Reboot Post Covid19

We may have been super organised prior to Covid19 planning our day, week , month, even the year ahead of time. We may have been great in prioritizing things on our to-do lists, ticking as we go along and feeling super productive. If there is something that the Covid19 taught me is that a crisis is very good in ‘messing up’ our plans and its even really good in prioritizing things for us. And, maybe, in away, it is something we should feel grateful for. Family and time with our loved ones, whether we were lucky to have them with us, or not, has shot up, for many, to the top of the priority list. So while earth and the world is doing a ‘restart’ or ‘rebooting’, we should utilize the opportunity and change some of the settings before we go back to ‘new normal’. Keeping our family and loved ones on the top of our ‘to-dos’ and maybe create a ‘not-to-do’ list to ensure they remain on top.

Education in times of crisis

(Insight from Webinar http://www.ort.mx organised by ORT University Mexico)

One of the things that Covid19 brought with (together with worldwide chaos and uncertainty) is the understanding, that this is a crisis, in its full definition; the virus targets human lives, is unexpected, it creates uncertainties and poses a threat to human existence.

Another interesting phenomena is happening, almost parallel to the spread of the virus; the break through of usage of virtual platforms such as Zoom, MS Teams, Google Hangouts and YouTube streaming. Many of the online webinars and forums are dealing with the crisis in various ways, from the psychological to professional and economic impacts.

One of the most interesting virtual webinar I attended, recently, was organised by the University of ORT Mexico and World ORT, discussing ‘education in times of crisis’. What I found enlightening in the discussion by top professors in the field of education, is the forward thinking and ‘out of the box’ ideas that were shared with almost 500 participants from all over the world.

Ms. Mariana Ludmila Cortés who is the former Vice-president for development of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), where she traveled to over 40 countries developing and implementing large scale education projects for disadvantaged children, claimed that there is a crisis in education worldwide, regardless of Covid19. According to World Bank (2018), globally, 6 out of 10 children and youth are not meeting proficiency levels in reading and mathematics despite of completing years of schooling in the developing world. The Learning crisis calls us to be specific with the terms we are using while trying to tackle the problem. Learning vs Teaching ; Education vs Schooling. She suggested that we need to change HOW we deliver education and urged people to take charge of their own learning.

Prof. Sidney Strauss Director of Research at Ammachilabs, professor at Amrita University and former Professor of Education has vast years of research in education. He shared the finding, that children are able to teach each other (from as early as one year old). Teaching is natural to human beings. He claims that evidence in caves of our ancestors shows that, already at the times when human were making stone tools, they had managed to transfer the knowledge.
If this is the case, what are the implications on education? we need to rethink of schools and the roles they play. We need to find ways to harness this natural ability of people to teach and for children to teach each other.

Prof. Moisés Salinas Fleitman Rector of the ORT University Mexico, examined the roles of education in times of crisis. In addition to the obvious roles of being a source of reassurance , reducing stress and ensuring delivery of practical and psychological tools to confront the crisis, he added that the crisis could be seen as an opportunity for innovation. Crisis has a disruptive manner and it could be a tool for us to switch from threat to opportunity for innovation in education.

I do believe that, we now have an opportunity to analyse the disruption in a creative and collaborative manner. We could learn from different industries and how they have been adjusting to the changes (such as communicating and expanding stakeholders networks through virtual platforms). We also have to be mindful about those communities that do not have the privilege of technology and accessibility to connectivity.

Screenshot of the ORT.MX Webcast April 2020

2nd Day Lock down but who’s counting?

Watching the news worldwide on the implications of he COVID19 virus on people’s lives, work, mental health, I”m thankful for waking up healthy and with no symptoms. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, this virus does not discriminate, even not the young ones. Remembering that although we feel we are in a dark, cold and ruthless tunnel, there is light at the end of the tunnel and we will persevere.
How does one spends days confined to home without losing their mind? Gaining perspective to the situation at hand. This too shall pass. We might as well do something with the time we have and utilize it to learning new skills, gaining new knowledge, learning a language. With connectivity and access to internet, the sky is the limit at what one can gain from this period.
So, here I am, trying to make the most of the situation, before we know it, the light will appear and we will come out of it stronger.
PG

Reflections -First Day of Lockdown

First day of lock down in South Africa. I may be going through the five stages of grief related to the changes occurring around me. The most devastating part of it is that I can’t take the dogs for a walk and the concerns of their well being. Caring for others is the ‘moto’ of the Covid19 measures taken by government and I feel like I am failing my pets in this regards. 😦 Determined that this lock down won’t become a “knockdown” for my mood and well being! After all I have the privilege of having my family with me and continue working from home.
Determined to make the best of it and seek opportunities for self growth and the continuous growth of my organisation ORT SA which does incredible things in this country.
Putting structures in place to replace my ‘normal’ routine will be the first plan of action. (include WFH routine/ family time/ learning slots/ spiritual/ exercise).
Acceptance.

