What an extraordinary honor it is to stand with you today. Because what we are celebrating isn’t just a building—it’s a breakthrough. Today marks the birth of something the world has never quite seen before: A school where climate-resilient design and cutting-edge pedagogy don’t just coexist—they converge to ignite something entirely new.
Where architecture and instruction align.
Where the walls teach. The windows model. The air itself reminds students of the future they are being prepared to lead.
And to the global force behind this vision: Prime Minister Mia Mottley. Few leaders have done more to center both climate justice and educational transformation on the world stage than you. You have made it unmistakably clear: the climate crisis is not tomorrow’s threat—it is today’s mandate. And it demands bold, systemic, imaginative action.
Our partnership with the Prime Minister and this extraordinary country has emboldened us—to think bigger, act faster, and believe more deeply in what becomes possible when equity, sustainability, and vision align.
At XQ, our mission has always been about more than rethinking classrooms.
It’s about rethinking what school is, what it does, and most importantly— who it’s for.
We believe school must be where young people practice power. Where they design, build, test, and reflect—the very skills they’ll need to lead in an era of accelerating complexity.
And here, in this extraordinary Oceana Innovation Lab, that philosophy comes alive—in form and in function. Oceana isn’t just climate resilient— it’s instructionally radical. Here, students will study passive cooling not from a diagram, but in the breeze. They’ll calculate solar output not on worksheets, but from their own rooftop. They’ll engage with circular design, sustainable food systems, stormwater harvesting, regenerative materials—all as part of their daily school experience.
Oceana is what it means to learn by doing. To solve real problems. To prepare not just for college or career—but for the world as it is and as it must become.
Because this isn’t just a building—it’s a manifesto. A declaration that education and sustainability are not separate ambitions, but shared purpose. That learning shouldn’t be interrupted by disaster—but inspired by it. That we can build schools that don’t just protect students—but prepare them.
To thrive. To innovate. To lead.
Here in Barbados, you’ve done what few have dared to do: You’ve merged urgency with imagination. Infrastructure with instruction. Form with moral function.
What we’ve created together is nothing short of revolutionary. We at XQ and Emerson are so proud to be in this work with you.
To every architect, educator, policymaker, parent, and student who brought this to life—thank you. To Geoffrey Canada, one of XQ’s founding Board members: who shaped my thinking and my courage in this work from the very beginning. Thank you for teaching the planet what it means to lead with heart and with rigor – for creating a global model —97 blocks with the Harlem’s Children’s Zone—reminding us all that schools don’t exist in isolation—they live inside communities.
And to everyone here who helped Oceana exist. You helped redefine the possible. Thank you for building something that doesn’t just resist the storm—but rises above it. Thank you for proving that we can build a better world—starting here, one school at a time. Because when we imagine the future of education—it looks like this:
A school that teaches students how to learn and how to last.
How to face uncertainty with clarity.
How to connect purpose with practice.
How to use their environment not as backdrop, but as laboratory—for justice, for innovation, for lasting change.
Now, to make this new-to-the-world built environment, there was but one architect—a moral architect– and designer, a genius really, that I could think to call. And that was Michael Murphy. From hospitals in Rwanda to memorials in Montgomery, and now to this groundbreaking lab in Barbados, Michael’s work demands beauty, justice, and dignity in every detail. And today—alongside, and because of, the brilliance of WoHo—one of few companies in the world who could manifest something this magnificent, with Anton, Borja at its head—today, this vision comes to life.
