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Luke Houghton explores the essential skills needed to navigate the uncertainty brought about by digital convergence, a phenomenon central to Industry 4.0.

Image courtesy of interviewee. October 9, 2024

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The speaker reflects on the evolving nature of the workforce and the skills needed in the context of rapid technological advancements, particularly post-COVID. They emphasize a shift from requiring high-level engineering skills to a focus on the integration of technology into daily life, making tools more user-friendly.

The discussion highlights the necessity of creative thinking and reasoning alongside machines, as traditional coding skills become less critical. The speaker notes how technology is increasingly intertwined with our daily decisions and routines, raising the importance of digital literacy and adaptability.

They express concerns about corporate influences on technology access and the potential widening gap between those who have access to training and opportunities versus those who do not. The need for lifelong learning and the ability to leverage new technologies effectively, such as AI and digital tools, is stressed as crucial for future leaders and organizations.

The speaker advocates for educational reforms that teach practical usage of technology from a young age, promoting a mindset of problem-solving rather than mere consumption of technology. They suggest that preparing future generations involves fostering an understanding of technology as a fundamental utility, akin to electricity or water.

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Here are five key points from the video:

1. **Changing Nature of Workforce Skills**: The video emphasizes that the skills needed for the workforce are evolving due to technological advancements, particularly accelerated by the shift to remote work during and after COVID-19. There is a recognition that traditional high-level engineering skills are no longer the sole requirement, highlighting a shift towards more user-friendly and integrative technologies.

2. **Digital Convergence and Integration**: The concept of digital convergence is introduced, indicating that various technologies are merging and becoming easier to use, leading to a quicker adoption cycle. This integration affects daily life, as everyday technologies become tools for data analysis and decision-making, transforming how individuals interact with technology.

3. **Importance of Creative Thinking**: The video stresses the need for creative thinking and reasoning alongside machines rather than traditional programming skills. As technology becomes more accessible and requires less technical expertise, individuals must adapt to leverage these tools effectively for personal and professional growth.

4. **Lifelong Learning and Digital Literacy**: The necessity for continuous learning and digital literacy is emphasized, especially among organizational leaders and employees. The author argues that individuals must develop a mindset of curiosity and adaptability to effectively use emerging technologies, and there's a pressing need to enhance digital literacy in education systems.

5. **Concerns About Inequity and Corporatization**: The video expresses skepticism regarding the equitable access to technology, fearing that the corporatization of digital tools may exacerbate social inequalities. The author advocates for democratizing technology access and skills training, especially for those who may be left behind in the rapidly evolving digital landscape.

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Here are some key quotes from the video that encapsulate the main points discussed:

1. **Changing Nature of Workforce Skills**:
- "Motivation came from some work I've been doing over the past few years, trying to come to grips with the changing nature of the workforce and the skills that are needed."

2. **Impact of Technology and Digital Convergence**:
- "We really were struck with this around this idea of digital convergence... a lot of technologies now sort of merging together and becoming a lot easier to use."

3. **Thinking Differently with Technology**:
- "In a world where technology really isn't the barrier anymore, what do we need to do? ... we need to think differently and sort of learn to think with machines and reason along with them."

4. **Integration with Daily Life**:
- "It's ... how it's all kind of, it's coming together in a way that we are completely integrated with technology now, and I don't think we can go back to the way things used to be."

5. **Creative Thinking and Technology**:
- "The skills we need to adopt to technology are creative thinking... and finding ways to use it and leverage it that creates meaning in our lives."

6. **Shortening the Learning Cycle**:
- "The learning cycle is much shorter... It doesn't take much effort to build a website now that looks halfway decent."

7. **Lifelong Learning**:
- "The people that tend to be really good at [technology] are already moving and listening to what's happening in the market... that's the lifelong learning piece."

8. **Concerns about Accessibility and Equality**:
- "I don't think it's gonna be as democratic as people think... people that don't get that exposure to it will end up being left behind."

9. **Digital Literacy in Education**:
- "We were amazed by the lack of digital literacy... that needs to be explored and dug into further."

