role of the math department after redesign is unclear.

The only participation in the conference from mathematics at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, appears to a telephone intervention by a "professor of mathematics at KTH" concerning a scheduled presentation by a Swedish school mathematician, as the only talk from Sweden, as evidenced here.