Have you Future-Proofed Yourself?
Skills Options over Platforms
See you soon in Jaipur over 5-6-7 August 2022 for the Digital Street Regional Consultation.
More info at the end.
We are usually advised to be master of one but as we enter more fuzzier times, it is imperative that we preserve our options. Options are available to us almost all the times but if we are too specialised then we see them as challenges and at worst as threats. During adversity, having options gives us a unique advantage - The upside is theoretically unlimited and the losses are limited to resources that we may spend to acquire the optionality.
So, go ahead and acquire that digital marketing or data analysis skill or even better dust out the guitar or refresh that blog/Instagram account of yours !
The painting below is an art work by piece of supreme art- Artificial Intelligence. This impressionist style of painting has been generated by DALL-E-2 by OpenAI. This algorithm is a new AI system that can create realistic images and art from a description in natural language.
And am I excited about it? Hell, yeah. I have already used to create an image of my future self if I have to relocate/acquire another skill or setting.
FutureProofing, anyone?
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DTW
During the Week, World Youth Skills Day was celebrated on 15th July. In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly declared 15 July as World Youth Skills Day, to celebrate the strategic importance of equipping young people with skills for employment, decent work, and entrepreneurship.
I have always been a proponent of platforms in bringing the best of the world to large mass and of course skill buildings as a segment is ripe for scale. There are multiple small but significant initiatives which provide platforms to either learn a skill or even teach one. Pandemic and subsequent disruption has also brought out the stark reality that our skill development ecosystem would be jolted to a “New Normal”. And of course, the platforms are going to play an extraordinary role in this transformation. Platform Businesses’ role in this once-in-multi-generation-shift plays out in two ways- First, as Skilling platforms; and Two, as enabling the Skilling ecosystem.
Skilling Platforms- They have seen a resurgence ever since the #LockDown was announced and seem to be broadly divided into two categories. One set of platforms make skilling related content available and are mostly an aggregator of content providers with some amount of their own content. Most of them have relied on gamification and elaborate visuals to keep the audience engaged and the subscription flowing. Second set of platforms in this space are aggregators of trainers or training partners. They have had a decent run because tutors are badly affected during the #Lockdown and were looking for technology solutions. Similarly, they solve the discovery and transaction problems for parents and make the entire process frictionless.
In today’s growing global market, businesses specially MSMEs have an increasing demand for digital expertise. For companies to succeed, they need employees with practical skills and technical knowledge geared to the evolving digital landscape. By providing tools and training programs for small and medium-sized businesses, developers, and journalists, Google India amongst many other tech platforms is helping young Indians make the best use technology for a brighter future.
Content for skill training is driven through free, freemium and paid platforms offering courses of all levels and domains. Recently , we have seen a consolidation in the space with Byju’s making multiple strategic acquisitions across skills, education levels and domains. Their recent acquisition of 33-year-old coaching institute Aakash Educational Services for close to 1 billion dollars cements their presence in test-prep segment thus challenging Unacademy’s status as a leader . Of course, international players like coursera and edx have made college campuses their focus trough their university collaboration programs while YouTube and Wikipedia continue to be favourite source of “free" content. For school education, the government of India has launched DIKSHA, or Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing. This appears to be a super app of school education in India covering content, teachers' training, assessments etc.
Learning Enabling Platforms- We have also seen an uptick in usage of platforms like Zoom, Google Meet etc for skilling during #LockDown and going forward more institutions may continue to use them for non-class hours of engagement. Takshashila, the National Portal for Trainers and Assessors, is an initiative by NSDC under the Skill India Mission and serves as a dedicated online platform for management of Trainers and Assessors. It also provides a list of certified trainers and assessors being trained by Sector Skill Councils across states, sectors and job roles.
University as Learning and Learning Enabling Platform- Universities are uniquely positioned in Covid-19 and could end up either building the rails for transformed education or be derailed. Though there have been sporadic attempts towards Technology enabled education but Covid -19 has forced everybody’s hand. With current #Lockdown disrupting the ongoing academic year, there is a possibility that we might face many more such disruptions to class room based academic activities going forward. Universities are special because they are both content creators as well as distribution channels for quality content. All of us are now more than ever acutely aware of the value of bringing top quality students and trainers with latest technology together.
Reflecting on my current focus. platform and street vendor relationship may be visualised through the lens of Risk mitigation, Income generation, Skill Building and Empowerment. And skill building is an important part of the digital transformation framework.
Skill Building through platforms can help street vendors to improve their business skills, and to help vendors conduct their daily businesses more efficiently. Use of technology in their business processes can help reduce the drudgery associated with many manual processes. For example, Skill India along with Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) 3.0 implemented a skill building program for street vendors on health and safety standards, safety provisions under COVID-19 protocols, effective communication techniques with staff and customers, new-age skills such as digital literacy, financial literacy, digital payments and e-selling.