10. **Vision for the Future of Technology**:
- "I'd like to see a more open sort of discussion about that... how we can embed these skills into the future."

These quotes reflect the themes of technology integration, the necessity for creative thinking in using technology, the importance of lifelong learning, concerns about societal impacts, and the need for improved digital literacy education.

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Motivation came from some work I've been doing over the

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past few years, trying to come to grips with

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the changing nature of, of the workforce

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and the skills that are needed.

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Uh, really it came from a couple

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of research projects I'd been involved in and noticing that

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because of the changes in technology since Covid moving

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to remote work and things like that, a lot of the,

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the things that I was familiar with, the technologies

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that I grew up with, like my first, degree, was sort

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of in information systems and information technology.

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It kind of, made me realize that, that the, i the ideas

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around you need this coding mentality

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or you need some kind of high level of engineering skill

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to be proficient is changing.

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We really were struck with this around this idea of digital

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convergence, when we were

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working together on this piece.

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And, part of that came down to the fact that a lot

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of technologies now sort of merging together

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and becoming a lot easier to use.

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And that what that's leading to, I think is the

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adoption cycle and the, the ability to sort

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of pick 'em up and use them quickly.

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Like the phone, like this for example.

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It's just you're clicking a few buttons,

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whereas a few years ago to do something like this was quite

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complicated and what that means.

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And the second half of that was really around, well,

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in a world where technology really isn't the barrier

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anymore, what do we need to do?

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And it's as becoming evident now that we need

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to think differently and sort of learn to think

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with machines and, and reason along with them.

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And that's really where it sort of came from.

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The best way that I've heard it described is by a colleague

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of mine, Jen Loy, she was the co-author on the paper.

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Um, it's more about the integration

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of technologies in our daily life.

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Like if you look at the latest at the time

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of this recording update, the Apple iOS, it's,

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it is sort of now becoming part of our lives.

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They want to measure our heart rate.

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They want to tell us where to eat.

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The map told me the other day, where are you going?

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And it's like, you're going in this

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direction, you should stop here.

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And it's that kind of, the way that it's kind

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of impinging on our lives, that kind of thing.

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And how it's all kind of, it's coming together in a way

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that it's, we are completely integrated with technology now,

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and I don't think we can go back to,

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the way things used to be.

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Where unless you want to live without it,

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it'd be very, very hard.

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I imagine. I think the skills we need to adopt

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to technology are creative thinking

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and finding ways to use it

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and leverage it that creates meaning in our lives.

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I think the idea that we can make these code,

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like code the machines to do what we want is long gone.

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Now. I don't think that's sort of happening,

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like when you were, you look at open AI, for example.

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Um, you, you can still do things with it,

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but what I've learned is that you need that thinking to sort

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of bring it into the machine

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and bring it into the landscape of technology.

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And I think that's the big change.

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Before it was, okay, I have to code all these apps

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to get them to do what I want.

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There's a handful of people now that are good at that,

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and the rest of us sort of learn to adopt

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That, sorry, adapt to that technology and use it.

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The learning cycle is much shorter.

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So the, the amount that we have to think now

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to use it is much higher.

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Like for example, here in Queensland,

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they've just bought in this law saying things

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that you say on social media as an employer, as an employee

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can be used, to take you to court.

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So that's a big shift.

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And that means, okay, now I'm thinking about

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how I'm using Facebook, I'm thinking about

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how I'm going on the internet.

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It's, it adds a layer

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of complexity there to the way we think.

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And because of the way that AI is starting

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to drive all these technologies, it's, it's kind of,

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it means that you are thinking creatively,

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you've gotta have some kind of reasoning behind what you do.

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You've gotta think a little bit more about ways to

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use it to get a result.

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And I think that's the shift I've noticed.

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Um, I'm just talking to a colleague this morning about this.

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He's an AI expert

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and he was telling me

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that in the time he's been in the field, which is 30

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or 40 years, it's gone from a bunch

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of people sitting in a room and coding and,

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and building neural nets

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and all that stuff to, we can just now type in questions

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and ask it questions and it can solve reasonably complex

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problems, you know, assisting our thinking.

