Bill Strickland closed the conference with his legendary slideshow telling the story of his work to build up the Manchester Bidwell Corporation - an extraordinary training centre in an impoverished part of Pittsburgh. One of our delegates described Strickland's speech on Twitter as "a powerful emotional speech from a living angel, Bill Strickland".

Strickland's highly visual, funny and very moving presentation can be viewed online as a speech to the renowned TED conference. We'd urge you strongly to find 35 minutes in which to view Strickland's story.

It's a story of profound transformation in the lives of young people who would otherwise be lost in the system. He repeatedly makes the point that so many of the difficult challenges facing schools have been solved by the investment in world-class facilities. Strickland's message is both profound and simple: if we treat people as assets, they are an asset to the community. If we treat them as liabilities, they become a liability. Beautiful environments create beautiful people. Prisons create prisoners.