With ongoing inequities, mediocre outcomes, and current polarization in education and many other aspects of people's lives across the world, innovation is more important than ever. The onslaught of AI and other transformational technologies makes this work even more timely. But there is a common misconception that innovations are self-contained ideas. In fact they arise from the more complex interplay between the ideas and the surrounding environment. This presentation will survey select innovative developments, topics, and trends taking place in education across the world, focusing not on the education innovations themselves, but on the conditions under which they succeed or not, their interactions with context, and their underlying processes and mechanisms for change.