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opinion

If something connects people in Calgary, Calcutta and Caracas, it is the knowledge that ideas are vital for the future. Our challenges have gone global. Our solutions have not kept up.

We are realizing these problems are growing bigger by the day, and are more difficult to separate from our lives. Whether environmental, political, economic or ethical, we know instinctively that tomorrow's hurdles will not be overcome through small thinking.

Today, the mantle of leadership is shifting from those with the best connections to those with the best ideas. They are our leading thinkers.

Leading Thinkers is a website dedicated to giving these people a broader audience. And as we launch this space, we begin where most ideas are born: education.

Ben Wildavsky, author of The Great Brain Race, writes that three million students are today studying outside of their home countries. That is a 57 per cent increase compared with a decade ago.

Besides being another sign global winds are blowing across every continent, Mr. Wildavsky's book is a call to action. To compete economically, he argues, countries must invest in post-secondary education not only for their own citizens, but those from every corner of the globe.

But education - specifically the battle for the brightest minds - is just the first in a series of six issues we will hear from its leading thinkers about in the coming months.

As always, the most important person to hear from is you. We want to know why you believe, or don't, in the ideas being presented here. So get involved in the debate.

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