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So I think that's the big shift, the being creative

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with technology is trying to figure, figure out how these

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systems build themselves and how they are created.

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So a lot of them are built on this idea

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of being able to ask them questions.

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Like the open AI example.

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You have to think about ways to sort of use it

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and make it do something that you want it to do

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that's a little bit different than traditional technology

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like programming and things like that.

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One of the things we noticed when we're putting together

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this article was, well, now

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that technology is a little bit easier to use, how do we

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leverage it more effectively?

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And one example was, I was doing a survey recently

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and it was a longitudinal survey,

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so it was over 10 years or something like that.

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And I was training the machine to analyze the data

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and do stuff I used to do on, on my statistical tools.

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And it was just say, okay, here's the first set of data.

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I want you to remember that now here comes the next set,

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the next set, the next set.

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And the results it produced were amazing.

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I'd never seen anything that could, do data analysis

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that quickly, but at the same time, it's,

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it's accelerating at a pace.

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I don't think that we realize

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how quickly it's converging around us.

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Like it's, it's in all of our apps.

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Um, and it's, it's surrounding us

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and it's, it's kind of creating this atmosphere that, well,

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if we learn how to train it

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and get it to do what we want, it could be useful.

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But on the other hand, if it becomes something

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that just sort of moves in that direction of bias

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and creates those political problems, it may be a bit

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of a challenge for us.

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But either way, I've noticed that it's sort

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of impressing itself on our lives from all these kind

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of different angles at the moment where we used

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to get caught up on the technical barriers.

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Like, it doesn't take much effort to build a website now

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that looks halfway decent.

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So you might think, okay,

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I've got this purpose-built technology,

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it's achieving a goal for me.

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And what I've noticed that's changed,

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especially when we were putting this a chapter together, was

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there's always going to be these disruptions.

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There's always gonna be things that sort of knock us off

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and think, we're going in this direction now.

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Disruptive technologies and the like.

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I think what I've noticed is the people that tend

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to be really good at it are already moving

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and listening to what's happening in the market,

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like organizational leaders that are listening

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and they're, they're following those trends.

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They always seem to be ahead,

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but they're, they're really listening to what the tech,

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where the technology trends are heading.

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And they're ahead of the curve that way

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because they're already in the market listening to the,

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to the movement of that.

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And that's the lifelong learning piece.

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Like I think as you're going through

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and as you're learning, you integrate these technologies.

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And I think that shift in the last two

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to three years has enabled people in,

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especially in leadership positions to sort of look at it

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and think, okay, how can I use AI to take over some

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of these mundane tasks,

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but so I can focus on being a better leader

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and maybe driving some change

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or, you know, working on a, a, a plausible vision

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or giving somebody some kind of direction that makes sense.

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And I think in terms of the ambiguity piece, like bringing,

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those skills together, I think that's

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what it can help us do the most is if we have a question

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or we're curious about something,

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and curiosity being one of the skills we can go

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to the technology we've got

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and start to break that question down into parts

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and sort of use it to build models

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to help us learn our way through that.

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But without that mindset of wanting to learn

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and needing to learn, you will just ask it

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stupid questions really.

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And you'll just get stupid answers back

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because it, it, it isn't a thinking machine as such.

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It doesn't reason, but we reason with it

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and it helps us figure out our questions a bit better.

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And I think that's where I've seen people that I've watched

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that fly ahead with the use of ai,

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then they know how to leverage it.

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Or any kind of technology like A CRM for example,

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those kinds of technologies that have large

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automation cycles built into them.

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It's not enough to know what it does.

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You have to know how to leverage it.

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And I think that lifelong learning part is,

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is very important in that regard.

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I'm a very skeptical person by nature,

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and I, I don't think it's gonna be

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as democratic as people think.

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And my biggest concern with that is that you're seeing parts

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of the things that used to be free.

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Now going back to being corporatized

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and I think as if there's a business model attached

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to something, the skeptic in me says, well,

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they're gonna make money from it.

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So they'll figure out ways like Facebook has the way

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that they leverage their AI to deliver ads to people

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and they make billions out of that.

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Um, I don't think you'll see that.