Insight from Business Day Focus 4.0

The Business Day Focus 4.0 Conference held at the beginning of March this year, aimed at exploring the implications of the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) on our economy and society.
The presence of leading Hi-tech companies’ CEOs as keynote speakers and in panel discussions illustrated the importance of this topic to the business world.

Below are my three main takes from the conference:

1. It is not a matter of “if” but a matter of “when” we adapt to the 4IR

According to MD Tech Accenture, Kirstan Sita, 85% of South African companies are vulnerable to future disruption (Accenture research).
One of the reasons companies fail is if they missed, or not responded fast enough, to changes in the market (Prof Bran Armstrong, Wits Business School). The more we delay our adopting to changes, the more we widen the gap.
The challenges of poor infrastructure development and the need for cities to work collaboratively towards the creation of smart cities was alerted by Liquid Telecom CEO Reshaad Sha.
It was reiterated that government has to elevate infrastructure as high priority and enable connectivity (survival need) in an equal distributed manner.

2. Technology is neutral. It is what we do with it that matters

Alison Jacobson from the Field Institute, argued that before looking at digital strategy of the business one needs to look at the business strategy and the specific needs of the business through the customers’ needs. “Do you understand your customers? Only then deploy the technology”. Competitiveness in the market and creating the competitive advantage has to be customer-centric.
Devina Maharaj from Digital Investec Bank recommended “Understand the needs first, than plug the gap with the relevant tech solution”.
According to Prof Brian, there are many reasons to automate. Machines have many advantages over human being. If the first and second industrial revolutions were about ‘machines enhancing power’ the third and fourth industrial revolutions are about ‘machines enhancing human brain power’. We need to stay alert in the wake of the ‘digital vortex’ upon us and be ahead of it.

3. Range of skills are needed for the future workforce

Assaf Luxembourg, Business Development Consultant from Israel, noted that ‘technology changes fast, but culture changes are slower’. He then recommended that each individual see himself/ herself as a ‘business unit’, as the ‘CEO of themselves’ and seek to promote oneself. Adjusting to the dynamic nature of the market he says, is to think as entrepreneur and not as employee (even if you are one).
Dr Tashmia Ismail-Saville, CEO of YES, said that tech skills can be easily taught, the need is to create mechanisms to ensure that resources are available to the youth in all communities as in some of them access is limited.
The real skill needed to adjust to 4IR as noted by Alison are the abilities to identify the problem and use critical problem solving and team work.
We should ask, ‘how do we become the best version of ourselves by using technology’ and plan for our career to ensure relevance for the future.

Be ahead of the ‘Digital Vortex’

Preparing for Corona is unpredictable as predicting the future

The Corona virus crisis hitting the world country by country on a daily basis makes one realise the sad, known fact that we cannot predict the future.
When we started this new year of 2020, or when we approach new month, week or day, we need to be prepared for changes, knowing that change is the only certain thing we can be sure of.
Whether we run a company, manage teams, train/ teach, in retail, health, education or any other industry we should be prepared to surf the wave of change and be able to adapt to it’s implications.

The epidemic caused by the Corona virus is a an example of a case that can impact almost every area in our lives and change the way we do things, go to work, school or maintain our health. Technology has a role to play in assisting ‘surfing the wave’ and we could be applying new ways of doing things as we learning and adapting to new realities.

Though we can’t predict the future, we can prepare for what we think it will bring. Learning from countries impacted by the virus, we can, each in our own industry, think on measures to take to alleviate the impact that the changes may bring into our lives. 

As schools close down due to concerns of the epidemic spreading, we should explore online learning platforms to ensure that learning and the schooling is not disturbed.
Online applications could also help with identifying the symptoms and alert on areas that are impacted by the virus.

Please share – What measures did you take or are preparing yourself to take in light of the Corona? 

WHAT IF OUR ANCESTORS WERE INVITED TO A TECH SHOW?

If we were to organise an exhibition of current technologies and invite our ancestors and descendants from the past to attend, what would their reaction be?

