I will tell three stories and three lessons learned from the Covid-19 crisis and its impact on the Education above.

In his bibliography about Keith Jarrett, Wolfgang Sandner recounts one of the miracles of jazz. It was in 1975, at the Cologne Opera House, when Jarrett found an old, out-of-tune piano on stage. He did not bow to that unexpected mishap, and ended up playing The Köln Concert, an all-time jazz masterpiece. We later learned that Jarrett found in the adverse conditions a source of inspiration and new ways of feeling jazz. Keith Jarrett is unique, but his story comes back again and again: innovation emerges in convulsive and disturbing environments.

In the spring of 1665 Cambridge University closed classrooms because of the Great Plague of London, and sent students home. One 20-year-old took refuge at Woolsthorpe Manor, the family estate about 60 miles northwest of Cambridge. There he spent months in confinement, between short walks and mathematical problems. A year later, that young man named Isaac Newton completed his first work on the three laws of motion. Newton is also a genius and history repeats itself again.

Consider the evolution of electricity in the United States. Economist Paul David has pointed out that electric power was developed in 1890, but industrial productivity did not take off until the 1920s. Thirty years later. Factories needed to be redesigned and the way of working reinvented. Not until the outbreak of World War I was this possible. A shocking tragedy boosted productivity and the electric motor supplanted the steam engine forever.

The three stories teach us that innovation emerges in adversity. Sometimes the solution is hidden, it is a matter of stopping to discover it. This pandemic has disrupted all aspects of our lives: health, Economics, work and also Education. Universities have closed their classrooms and adapted the teaching in an emergency scenario. In some sectors we are going to see how the post-pandemic curve does not flatten out, as a new reality is here to stay. It is time to react and face the future soon. There are three lessons that university professors and managers can learn from this crisis.

The first lesson is that we are going to do what we knew had to be done. For years the University has reluctantly coexisted with technology. The two worlds have operated on different frequencies. As with electricity, the time has come to integrate technology into the productivity of the system. Take advantage of its possibilities to optimize research and teaching.

The second lesson is that all space is campus. The confined training is a forced and fleeting mode of the Education at a distance. We have adapted to the crisis, but now it is time to introduce method and strategy. The virtual and the physical are the new coordinates of the university community. Let us overcome the offline and online dualism, as proposed by Luciano Floridi in the "Manifesto Onlife". The University is not a physical space, it is above all a community of teachers and students who learn to think together, wherever they are.

And the third lesson: that a change of environment implies a change of rules. We must bring the learning of student to the asynchronous plane, and only that which adds differential value to face-to-face learning. The methodologies of the new teaching optimize the integral development of student: teaching simulations, service learning, reverse classes, collaborative learning... The role of professor must change little by little, with realism and humility: from transmitter of knowledge to trainer of learning experiences. Personalized teaching and lifelong learning will be more important than ever.

The three stories contain messages for the teacher, the student and the University. The professor has a precarious piano where to find, like Keith Jarrett, his source of inspiration. The student must assume this time of responsibility and autonomy staff to build a leadership at the service of society. The University is called to overcome the taxonomies of yesteryear and recognize that it has been living with part of the solution for years. Its contribution to the common good is too valuable to avoid compromise. It needs strategy, resources and ambition.

This crisis has highlighted that, in the end, what makes the system work is not the structure, not the technology, but the passion of the teacher, the commitment of student and the relationship staff between them. That is the Chemistry that unleashes the energy that overcomes all obstacles. It is time to optimize the learning of our students, unlock the talent of our teachers and reinvent the onlife university.