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And I think that's what I'm concerned about the most is

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as people move along in their lives

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and technology gets leveraged by people

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who have the education to be around it,

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They will benefit from it.

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But I think people that don't get that exposure

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to it will end up being left behind.

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And I was really dismayed by recent comments.

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Um, I, I can't remember

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who said it might have been Elon Musk

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or one of those people that was saying

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that they need universal basic income

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to cover that group of people.

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But I don't think that's enough.

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I think, I think the way that they're kind

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of presenting it is the, the social elite get access to this

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and everyone else misses out.

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But I think there's a big opportunity then there for us

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to make it democratic.

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But that will require a lot of effort and, and influence.

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And the way that you look at it now, it's in fancy cars,

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it's in technology that people can afford to pay for,

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but it's not necessarily in things like the $200 computer

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that people can use and if they can use it.

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My, my problem with it is, is it truly democratic?

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Is it, is it, does it mean they can access

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and have the same level of education

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as someone in Australia, for example?

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And I don't think that's the case.

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I think we need to train people more in skills uplift

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in digital technology.

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I think things like how do you use it?

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What kind of thinking do you need to use this technology

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to become effective at what you do?

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Uh, and I think that would be a really good piece

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of research to continue on from this.

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'cause that's where this all sort of started.

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And when we were doing this research originally we were

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thinking, we were talking to people

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that were fairly senior in the organization

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that we were looking into,

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and we were amazed by the, the lack

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of digital literacy there.

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And that coupled

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with this skills thing is what's extended it.

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It used to be about, you can use a computer,

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you can use Word or Excel or Zoom or whatever it might be.

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But on the whole, I think that needs to be explored

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and dug into further, like, what skills do you need to

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to make sure that this works for you, especially from

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that organizational level.

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The other thing that I'd like to see is a more,

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even sort of skills uplift for everyday people that are,

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that are using this technology.

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Like one very novel use of the Metaverse, which is,

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a technology that gets a short mention in this paper

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has been in nursing homes

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and stuff to, to reduce things like isolation.

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So there's a lot of opportunities there.

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And I think whatever problem we can conceive of,

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if we think about, okay, how, what kind of tech stack

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or technology stack could we build

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to create a solution to that?

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I think we're in an age where we can conceivably do

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that at a fairly low cost,

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but it remains to be seen whether or not that will happen.

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Um, I'd like to think that it would,

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and I think the combination of technology

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and skills would lead to better solutions for people.

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And we're in an age where people can pick it

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up and use it a lot easier.

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But I wonder if overall there's not going to be some kind

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of downside to that if we have too much

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corporatization of the technology.

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And I'd like to see a more open sort of discussion about

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that and, and how we can embed these skills into the future.

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Because I think without that,

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I don't think it will have the kind

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of impact that we would hope

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it would. I've been thinking about

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That for a long time in terms of those skills

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and how they're, they're brought in.

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I think we need to change the way we think about

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how we teach those things.

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Um, I've been in the university sector for 20 years

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and we used to have these classes a long time ago

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where people would sit in front of computers

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and they'd learn the basic Microsoft office

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or whatever it was back then.

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And I think it's shifted.

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And I remember earlier this year,

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I was at a government forum

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and we were just sitting at tables asking people questions

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about what are your biggest challenges?

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And it was digital literacy.

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And I'm looking at these people thinking, you know,

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you're the brains trust of this, you know, whole area.

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And, but then when I asked the follow up questions about

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that, you could see that there's a failing in the university

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system to embed those skills in from the beginning.

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Uh, I know that the schools are trying to do that,

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but the way that they approach it is they approach it

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through the STEM angle or,

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or the science technology engineering mindset type stuff.

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And they, they kind of bring in this thing

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where you've gotta do this

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coding thing, you've gotta do that.

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But I think actually cre helping people to,

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to be in immersive digital environments

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and the best is, is, is one of the answers.

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And I think the best example I saw of

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that was at a local school here,

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the former principal had this AI room

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where people could go in and ask questions

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and then build solutions on the fly.

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And I think that's the direction we need to go in.

