The Decade of Transformation

The 2020s are the decade where everything is already starting to change dramatically:

While plagues and pandemics have threatened the human race in the past, COVID-19 now has upended the global economy.

Meanwhile, scientists have said that we are at a tipping point with the earth’s ecosystems: We have caused so much ecological destruction, elimination of species, and climate change that we have only a few years to make a dramatic transformation. If we do not, “the earth will be irretrievably mutilated and the prospects for humanity vastly diminished,” according to a statement by the world’s leading scientists, including a majority of the living Nobel Laureates.

And we haven’t even mentioned the dramatic political, social, and racial challenges facing our society. Even education is at risk. The old ways of educating are no longer adequate in a time of exponential change.

Finally, this is a decade when artificial intelligence and exponential technology will completely disrupt life as we know it. Research shows that 77% of Chinese jobs are threatened by automation, as well as nearly half of all jobs in the United States. Around the world, the story is similar. Thus we need to retrain people for a dramatically different future. It’s a time of uncertainty, rapid disruption, and a need for innovation….

In other words, we need the skills for transformation.