Your choice to make
Today many people view the future with fear rather than excitement. To them the world is changing too fast and the future is so unpredictable and they are afraid of any change that may disrupt their lives. When human society evolves from the agriculture to industrial, people understand how factories jobs replaced farming jobs as workers left agriculture areas and move to cities for better jobs. People understand how transportation changes from horse carriages to cars because these changes happened slowly over hundreds of year. But with information technology, changes are happening so fast, in just few years. Without proper knowledge of technology, people only see that changes are disruptive as workers are losing jobs due to robots and automation; People see computers automate office works and everything changes; people see radios are replaced by iPods, wired phones are gone and mobile phones are in; they see traditional jobs are disappearing and they worry that changes could happen to them too.
I have been teaching Information Technology in many countries and have heard people voiced their fears of changes. Factory workers told me about outsourcing trends that factories may close, move to another countries and they may not have jobs. Managers told me that they were worried too because they followed direction from higher levels but did not know what may happen. Executives told me that they were afraid that their company may not be able to compete with large global companies who are coming and capture their local market. An executive admitted: “Things are no longer the same due to globalization and I do not know what to do. There are so many changes.” When I talked to students, they told me that they did not know what to study because things change so fast. Few years ago this field of study was hot with a lot of jobs but now many of its graduates are unemployed. When I talked to parents, they told me that they have sacrificed everything for their children's education but today college degree is no longer a guarantee for job and they do not know what to do. When I talked to teachers, they told me that they cannot improve the training programs as they must follow strict guidelines from the school administration. When I talked to school administration, they told me that they were confused too as they have received conflicting directions from governments so they did not know what to do. A school administrator admitted: “In this confusion situation, the best thing is not doing anything so you do not make mistake. I just wait until things calm down.” It seems that everything is stagnated or frozen in time as people are so afraid of change and no one dare to do anything.
The reason for this confusing situation is all the changes that we are seeing today would normally take hundred years to happen but with the advancement of technology, everything is accelerated and happened in just a few years. That is why most people are confused as changes happen too fast and they do not know what will happen next. With information technology, everything is happening at the speed of the Internet, and each year it keeps getting faster with higher speed, better broadband which creates innovations and more changes. Not long ago, a phone is a device that connects by wires to a telecommunication systems; a computer is a machine sits on top of your desk. Today smartphone is both a wireless phone and a powerful computer that can be put in your pocket wherever you go. If you think smartphone is an “amazing device”, you will be more surprised that soon people may not carry smartphone anymore because it will be shrinking into the size of a watch that they wear in their wrist. (The Galaxy watch or Apple's iWatch) or it is integrated into your eyeglasses (Google Glass) or your clothes (Wearable devices); I am sure more people will be confused about the speed of change in something as simple as the telephone.
However, the next phone is no longer just a smartphone but much more. You just tell it what you want (Voice recognition software) and it will find it for you instead of using keyboard. You can tell it to read the news for you or find the nearest restaurants. It is also a music player as it will store billion of songs in “the cloud” and you can tell it what song you want to hear and it will play for you. It is also a “Doctor in your pocket” as it also measures your blood pressure, your heartbeat, your movement (How many step that you walk per day) and your health indicator (i.e., your blood glucose if you have diabetes; your sign and symptoms of stroke or heart attack before it happens and if needed, it will call hospital and doctor for you etc.). With integrated technology, more things will be added into your smartphone, your eyeglasses, your watch, your clothes etc. at an amazing speed.
Soon technologies will change your house into a “smart-house” where technologies will manage many things. People do not need to lock the door using keys as the door will lock itself and to open, you just tell it: “Open door” and it will open as it recognizes your voice and your face (Voice and image recognition technology). People do not need to turn on the light using light switch anymore as the motion sensor will detect when you walk into the room and turn on the light automatically. If people want to turn on the TV, they can give order and voice recognition software will turn the TV on. People can tell the TV what channel they want to watch. With wireless technologies, many house appliances will communicate with each other and perform certain functions automatically. You can put foods into the pot and put it on top of the kitchen and tell it when you want to cook and when you want to eat. The refrigerators will check foods automatically based on your program and when something is used, it automatically orders what you need and the foods will be delivered to your house at certain time when you are home. You can put your dirty clothes in the washing machine and when it is full, it will wash them for you. People do not have to clean house as robots will do that so people have more time to rest. The house will be kept at the best temperature possible to reduce electricity usage and it will heat or cool the house when the weather or temperature changes and it will do that when people are in the house and turn off when no one is at home to save electricity. With “self-driving cars”, people can tell the car where they want to go then sit in the car to read newspapers or surf the Internet when the car will drive them to the location automatically.
With smart house, smart cars, and smart phones, people must learn how to use technologies instead of afraid of them. Of course, technologies have changed many things and they will continue to impact our lives. Several hundred years ago, farming skills were important during the Agriculture Age, people learned these skills from their family members as school is limited only to a few elites. In the Industrial Age, people need to have basic skills such as read, write and arithmetic to operate machines in the factory so a high school education is sufficient to get a job in factories, college education is only needed for management position. Today as we are entering the “Knowledge Age” which everything is driven by technologies, a college education, especially in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is critical. It is predicted that within the next 20 years, most jobs will required a college education in STEM fields, as brain power is preferred over muscles. A technical knowledge is needed in this fast changing world.
If we look back, in the Agriculture Age the main assets are lands and natural resources. People made wars to grab more lands and better resources. In the Industrial Age, the main assets are capital and energy (Oil, Gas etc.) that run factories and machineries. People made wars to control these resources. For thousands of years, assets are physical things but we are at the door of a new era of “Knowledge Age” where assets are no longer physical but intellectual. Never before in the history human being, people has the opportunity to change things the way they want by the power of their brain. In agriculture society, land owners control most of the assets (Lands). In industrial society, industrialists control most of the assets (Capital, energies) but in this Knowledge Age, it is the people who have the knowledge and skills that control their own destinies. The wars that may happen will be the “War on talents” as countries will try to steal “Talents” from others and countries that have the best education, the best technology will be the dominant force.
To develop such talented assets, a STEM education is needed it should be considered a country's national strategy. In this Knowledge Age, the best defense of a country is no longer capital or military but how much its citizens are well-educated and how many knowledge workers it has. Technologies will dictate what skills will be in high demand and which country has the best knowledge workforce. Today, there is a large gap between those who have technological knowledge and skills and those who do not. Without proper action, many people will NOT make it over this skills gap as they do not realize that STEM education is important and the world is changing fast. There is a direct connection between education and the strength of a country and without proper education strategy, many countries will be left behind in the changing world, they will stay in poverty and experience significant increase in crimes, drug uses, mental health and possible wars.
As we are entering the “Knowledge Age” the question people must ask is: “Are we willing to accept changes as they come or deny and resist them? We cannot go backward; we cannot stand still; we cannot wait as it will be too late. There is a “Personal change” that require a new thinking, a change in your mind set, to look forward to the future with anticipation. By understand how technology can affect your life, your education, your career, your work, your society and its place in the globalized world you can make choice to get educated in technology or not. AND it is your choice to make.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