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I, I don't think we should put a computer in the hands

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of every child or anything like that necessarily,

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but I think that skill to know how to use it

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and leverage it should be introduced responsibly at an

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early enough age.

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And maybe because my kids have grown up now,

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and when they were growing up

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because we were, I was a TMA tech person, we,

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we gave them access to technology and,

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and now they're kind of proficient in that.

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But at the same time, I wonder if the next generation

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after them, are they gonna have immersive headsets?

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Are they gonna be living in a constant metaverse

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or persistent metaverse?

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What's that going to look like?

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And I think giving them the ability to see it

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as something like electricity, like water, I think

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that's the way we need to do it.

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And as early as possible, say, here's some tools

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that you can use to solve problems, not necessarily

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become addicted to this

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or, you know, use the iPad for the wrong reasons.

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And I think that kind of thing is where we need to start

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and as early as possible so that by the time they come

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to us, a university, we can assume a level of knowledge

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and then help them to understand, this is,

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this is one way you can carve out a productive living

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for yourself.

Adapting to the Evolving Workforce and Technology

00:00:00 - Motivation came from some work I've been doing over the past few years, trying to come to grips with the changing nature of, of the workforce and the skills that are needed. really it came from a couple of research projects I'd been involved in and noticing that because of the changes in technology since Covid moving to remote work and things like that, a lot of the, the things that I was familiar with, the technologies that I grew up with, like my first, degree, was sort of in information systems and information technology. It kind of, made me realize that, that the, i the ideas

00:00:35 - or you need some kind of high level of engineering skill to be proficient is changing. We really were struck with this around this idea of digital convergence, when we were working together on this piece. And, part of that came down to the fact that a lot of technologies now sort of merging together and becoming a lot easier to use. And that what that's leading to, I think is the adoption cycle and the, the ability to sort of pick 'em up and use them quickly. Like the phone, like this for example. It's just you're clicking a few buttons,

00:01:06 - complicated and what that means. And the second half of that was really around, well, in a world where technology really isn't the barrier anymore, what do we need to do? And it's as becoming evident now that we need to think differently and sort of learn to think with machines and, and reason along with them. And that's really where it sort of came from. The best way that I've heard it described is by a colleague of mine, Jen Loy, she was the co-author on the paper. it's more about the integration of technologies in our daily life.

Integration of Technology in Daily Life

00:01:37 - of this recording update, the Apple iOS, it's, it is sort of now becoming part of our lives. They want to measure our heart rate. They want to tell us where to eat. The map told me the other day, where are you going? And it's like, you're going in this direction, you should stop here. And it's that kind of, the way that it's kind of impinging on our lives, that kind of thing. And how it's all kind of, it's coming together in a way that it's, we are completely integrated with technology now, and I don't think we can go back to, the way things used to be.

00:02:08 - it'd be very, very hard. I imagine. I think the skills we need to adopt to technology are creative thinking and finding ways to use it and leverage it that creates meaning in our lives. I think the idea that we can make these code, like code the machines to do what we want is long gone. Now. I don't think that's sort of happening, like when you were, you look at open AI, for example. you, you can still do things with it,

00:02:40 - of bring it into the machine and bring it into the landscape of technology. And I think that's the big change. Before it was, okay, I have to code all these apps to get them to do what I want. There's a handful of people now that are good at that, and the rest of us sort of learn to adopt That, sorry, adapt to that technology and use it. The learning cycle is much shorter. So the, the amount that we have to think now

Navigating New Legalities and Creative Thinking in the Digital Age

00:03:09 - Like for example, here in Queensland, they've just bought in this law saying things that you say on social media as an employer, as an employee can be used, to take you to court. So that's a big shift. And that means, okay, now I'm thinking about how I'm using Facebook, I'm thinking about how I'm going on the internet. It's, it adds a layer of complexity there to the way we think. And because of the way that AI is starting to drive all these technologies, it's, it's kind of, it means that you are thinking creatively,

00:03:43 - You've gotta think a little bit more about ways to use it to get a result. And I think that's the shift I've noticed. I'm just talking to a colleague this morning about this. He's an AI expert and he was telling me that in the time he's been in the field, which is 30 or 40 years, it's gone from a bunch of people sitting in a room and coding and, and building neural nets and all that stuff to, we can just now type in questions and ask it questions and it can solve reasonably complex

00:04:13 - So I think that's the big shift, the being creative with technology is trying to figure, figure out how these systems build themselves and how they are created. So a lot of them are built on this idea of being able to ask them questions. Like the open AI example. You have to think about ways to sort of use it and make it do something that you want it to do that's a little bit different than traditional technology like programming and things like that.