Our forefathers walked in the desert for 40 years to reach their desired destination. Imagine! After all the suffering, starving and struggling in the harsh climate and tough terrain to find out that with ‘flying technologies’ they could have made the journey within an hour! Moreover, with global positioning satellite (GPS) technology, it would have been so much easier to navigate their way. And oh! How crazy they’d think we are, counting our steps, with IoT devices, and sending information to a ‘cloud’…not to ask for direction from G-d but to…monitor our health!

Imagine Florence Nightingale, known for founding the modern discipline of nursing, and a key figure in introducing new professional training standards for nursing, visiting a robot display to reveal moving machines replacing the service of human care. Japan’s aging population (30% of its population is older than 65), faces a crisis of a shortage of human resource in eldercare. To resolve this predicament, robots have been placed in nursing homes. Robots that move, cry and cuddle are replacing the human work force, from lifting people from bed to entertaining them, with much success. The elderly absolutely love them!

All those involved in getting our internet to where it is today! Who would have imagined that with all the impact of the internet on our culture, commerce, communication and technology that it will also generate the biggest crime, globally? According to the latest information, cybercrime will cost the world more than six trillion dollars annually by 2021. It will be more profitable than the combined global trade of all illegal drugs!

However, if we had Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein entering some of the current classrooms, they’d most probably see no difference from their own classroom, a hundred or more years ago. They will also notice that not much has changed with teaching and assessments, using a curriculum that is mostly outdated with techniques and pedagogies that prepared children for the industrial jobs of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Companies invest in enormous amounts of research to explore the use and impact of new technologies in the global economy (McKinsey, World Economic Forum and so many other papers and reports have been published on the topic.) But what about education? Isn’t it time that we explore transforming education to keep up with the pace of change and to prepare our future generation for their world of work?

We now know more than we knew in the past on how children learn and we know that new technologies are transforming jobs as we know them. But we continue to skill our children for jobs that soon will vanish.

It is time that industries, corporates, government and educationalists work together to transform education through updated policies, curriculum and implementation of technologies as tools to assist with the digital transformation. It is time that we start implementing the use of technologies, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, data science and IoT in emulating successful methodologies and incorporating them in our classrooms.

The return on our investment will be higher than any business will ever generate. And who knows, the fruits of these investments may be showcased one day in an exhibition featuring future technologies produced by our own future generation.

Written by Ariellah Rosenberg, CEO ORT SA

@Ariellah @ORT_SA

Education for the future

The below article was published online on World ORT and Biz-community Websites

Education has to change and adapt to tomorrow’s world. What should we study for the future workplace?

By Ariellah Rosenberg, Chief Executive Officer, ORT South Africa

You wake up in the morning anticipating your bowl of cereal to fuel you for the rest of the day, but find an empty carton of milk. It’s a scenario that may be familiar to many of us. You reach for your phone and after a few clicks 10 minutes later you get a two-litre carton of milk delivered to your door by a flying robot.

This is not the preface of a science fiction book – it is becoming a reality in many places in the world. In Finland, a special pilot project has been launched in Helsinki that intends to have drones deliver goods and packages of up to 1.5kg within a distance of up to 10km.

Thousands of years ago we would be approaching prophets and asking them to look into the future to help us paint the picture of the significance of all these changes. The technology pace is so fast that it is difficult to predict how the changes will impact our lives, but mostly how they will impact our livelihood and how best we need to be equipped for jobs that not only don’t yet exist, but that we perhaps cannot even imagine.

When ORT was established in 1880, in the midst of the second industrial revolution, the invention of electricity brought about many changes in the way people lived. When electric power expanded into mass production it also changed the work environment. These changes have had implications for the workforce skills, and ORT’s mission of teaching people skills was significant in helping them adapt to the world of work by providing artisanship and vocational skills training.

Now, 139 years later and with operations in more than 30 countries, ORT faces similar challenges.

In the light of the so called fourth industrial revolution there is the understanding that we have to continuously examine the curriculum, pedagogies and methodologies offered by schools, colleges and universities to adopt and prepare this generation for the future workplace.

In the 1990s the internet transformed all industries through communication, commerce and sharing of information. A few years later, artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and automation (robotics) are fast and furious and require us to adapt or be left behind.

Technology is changing the world of work in the way we process information, the way we communicate and the way we share information. There are pros and cons to those changes, but unarguably, it makes our lives easier, cheaper and much more productive.

