Skills for the Digital Age

Simon Schmidli

Founder of Edutainity

upskill

Most of you have probably heard it already, we need to prepare for the future and upskill ourselves to be ready for a different way of working. Economist Klaus Schwab, the Founder of the World Economic Forum was speaking of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. What does it mean? Well, quite simply it means that tech is taking over.

Let’s just think about robotics, AI, 5G, 3D printing, blockchain among others. All these technologies are going to fundamentally change our lives in the next decades. In addition, globalisation, demographic shifts, climate change, and others will have a dramatic impact on work and on the skills required to operate in this environment. Technology will make things possible that we have not even thought of just 10 years ago.

The WEF assumes that at least 54 percent of employees will require significant re- and upskilling in the next years.

Skills that continue to be in even higher demand are analytical thinking, innovation as well as active learning and learning strategies. In addition, of course, technology design and programming as well as various forms of technology will be in high demand. Next to technological skills, however, more “human-like” skills, sometimes also referred to as soft skills, become important. Why? Quite simply, the computer can get to a certain point but there will always be a human component, and this is where our strength lies.

Being creative, showing initiative, thinking critically, being able to negotiate and persuade some, flexibility, complex problem solving, emotional intelligence, leadership and service outcome will increasingly be in demand.

It’s those skills that edutainity will focus on by enabling people to learn at their own convenience and upskill themselves continuously towards the future. Machines will never remove the need for humans in most industries and therefore we need to continue to learn and prepare for different jobs. Nobody knows how exactly the world will look like in the next ten to twenty years but staying true to the concept of lifelong learning will keep you on track.

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