Thank you. So your excellency and dear colleagues,
I'm going to talk a little bit about the externalities,
that are heading high education now
We all heard about artificial intelligence,
We all heard about robotics we all heard about intelligent systems
Now we are expecting that in the next 15 years
45% of the jobs we know are going to disappear
Numerous studies have documented that
Oxford University, Mckinsey, Accenture
Many many outfits have been discussing that
If you think that the jobs that are going to disappear
are the muscle jobs, think again
Many jobs that we know, the white-collar jobs
Involving financial analysis, accounting etc, a long list
are bound to be hit, are bound to disappear in the next 15 years
This is a major challenge for higher education
because and... on one side
many jobs are disappearing many jobs we know
on the other side also it is the case
that we have a constant increase of new jobs
that we didn't know of.
Data visualization, forensic technology
Now we are hearing more about data analysis becoming established
But I didn't give you a long list
Now why is this a challenge for higher education?
Because no one is going to be set for life
It's going... you know it used to be the case that if I go to college,
I have a degree, or if I have two degrees including a masters
or even that I have 3 degrees, I'm set for life
That's no longer the case
So what we have to do in higher education is prepare and educate
our students for an ever-changing life
How are we going to do it? Well...
When we talk about learners I want to introduce a distinction
between two types of learners
The learners who are short on experience long on time
those are essentially the undergraduate students that you know
And the second group is the group containing
including the people who are long on experience, short of time
And I'm going to talk about the adults who are in the workplace
and I will come to that, second
so let me start with undergraduate education
let me start with those learners who are short on experience long on time
What do we do with them? Essentially in many systems
certainly in the United States we give them what is called a general education
namely that we say that every student who is leaving college
Will have to understand a certain number of themes
But those themes are really the liberal arts
And now, what I would like to do is introduce a new concept
the concept of new literacy
Every student graduating today has to master this new literacy
What do I mean by that?
They have to understand
technology, have a tech literacy
They have to understand data literacy
There is a difference between the 2 Tech literacies
to understand how information science is impacting everything we do
Data literacy is big data, data analytics
that is, you know, changing the way also we look at every field
We also have to understand what I call the humanics
The humanics being essentially what makes us
humans and distinguish us from machines
And you are going to see that this line is tenuous
But when I talk about humanics I'm talking about the general trades
that will allow us to empathize with others
Communication, to communicate with others
in biggest forms, orally, written, etc. that's the tradition liberal arts
This is not going to make us robot proof
We call that the goal is to make us robot proof
So, what I'm saying is that the first step
is that the whole general education has to be thought to include Tech literacy
to include data literacy, to include humanics
But in addition to that
what under goods us what makes us really human
what makes us much more robot proof
is the ability to create
create new concepts, to create new ideas
to be intrapreneurial, to understand different cultures
to be global
Those cognitive capacities are essential
and higher education has not focused on them
So, the two layers that we need are what I call the new literacy
that includes the Tech literacy, data literacy, humanics
on top of that you need to focus on what makes us unique
as human beings... Creativity intrapreneurship, cultural agility
innovation, systems thinking, we haven't done that
Now once we know what we need to do
the question is how are we going to be able to achieve it?
We are going to be able to achieve it by bringing an experiential component
to the learning
Higher education has created a dichotomy
between learning to live, and learning to earn a living
essentially we created a campus, a beautiful campus
and then we more or less
said you are going to spend 3 years, 4 years, whatever it is...
in this beautiful campus, every once in a while we'll send you away
And with that experiential learning what you are really doing
is building a different model of Education
you are integrating the classroom experience with the world experience
So, how to do it?
We have a model at our university, we have been doing that for 100 years
where the students go on long term internship for 6 months each
called co-op, and before they go we prepare them to understand
the companies that are going to apply to
Nothing is given, they have to apply they have to succeed
And yes they are paid by the company its not a charity that the company is doing
Once they are there they have a mentor in the company
and we're in constant touch with them
integrating what they are doing as a learning experience
and when they come back the integration is fully executed
Now why is this a powerful model?
