Digital Skills Education – Meet The Pioneers

Digital skills education is very big news. In the September DEA founders call Jay Kubasek had some interesting information to share on the subject. It was scary, exciting, awesome, crucial info. The adjective you pick after looking at the info will soon depend on the level of digital skills education you have. This all ties in with the rapid advance towards singularity:

The Singularity is an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. Ray Kurzweil

Jay was talking about the company’s aim to become a household name in the digital skills education industry. But we are not talking education, as we know it. It not just – pick an education then hope you like the job it can get you. That according to Jay and many others is a dead model. His aim with DEA is to disrupt the current system of education and replace it with one more fit for purpose in a digital world.

The rapid growth of technology had already disrupted many of our traditional industries. Many more will surely follow. Education and health have always been most resistant to disruption but not for much longer. Startup Digital skills education companies like Grovo (with whom DEA recently partnered) are already causing a stir.

Digital Skills Education – A Vast Opportunity

This is probably a good point to share a few stats and quotes from Jay’s broadcast. Pointing to a copy of The Harvard Business Review, he drew attention to an article. The article was entitled “Technology will soon erase Millions of Jobs – could that be a good thing? – The End of Work.

The article draws from a lot of sources. These include a forecast by Oxford University that 50% of all US jobs will be gone in 20 years. So will 80% of GP’s. We will quite simply be able to get the information and services online or via personal technology.

To highlight the hugely reduced need for labour in a digital economy Jay compared Telecom giants AT & T to Google. AT&T are worth an estimated $270 billion and have some 758,000 employees. Google are worth an estimated $300 billion ($30 billion more) but have around 50,000 employees. You can do the maths.

In recent weeks I’ve read statements from Lord Young the UK enterprise minister and Baroness Morgan, chair of the UK digital skills education committee. They are talking the same talk. I’ve read similar articles in Forbes, Entrepreneur and from disruption business model entrepreneurs like Richard Branson.

There is no stopping the way technology is changing and will continue to change our world. It’s the next stage of human evolution. I for one welcome it with open arms and am grateful that visionary’s like Jay Kubassek and business partner Stuart Ross are showing the way.

 It’s Just Evolution

But it’s the nature of the opportunity that digital skills education and singularity offers that excites me most. The possibility of being able to create an income and lifestyle out of more or less anything. Like so much of what is now commonplace – ipads, video phone calls, Facebook etc.  That idea is to me like the science fiction I read as a child. Now its science fact.

Gone are the days when young people have to pick from a limited menu of careers, jobs and income streams. Its more about who you want to be when you grow up than what you want to be. That’s great.

Conservative estimates suggest that by 2020 at least 66% of the global population will be online. That’s around 5 billion new consumers. The opportunity that represents for savvy entrepreneurs armed with relevant digital skills education is truly mind-boggling.

Yet as Jay points out, many people don’t understand this and will potentially watch their careers disappear unaware of the alternatives. That’s one reason we need a modern school for digital skills education. Digital Experts Academy is exactly that. The other is that the next generation won’t be interested in the sorts of careers or businesses that their fathers or grandfathers built (even if they still exist)

For them it really will be “The Internet of everything”. They’ll need digital skills education as much as reading and writing – probably more. But these will be the skills of choice, independence and happiness. That’s to be celebrated more than feared I would say.

Get more information about the Digital Experts Academy by clicking the link below.

By Dave Menzies