After finishing exams I for one believe its massively important to reflect on the academic year just experienced; New subject fields learnt, goals achieved and group projects survided, recently I have been incredibly reflective on the how I’m laying the foundations for my career trajectory and with this; what skills have I picked up and, where can I apply these?

Now about 10 years ago, this question wasn’t very interdisiplinary, a construction worker learns different welding patterns, a design consultant has worked on a new project which has given them a new eye for the upcoming target market, skills valuable in the work place for years to come to be taught to apprenctices and alas, the cycle of the 9-5.

But nowadays it's different

Before I get into how this relates to you and I, first this thought trajectory stems from a book my nan got me last year which I’m only just finding time to read, “50 physics experiments that changed the world”; Now, it reads better than it sounds and it’s one of those books thats reader-friendly, more casual humerous like Horrible Histories (Am I allowed to name drop (copyright? lmao)) this got me thinking, human creativity and curiosity has evolved incredibly from 200bc where Empedocles proved that air is a fundamental state (context relevance to the limited knowledge of the working world back then in Sicily) by shoving a cup under water and proving the bottom stays dry because of the air seal, but also at this point thought he was immortal and jumps into a crater at Mt Etna and dies; though his body not, this timeless tale has certianly lived through the ages so I guess he got what he wanted, but this manor of creativity, and human intuitation and craving for anwsers back then I believed harnessed great growth compared to nowadays, the changing landscape of discoveries means from left right and centre I have those telling me what I’m doing is inefficient, I need to learn this before doing that? Where is the cohesion for the greater good, the ultimate point of this paragraph which I’ve taken too long to explain is, information overload and timidness to follow our own ideas based on the preassure from pre-existing knowledge may outway the benefits of leveraging existing knowledge and the collaberative innovation we find which - sadly - is often woven from covert desires for economic benefit and leverage on all scales.

Back to the skills

So these workers who have developed new skills like me now at the end of the academic year are taking some time for reflection, but now, I have a problem they’re yet to face (they might do in 10 years) my skills now have a Half-life.

Here for Wiki Half-life

The rapid development and innovation means that my skills now in 5 years may be be obsolete in the new working landscape, my 4 year Computer Science degree which would have lasted me a life-time after jumping on the learning curve, now only 20 years give or take ~ before everyone knows the “CPU is the brain of the Computer” or “RAM is volatile”. Though I am fortunate, I grew up in a front-line environment with family who helped guide me to see the benefits and thrills of this degree and I will probably remain in this dicipline forever (My CV is on the front page), but what of those who aren’t?

You! How quickly can you learn?

“You! how quickly can you learn?”
“Very quick indeed?”
“Quicker than me?”
“No”
“You’re hired!”

Now the above conversation provides insights - One, not really related but interesting, is to never outshine the master, he who seems to confident in his abilities will threaten those above him and ultimately lead to his demise. But the second and most important is that to learn quickly - the skill to learn skills; is the skill most important to thrive in this new landscape (If I say skill again its not going to sound like a word - sure there is a word for that), but what is scary is that in conjunction with this, imagine an augmented learning model capable of learning almost anything (apart from the negation language of the Halting problem) is on the uprise, like Jackson storm in Lightning McQueen, ready to take your place and make you obsolete - yes, the AI.

This is natural, this is human created

Everything in the world is natural or human created, at a time in human existance value was in material resource - Raw materials such as Tea and Oil, now a change of landscape due to the transcendment of space-time barriers due to containerization and aviation means that it’s not the raw materials value, it’s the minds that can shape them and utilize them for maximum benefit.

For example a clockmaker, I can make a spoon out of iron and I'd probably have to pay someone to take it lol, but a clockmaker turns this into a balance wheel, to vibrate at a frequency of 28,000 times per hour, costing alot more than my spoon (if you could even call it that), but in 3 years this clock-makers method is 2nd best, a new way of building the balance wheel has come about, the clockmaker must relearn his skills to maintain desirable in the current economy, and worser off an AI has designed new clock designs the clockmaker must now outsmart the smart (or obserevd to be) AI, a seemingly impossible task and alas gives up, wishing he went into Computer Science.

Singapore! Lead the way

This problem of skills having Half-lives has been addressed by Singapore, a HIC in the current developing world, who has summoned the wave of re-skilling which will soon hit the shores of Technological power-house of the USA for instance, Singapore are re-skilling workers and companies to move from fear and pessimism to curiosity and challange acceptance, in singapore strores and retail parks there are skill ambassadors offering inter-dicplinary courses to get involved in the rapidly developing world. Working on these projects and hackathons, Singapore airlines were invited into re-skilling prospects to view new project workers - those who found themselves almost redundant or wanting a career changem, from media writing and construction to media design and cyber-security consultants these hackathons resulted in 80% of members who participated found new jobs and opportunities, and skills to propel them into a new career path.

