Tomorrow that Starts Today

Change is the only constant in life. Mankind adapts fastest to change making us the smartest specie on the planet. The biggest technological change of modern times last took place as the First Industrial Revolution that started in 1800s. It changed the way we did things and transformed us from an agrarian society to an industrialized society. With the launch of machines doing jobs like production of textiles, cultivation of crops and transporting goods and people, mankind was freed from performing effort intensive jobs. This provided them opportunities to explore, innovate and achieve new frontiers be it in space, arms race or healthcare. Countries which lead this Revolution are called Developed Countries. Countries which joined the wagon later are, even today, called “Developing”.

We are the cusp of another large-scale evolution that will transform the face of this planet yet again. This is being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We have already witnessed technology permeating into our lives in the subtlest of ways. From driverless cars, humanoids and remote managed space vehicles, we have leveraged automation in all spheres of life. The World Economic Forum predicts that by the year 2022, 37% companies will be using Stationary Robots and 33% companies will be using Non Humanoid Land Robots. This means that within the next 5 years, roughly one-third of industries will have adopted Robotics in some form. The report also indicates that 75 million current job roles may be displaced by the shift in the division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms, while 133 million new job roles may emerge at the same time. Imagine the trend growing into the coming 10 years or 15 years, roughly the time when our children will start looking for jobs.
The speed at which the world is changing makes it extremely difficult to predict, much less plan for the next big thing. Given that most jobs of today will be taken over by machines, will there be any jobs left for our children to perform? History tells us that when machines take over human jobs, it frees humans to perform more complex and innovative jobs. CEO of freelancing website Upwork recently commented that AI and robotics will create more jobs, not mass unemployment — as long as we responsibly guide innovation. While we cannot really predict what the jobs of the future will look like, we can safely assume what kind of skills will be needed for these future jobs. Through these series of blogs, I endeavor to help parents enable their children to be future ready. Stephen Hawking once said “Intelligence is the ability to change.” Through these blog, I hope parents of today will make intelligent choices that will impact the future of their children positively. In the end, I hope that this generation of children will be the conscious creators of the change leading mankind to it’s next level of evolution.