Readings

DR. KATHERINE BIHR Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion at the ASU+GSV Summit, representing TGR Foundation and the work we... Read More

A CONVERGENCE DIALOGUE FOR ACTION TO INCREASE ECONOMIC MOBILITY ______________________________ WASHINGTON – Individual stakeholders from a unique coalition of corporate giants, worker advocates, community organizations,... Read More

New global program designed to introduce disconnected youth to hospitality, provide needed employment opportunities October 01, 2018 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time CHICAGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Hyatt Hotels... Read More

Report on Expert Convenings for a New Work + Learn Future What’s the connection between a non-profit foresight organization and a private foundation dedicated to... Read More

Several billions of dollars have been invested into increasing the number of students who complete high school and pursue a college education in the United States. While high school completion rates have improved, college completion rates have not, and yet the number of jobs requiring a college degree continues to rise. At Innovate+Educate, we have conducted research that indicates the United States is at full capacity for college completion— at least the way higher education is currently delivered. Every American who has the academic ability, financial stability, and time to complete a college degree is doing so. This leaves the 35 million incumbent workers who attempted college, but left without a degree, as the largest – and perhaps only – latent talent reservoir available for vacant bachelor’s degree-level jobs. Employers hold the key: about seventy percent (24.5 million) of these 35 million workers found college-level coursework completely doable, but had to abandon their degree in order to hold down their current jobs. The only way to expand our employability pipeline will be to access this cohort, which means rethinking the utility of a college degree as a hiring and advancement filter. Inevitably, the degree-before-work paradigm will need to give way. Skills-based hiring, competency-based credentialing, earn and learn pathways, formal apprenticeships, and other innovations that rely on demonstrated performance rather than degree proxy signaling for advancement, will become integral to national economic expansion. An work+learn economy will result.

IFTF and Google Cloud Create Cutting Edge Guide to Building a Resilient 21st Century Company Institute for the Future and Google Cloud released a guide to help companies of all sizes move their organizations into the digital age by taking a holistic and systematic view of the impact of emerging technologies on the future of work, organizations and IT leadership. The guide, in the form of a map called “Beyond Organizations: New Models for Getting Things Done,” is part of a research series exploring how new ways of working will change the pace of business and innovation, empowering organizations to be more diverse, dynamic and distributed.

You’ll face hurricane-strength forces: Crazy new forms of money and crazy new ways to earn it. Genetic reinvention and artificially intelligent everything. Bots swarming your online parties and millions of people moving from one place in the world to another. Actual real hurricanes that leave entire regions in ruin, with new rules for rebuilding cities, states, and nations. You’ve got to get fit if you’re going to wrangle these forces, and this is your Future Fit workout. It’s a training circuit that will build 15 super skills you’re going to want to master to prepare for just about anything the future has to offer. You’ll see the effects right away: More confidence in your own future and the choices you’re making today. More options for making a living and making life what you want it to be. More connections with folks who can and will help you through thick and thin. More adventure in learning and working everyday.

Until recently we thought of working, learning, and living as separate experiences. We spent most of our childhood in school and our adult years working or looking for work, and then we squeezed our personal lives into whatever brief windows of time were left. We usually “did education” early in life, stopping when we reached the limits of our resources, whether they were time, money, or institutional offerings, and at that point were categorized as unskilled, blue collar, white collar, and professional workers. Such categories, in turn, circumscribed the kinds of lives to which we could aspire. Today, an emerging learning economy is changing all that as learning becomes a currency for everything we do. Unbounded learning resources are creating opportunities for continuous growth, opening the future to new possibilities and aspirations. Blends of digital and physical experiences are creating platforms that make it possible to integrate learning into workflows that are blurring the boundaries between life and work and between learning and living. These platforms provide continuous actionable feedback that helps us adapt and shape our environments to our personal needs, passions, and life circumstances. They use computer algorithms—intelligent programs—to match us to people and opportunities that can help us find ever more value and meaning. They support collaborative networks that can change the way we think about the problems we face and help us find workable solutions at work, at home, and in our communities. In the process, we build our individual working-learning-living brands: the distinctive roles we’ll play in a fast-paced economy of change. These flows, resources, platforms, and programs comprise the innovation zones of the future. How we invest in them and build them out are the keys to a vibrant new economy founded on a continuous cycle of learning and earning.

The numbers are striking. In 2010, 288 of the richest people in the world collectively owned as much as the poorest 3.5 billion. Less than a decade later, just eight people owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population. In this moment of massive wealth inequality, we urgently need to develop a new model for society to deliver both social and economic equity. The answer may be Universal Basic Assets (UBA)—a fundamental set of resources that we should strive to give everyone access to. This map is a guide to designing this new economic model.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is interacting with other socio-economic and demographic factors to create a perfect storm of business model change in all industries, resulting... Read More