Digital technologies allow the encoding of analog information into zeros and ones so that computers can store, process and transfer this information. According to The Future of Professions by Richard Susskind, in 2010 only 20 per cent of the world’s information was stored digitally. Today it is 98per cent! And with the shift from print-based information to internet-based information, it further facilitated the creation, access and spread of knowledge. 

The ubiquitous access to professionals and to professional guidance is increasing and provides ample opportunities for both businesses and professionals.

Automation generates anxiety and fear of the society of robots replacing human labor. According to The changing nature of work, a World Development report published by the World Bank Group in 2019, technological progress leads to the direct creation of jobs in the technology sector. Robots are and will be replacing workers, but it is far from clear to what extent. Interestingly, technological change that replaces routine work is estimated to have created more than 23 million jobs across Europe from 1999 to 2016, according to the report.

Technologies bring promise but also possess threats and we need to learn how to maximise the promises that the technologies bring – and minimise the perils of the changes to come.

Alec Ross, author of the Industries of the Future explains that the change driven by digitisation creates efficiencies but everything that we do digitally creates security problems. He calls it the “weaponisation of code”, the most significant development since the missile weaponisation and identifies cyber security know-how as a talent that needs to be developed.

This is why education has to change and adapt to tomorrow’s world. What should our current generation study for the future workplace?

McKinsey’s May 2018 report The Skill Shift Automation and the Future of Workforce indicates skills that will be on the rise and skills that will be shrinking. Physical and manual skills as well as basic cognitive skills will be in less demand, whereas higher cognitive skills, social and emotional skills and technological skills will be high in demand for future jobs.

Therefore, in the same way that any learning curriculum includes reading and writing, so too the basics of computer science have to be incorporated. Coding is becoming the alphabet of how the future will be written.

In a world of zeros and ones where software makes robots so powerful, it is important to ensure we also include emotional intelligence and humanitarianism in the curriculum to create more resilient people. Empowering our youth to not only compete in the world of tomorrow but to become the future leaders.

So here we are, back at home, waking up and ready for our breakfast cereal. But this time the drone delivers the milk before we even open our eyes. Because, hey, IoT (Internet of Things) and Artificial Intelligence already know you are out of milk!

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Sample through to career selection

You found your purpose (Link to post) and have made the decision on the career path to take. What’s next?

It may be wise to ‘sample’ or ‘experiment’ the profession you have chosen to embark on. This may save you time, money and unnecessary discomfort, especially if it takes you through the academic route.

Here are three ways to explore and experience the career you have chosen to take.

1. Take an internship or volunteer as an apprentice in a profession of your choice. Use the time to ask, explore, inquire and experience your selection.
2. Take a MOOC (Massive, Online, Open Courses). Register for one of the MOOC platforms with one or two courses in the field chosen, and start learning. This will give you an in-depth insight into the subject matter and motivation to pursue it further. (Should it convince you away from your selected path, you have saved time and money with registering with a full qualification. In addition, you acquired a skill or knowledge that may be useful in the future.)
   Check out the following MOOC platforms:
   https://www.coursera.org/
   https://www.udemy.com/
3. Join Social Media professional groups of your chosen profession and become a “fly on the wall” gaining insight through their experiences. In the process you may also extend your network and search for future mentors or even employers.

This sampling could be spent during your ‘gap year’ period and make this time a meaningful part of your career selection journey.

Image source: Edsurge

Trust your intuition when choosing a career path

By now, you have adopted a growth mindset (Link Post), know the importance of acquiring broad skills rather than a single skill (Link post) and you may ask yourself what now? I am still confused…

Many books have been written on the power of purpose, (Amazon lists more than 150K of them), the desire to make a difference and live a purposeful life. So why don’t we start the search for our career path combined with our search for purpose?

It is time for deep reflection and working within. The following questions can be asked to help you find your purpose (the WHY for your existence).

1. You are 10 years old. What did you spend most of your time doing? What did you love doing?
2. If you were a character in a Marvel movie. How would you save the world? What will you save the world from?
3. What do people come to you for advice for?
4. In what areas do you feel comfortable to take risks in?
5. What makes you cry? What makes you happy?

Finding the purpose is mostly about how we contribute to the better of other people.

If you find this exercise difficult and not ready for this in-depth questioning. Start with a simple question… What is that you see yourself doing for the rest of your life that will make you jump out of bed every single morning?

We tend to ask what jobs will bring us a good and secured income but forget to trust our intuition regarding our existence in this world.