The importance of cross-domain teaching and first-principle thinking

What is taught in these courses is first-principle problem solving, which unknowingly from these courses was an incredible decision for generalist skill application, applicants were taught to view what the real problem is? How can it be addressed? What's the shortest but most acceptable time to get another tea break (and then one with a biscoff...) being taught to view fresh-perspectives in diciplines where you lack deep subject knowledge is ultimately incredible, and now typing this I realise how it all links:

Mentioned before, the intimidation of not having deep subject knowledge is overcome and exaggerates curiosity and to follow our own ideas

And addressing the problem of homoginity, 5 medical students go through the same 7 years of med school, 5 CS students go through the same course; do they think the same (I'm not a gambling man but I'd almost put money on it), yes, they approach problems similarly, similar knowldge and simliar methodology; This is a problem known as homoginity in the work space. By teaching people from different academic and experienced backgrounds we can overcome this 'Black-box' thinking and flourish in competitive and intuitive ideas, and produce counter-intuitive ideas to those who have had the same experience, but only seem counter-intuitive as they haven't explored different perspectives.

These problems of homoginity are addressed, new perspectives and experience I belive leads to great enjoyment in development.

And another... But this is new topic time

The reverse of brain drain, brain gain? grain brain? I'm confused now.

Brain drain is a coined terminology based on the matter that, LIC's and NEE's (Low income countries, Newly emerging economies) cannot compete with the advanced scientific dominaiton of the worlds HIC (High income countries), LIC's loose prospering talents whom chase the career path in a different coutntry, leaving the original drained of talent.

However, with these re-skilling wave the term 'pessimist aversion' coined by (I love saying coined by Mustafa Suleymen co-founder of DEEPMIND AI) is apparent, big tech companies ignore the worst outcome business cases, pretend the world isn't going through a technological and skill requirment revoloution and focus on the incooperation of AI into there products and turn a blind eye to the changing moral and demographic of the working world, do not realise that the re-skilling of technologies and jobs, with the incooperation of AI learning models becoming open source with an incredible amount of plugins, mean NEE's retain their 'brains', young prospects remain in original working conditions, not only to work for local companies snowballing into higher GDP over time, but this snow-balls into increased opportunity and again another changing work landscape - only this time more physical, as companies are looking to move to NEE's due to the competitive nature of technological advanced countries and the apparent skill-set of NEE'ss and HIC's such as our example Singapore, to lead the way.

Counties maintain their young prospects and therefore gain access to technological advancements previously not seen.

So what does this mean? the publicy available information with transendment of space-time access means that anyone can learn technology skills, such as data-science / product management and digital pioneers, to be re-skilled in this non-exhaustive list in order to, instead of falling down the mountain, snowboard elegantly down the changing work and discovery landscape. Does it mean the skill to learn, and not the skills learn't, but this skill to learn quickly is upmost important in this day and age, with information overload, half-lives and the continuation of changing goals and objectives of business needs, who 5 years ago didn't think management positions required inate ability to work with smart technology and now it's required? Will re-skilling promoted by the Singapore government end up working in cohesion with these business' to aid employment shown in the aviation induistry? Should I feel inadeuqate that someone can do something better than me? Knows how to write better code? Draw better / can write a blog post explaining all of this but alot shorter and alot more funnier? Of course not. If there's one thing to take away, it's that skills can be learn't just as quickly as they can appear; now with petabites of information over the internet and pubilicy availble teaching resources such as the Open University (which I'm currently using to learn Italian). The most important thing is that anyone can learn anything.

Can you conclude already?

To quote Cal Newport, It's those who are the best at what they do, the ones who can work with smart technology, and those with an economical advantage that succeed in this society, I think this essay of a blog post backs this up, but explores the idea what you have learnt in your own fashion is unique and valued, cross-training in new skills is easy, but believing you can is hard, humans wouldn't have got this far without being the best learning entities in the Universe, so use this as motivation, AI in the end may take all of our jobs (The Matrix one being the scariest) but it will sentinet, and smart enough to let us think it hasn't / can't. Hopefully AI will let us be blissfully ignorant, and chase the curiosity that led Empodcles to prove air is a fundamental entity, but hopefully we retain our survivle instint to not jump into an active volano.

To quote Ted Lasso,

Stay curious, not judgemental