Leveraging Evolving Technology for Effective Data Analysis

00:04:43 - this article was, well, now that technology is a little bit easier to use, how do we leverage it more effectively? And one example was, I was doing a survey recently and it was a longitudinal survey, so it was over 10 years or something like that. And I was training the machine to analyze the data and do stuff I used to do on, on my statistical tools. And it was just say, okay, here's the first set of data. I want you to remember that now here comes the next set, the next set, the next set.

00:05:14 - I'd never seen anything that could, do data analysis that quickly, but at the same time, it's, it's accelerating at a pace. I don't think that we realize how quickly it's converging around us. Like it's, it's in all of our apps. and it's, it's surrounding us and it's, it's kind of creating this atmosphere that, well, if we learn how to train it and get it to do what we want, it could be useful. But on the other hand, if it becomes something that just sort of moves in that direction of bias

00:05:44 - of a challenge for us. But either way, I've noticed that it's sort of impressing itself on our lives from all these kind of different angles at the moment where we used to get caught up on the technical barriers. Like, it doesn't take much effort to build a website now that looks halfway decent. So you might think, okay, I've got this purpose-built technology, it's achieving a goal for me. And what I've noticed that's changed, especially when we were putting this a chapter together, was there's always going to be these disruptions. There's always gonna be things that sort of knock us off

Embracing Disruptive Technologies: The Role of Lifelong Learning in Leadership

00:06:15 - Disruptive technologies and the like. I think what I've noticed is the people that tend to be really good at it are already moving and listening to what's happening in the market, like organizational leaders that are listening and they're, they're following those trends. They always seem to be ahead, but they're, they're really listening to what the tech, where the technology trends are heading. And they're ahead of the curve that way because they're already in the market listening to the, to the movement of that. And that's the lifelong learning piece. Like I think as you're going through

00:06:48 - And I think that shift in the last two to three years has enabled people in, especially in leadership positions to sort of look at it and think, okay, how can I use AI to take over some of these mundane tasks, but so I can focus on being a better leader and maybe driving some change or, you know, working on a, a, a plausible vision or giving somebody some kind of direction that makes sense. And I think in terms of the ambiguity piece, like bringing, those skills together, I think that's

00:07:20 - or we're curious about something, and curiosity being one of the skills we can go to the technology we've got and start to break that question down into parts and sort of use it to build models to help us learn our way through that. But without that mindset of wanting to learn and needing to learn, you will just ask it stupid questions really. And you'll just get stupid answers back because it, it, it isn't a thinking machine as such. It doesn't reason, but we reason with it and it helps us figure out our questions a bit better.

Navigating the Challenges of Technology Access and Lifelong Learning

00:07:53 - that fly ahead with the use of ai, then they know how to leverage it. Or any kind of technology like A CRM for example, those kinds of technologies that have large automation cycles built into them. It's not enough to know what it does. You have to know how to leverage it. And I think that lifelong learning part is, is very important in that regard. I'm a very skeptical person by nature, and I, I don't think it's gonna be as democratic as people think.

