Your only alternative is to learn, adjust, and challenge your beliefs about the world and to welcome new possibilities.
We are walking into a new decade where the rate of change has never been this fast, and will never be this slow again. In this new era it is time to acknowledge that in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, much-lauded coding and STEM skills are not enough to keep us—as humans—relevant.
In a recent interview I did on ABC TV, we had a discussion about these changes and the future of STEM education. Sadly, some educators are failing to see and are denying the big wave of robot-driven change. A large proportion of parents and teachers are still focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) as the perfect educational pathway for their children, not seeing that computers and robots will trump our calculating abilities in the future. We are educating our younger generation for jobs that will no longer exist! In this sense, they are failing to see today’s digital disruption as a signal from the future—it is about time for change, and that failing to adapt means endangering our kids' chances of success in Tomorrowland.
*Stay tuned for Megatrends Part 2 where I will illustrate how to become a trend analyst using the STEEP tool, and how to use it for success in Tomorrowland.
Education is the passport to the future. Tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today. Remember: disruption is only disruptive if you are not adaptive.
Keep in mind that change and learning go hand in hand. Learning = Change
As kids, we used to love learning new things. Every day as my son, Lucien, comes home from daycare (or "dagis" as we call it in Sweden), he shows me something new he created or learnt. Unlike many adults, he gets excited by change. Our challenge is to bring back our hunger for learning again!
We should turn away from the old belief that STEM is the only way to future-proof your kids, yourself and your (personal, career, or business) brand. This does not mean we have to throw out the analogue baby with the digital bathwater, but rather that we bring left-brained STEM thinking together with our right-brained thinking—empathy, creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, ethics and emotional intelligence. These traits are directionally relevant for an age where AI will excel at left-brain thinking.
Right brain thinking is a cognitive thinking style that AI will be slower to excel at. The irony in all of this might be that artificial intelligence and machine learning actually gives us as humans the opportunity to tap into our true creative genius and have freedom from menial, robotic labour. We can finally take the robot out of the human! It will give us the possibility to pursue our true humanity and creativity—creativity that the traditional education system has historically ignored.