Let's look at it from the point of view of the learner
when the learner understands what she or he is good at
what he or she is not good at what they like and what they don't like
The employer also understands
whether this person fits the company and the environment
at the same time from the point of view of
learning when the students come back after an experience like that
they lived it, they lived the company
They lived what happens in Shanghai or what happens in Wall Street or cape town
They can question the traditional learning that is being done
When they go overseas, when they go all over the world
and incidentally our students go to a 140 countries
Doing their co-ops, and we have 3000 companies and NGOs working with us
They come back transformed and they transform us, that's the learning
So essentially it gives them the ability to refine their knowledge
question their knowledge and constantly evolve with it
that's the beauty of experiential learning, and by the way, at the end
they are job ready, and that's why the companies
offer them jobs even before they finish
This means that we have been in tune with what companies need or looking for
because the day we don't do that, they don't get the co-ops or the jobs
So essentially what I said so far is rather simple
We have an AI revolution, 45% of the jobs are going to disappear
There are new jobs coming
and essentially we have to get the learners to be ready to learn for life
No one it is going to be set for life.
And let me move now to the second set
When I started I said to you there are 2 sets of learners
Those who are short on experience long on time, undergraduate students
and the learners who are long on experience short of time
Those are the people in the workplace.
Machines are getting smarter and smarter
No one is set for life as I said before
that means that every person will have to retool
every person will have to be in a lifelong learning environment
now that's a major opportunity and a major challenge for universities, why?
Because the universities that we know so far all over the world
including the universities we have here
including the universities in the United States
have focused essentially in terms of learning
on undergraduate learning plus research
and PhDs, but we haven't integrated lifelong learning
Yes some universities dabble with that
but it's really a peripheral endeavor
Now imagine the situation that your jobs are going to be obsolete
If your jobs are going to be obsolete you'll have to retool
otherwise you're not going to have jobs.
And who is going to provide that?
Who is going to train you in all these new jobs that are mushrooming now?
Universities have given up on that.
that's dangerous because you are seeing more and more companies
creating what, universities in their own situation
In their own myths.
Now that's our failure, the failure of high education
because this is not the core business of companies
The core business of companies is to do what they have to do.
produce value-added goods or whatever it is
so we are seeing a mushrooming all over the world
including the United States of companies setting up
internal universities, why? Because this gap is not met by high education
So, higher education is facing a challenge
we can become like the railway industry
The railway industry in the United States said,
we are not in the transportation business
we are in the railway business
and what did they miss? Their line revolution
The same thing may happen if we continue things ignore lifelong learning
But lifelong learning is not easily integrated with our own model
Why? Because our own model assumes
that you have the learner in a full-time situation.
When people have jobs they cannot afford
to go back and spend 2 years in universities
as a matter of fact, I can tell you in my own university
which we used to train people from IBM for instance
and many other companies, you know, I can name hundreds of companies
They used to send us for 2 years their executives
They don't want to do that anymore. Why? Because they don't have the time
and when they send them they lose them because they go elsewhere
So what do we have to do? If lifelong learning is with us
and is needed, we have to rethink how we provide our learning
The notion of degree, a full-time degree
that will take 2 years has to be rethought
The notion of certificate has to be introduced.
I will get you to start working with me for maybe 6 weeks
to understand the beginning of data literacy
I will give you a certificate then little by little
if you want to go beyond that, you can take another certificate
and stack the second and the third and the fourth
till you reach a degree
that's an enormous change for high education, because high education
started by saying I am building a degree
and then you have to come and you have to invest 2 years with me
We don't have time to do it
We in the workforce we don't have time to do it
so lifelong learning has to change radically.
The way we think about it, it has to be integrated
in our model in high education, second it is going to force us to think
the way we do our work, to rethink the notion of degree
it also is going to force us to start thinking about
not providing our learning for people
in the workforce only on campus
As a matter of fact, for IBM we are doing, we are providing
the learning for them in a hybrid way naming online, on site
in India in China, in the Philippine and in the United States.
Similarly with Amazon we do that
we do that with the EMC etc.
So the university has to come to you, you don't have to come to university
And I will mention the following
universities are not geared to providing this
and if we don't do it, we are going to see more and more proliferation
of second-class operations
for profit operations doing that
and we are going, I'm talking at least in the United States
and we are going to see a proliferation of companies
especially the large companies starting their own universities internally.
That's our failure, the failure of high education.
So what you see in front of us is the following picture,
we are at a turning point, at a major turning point
Artificial intelligence is destroying jobs, creating jobs.
The implications for high education are profound
and we have to rethink our models.
And that's what my university, Northeastern university has been doing
we have set up a whole number of campuses all over the United States
and in Canada for professionals.
We are embedded in companies
but also we are here for individuals
but it forced us to rethink the day we do our business
So, a robot proof education is needed
and I'm going to show you now this video
about the strategic plan of our university
that has been built for the next 10 years on essentially this point.
Thank you very much. Please.