question: For much of history, education was a private and exclusive activity. Centuries of social, political, geological, economic, and technological changes have led us to our modern notion of education as a “public good”. For education to become a true public good, governments and private entities need to work together. Thoughtfully deployed private finance and technology experiments are already driving us in this direction. While education is now commonly accepted as a basic right, much of the developing world continues to suffer from learning poverty. The learning society of the future, characterized by information ubiquity and global connectedness on one hand, and inequity and survival challenges on the other, will require learning to be reimagined. Testing and implementing these experiments at scale will bring a learning society closer to realizing the goals of access, quality, and relevance. © The Author(s) 2021.