00:08:24 - of the things that used to be free. Now going back to being corporatized and I think as if there's a business model attached to something, the skeptic in me says, well, they're gonna make money from it. So they'll figure out ways like Facebook has the way that they leverage their AI to deliver ads to people and they make billions out of that. I don't think you'll see that. And I think that's what I'm concerned about the most is as people move along in their lives

00:08:53 - who have the education to be around it, They will benefit from it. But I think people that don't get that exposure to it will end up being left behind. And I was really dismayed by recent comments. I, I can't remember who said it might have been Elon Musk or one of those people that was saying that they need universal basic income to cover that group of people. But I don't think that's enough. I think, I think the way that they're kind of presenting it is the, the social elite get access to this

Democratizing Technology and Digital Literacy

00:09:23 - But I think there's a big opportunity then there for us to make it democratic. But that will require a lot of effort and, and influence. And the way that you look at it now, it's in fancy cars, it's in technology that people can afford to pay for, but it's not necessarily in things like the $200 computer that people can use and if they can use it. My, my problem with it is, is it truly democratic? Is it, is it, does it mean they can access and have the same level of education as someone in Australia, for example? And I don't think that's the case.

00:09:56 - in digital technology. I think things like how do you use it? What kind of thinking do you need to use this technology to become effective at what you do? and I think that would be a really good piece of research to continue on from this. 'cause that's where this all sort of started. And when we were doing this research originally we were thinking, we were talking to people that were fairly senior in the organization that we were looking into, and we were amazed by the, the lack of digital literacy there. And that coupled

00:10:26 - It used to be about, you can use a computer, you can use Word or Excel or Zoom or whatever it might be. But on the whole, I think that needs to be explored and dug into further, like, what skills do you need to to make sure that this works for you, especially from that organizational level. The other thing that I'd like to see is a more, even sort of skills uplift for everyday people that are, that are using this technology. Like one very novel use of the Metaverse, which is,

Addressing Isolation and Digital Literacy Through Technology

00:10:59 - has been in nursing homes and stuff to, to reduce things like isolation. So there's a lot of opportunities there. And I think whatever problem we can conceive of, if we think about, okay, how, what kind of tech stack or technology stack could we build to create a solution to that? I think we're in an age where we can conceivably do that at a fairly low cost, but it remains to be seen whether or not that will happen. I'd like to think that it would, and I think the combination of technology

00:11:29 - And we're in an age where people can pick it up and use it a lot easier. But I wonder if overall there's not going to be some kind of downside to that if we have too much corporatization of the technology. And I'd like to see a more open sort of discussion about that and, and how we can embed these skills into the future. Because I think without that, I don't think it will have the kind of impact that we would hope it would. I've been thinking about That for a long time in terms of those skills and how they're, they're brought in.

00:11:59 - how we teach those things. I've been in the university sector for 20 years and we used to have these classes a long time ago where people would sit in front of computers and they'd learn the basic Microsoft office or whatever it was back then. And I think it's shifted. And I remember earlier this year, I was at a government forum and we were just sitting at tables asking people questions about what are your biggest challenges? And it was digital literacy. And I'm looking at these people thinking, you know, you're the brains trust of this, you know, whole area.

Rethinking Digital Literacy in Education

00:12:32 - that, you could see that there's a failing in the university system to embed those skills in from the beginning. I know that the schools are trying to do that, but the way that they approach it is they approach it through the STEM angle or, or the science technology engineering mindset type stuff. And they, they kind of bring in this thing where you've gotta do this coding thing, you've gotta do that. But I think actually cre helping people to, to be in immersive digital environments and the best is, is, is one of the answers. And I think the best example I saw of

00:13:04 - the former principal had this AI room where people could go in and ask questions and then build solutions on the fly. And I think that's the direction we need to go in. I, I don't think we should put a computer in the hands of every child or anything like that necessarily, but I think that skill to know how to use it and leverage it should be introduced responsibly at an early enough age. And maybe because my kids have grown up now, and when they were growing up because we were, I was a TMA tech person, we,

00:13:35 - and now they're kind of proficient in that. But at the same time, I wonder if the next generation after them, are they gonna have immersive headsets? Are they gonna be living in a constant metaverse or persistent metaverse? What's that going to look like? And I think giving them the ability to see it as something like electricity, like water, I think that's the way we need to do it. And as early as possible, say, here's some tools that you can use to solve problems, not necessarily become addicted to this or, you know, use the iPad for the wrong reasons.

Building Productive Futures Through Early Education

00:14:20 - and as early as possible so that by the time they come to us, a university, we can assume a level of knowledge and then help them to understand, this is, this is one way you can carve out a productive living for yourself.

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