In our Digital Street initiative, we have documented multiple case studies on skill building for street vendors. To read more on the case studies and photo documentation, please follow a weekly newsletter MoonScapes and MoonShots by Punam Pallavi from Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation who writes on lives and livelihoods of artists and craftsperson.
I have often discussed about the power of “optionality” in career trajectories- limited downside but potentially unlimited upside. Platforms can help us create optionality in career trajectory through learning and networking opportunities. Platforms can potentially help the aspirants solve the long tail problem of matching rare careers to equally rare opportunities.
Some of us are get “Bored” and I think that’s a very dangerous sign. Boredom harms us in two ways- First, it prevents us from finding meaning in a task and Second, it hampers our ability to pay attention. At the very least, you could consider any “boring time” as an opportunity to use your existing skills to contribute to society or your local community and not necessarily as a compulsion to surf Netflix. We have seen some once-in-a-generation fundamental changes in how we live, work and take care of ourselves. There is a greater awareness of what we have and perhaps many of us feel gratitude for what we have been blessed with- love and care of our near and dear ones. Now is the time to develop a daily regimen of activities to leverage on our skills related to work, social and physical aspects.
“So many people walk around with a meaningless life. They seem half-asleep, even when they’re busy doing things they think are important. This is because they’re chasing the wrong things. The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”
-Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom, in which he shares his learnings from his old college sociology professor Morrie Schwartz.
To conclude, the road ahead is little hazy and for some may be even broken in the post-pandemic world. Preparation is the key and nowhere I have learnt it more than in running. A popular adage for runners is that “You earn your medal in the practice; You just go to the start line to collect it'“. From running perspective , every day lost in training requires double the time to recover and get back to the original fitness and efficiency. For people in world of work, please do not let go of your skills and continuous upgradation.
Create #YouVersion2Point0
OTW
Over the Weekend, I was part of 14th Anniversary celebrations of Centre for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (CIE) at IIIT, Hyderabad! It was indeed a pleasure to know that CiE is a journey that started in 2008 and has incubated 400+ startups, with 200 Cr funding raised by these early-stage startups, together created over 2000 jobs. Congratulations to the entire team led by Prof Ramesh Loganathan and my dear friend Anubhav Tiwari.
Anubhav also Heads the Deeptech & Medtech Incubator at CIE, IIIT Hyderabad. Our conversation with Anubhav Tiwari during a recent MountainSpeak- Spaces event was mostly concentrated on Start up ecosystem.You can watch the recording of the interaction with Anubhav Tiwari and Naveen KL by going to the following link- https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WSYLn51_sa4a7tDxCtCHC_Tp8UkwI_FO/view?usp=sharing
One of the key takeaway from the roundtable was the idea to ride the cycle of foolishness and need to invest time/money in “foolishness” both at corporate and individual level. Prof Bhagwan Chowdhry as usual made immense sense when he asked the startups- Industry-Academia to not get disillusioned by grand goals but learn to do their bit and pass on the baton as it happens in a relay.
UpSkill, ReSkill and NewSkill. Let us celebrate #YouVersion2Point0
I Love You
Shailendra
OTM
Opportunities through MountainSpeak are available with Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation, where we are reaching out to experts who can contribute to Digital Street Regional Consultation.
Digital Street aims to develop a framework for facilitating digital transformation of street vendors. The Centre of Excellence for Digital Transformation (CEDT) at IFHE, Hyderabad is proposing to work on a project titled “Digital Street” in collaboration with Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES). This action research project focusing on digital transformation of street vendors in the tourism industry is proposed to be conducted between May 1, 2022, and November 30,2022. Please let us know if you would like to contribute to the project.
We propose to hold more 3-day regional consultations and one national consultation in association with FES India office in multiple tourism circuits:
Golden Triangle- Historical circuit hosted by ICFAI University, Jaipur 5- 6-7 August 2022
Char Dham- Religious circuit hosted by ICFAI University, Dehradun- 14-15-16 October 2022
Kolkata to Shantiniketan - Heritage circuit hosted by IBS Kolkata- TBA
National Consultation on “Digital Transformation of Street Vendors”, IFHE Hyderabad, 11-12 Nov 2022
PLEASE let me know if you would like to contribute.
The likely participants may have experience in digital transformation, informal sector, travel technologies, tourism, street vendor issues amongst others. They may come from government, academics, consulting, corporate, policy making, start ups, non-profit and advocacy groups. I would also request you to also recommend experts and stakeholders for the project.
Please reply to this message with a copy to your recommended guests OR alternatively, fill in the Google Form to help us to contact them directly.
Insightful article at the right time covering the importance of upskilling, the need of using technology across sectors, new government policies and more. Glad to have read it. Thank you Sir!