Education is changing faster than ever, with new ideas, technologies and demands constantly emerging. As Artificial Intelligence continues to automate aspects and functions of various jobs, or even eliminate traditional roles altogether, different subjects and skills will be in demand or even become essential in the performance of future jobs.

The digital economy will create more roles that require a combination of technical, interpersonal and creative skills
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Identifying what these are, and making them accessible to students – regardless of their social and economic background or geographical location – is a monumental challenge that can only be overcome by making full use of technology.

Creative Skills for a Digital Economy

The digital economy will create more roles that require a combination of technical, interpersonal and creative skills, and building the foundation for this begins with studying a very broad range of subjects in school.

Breadth of understanding is often as important as depth of knowledge
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The argument for broadening the scope of what merits inclusion in the curriculum is simple yet compelling; nowadays most of us have access to the world’s knowledge via the supercomputers – i.e. smartphones – that we carry around in our pockets, yet these mountains of data are not valuable in isolation. It is the ability to creatively and proactively extract actionable insights from data – and to execute effectively on these – that will become invaluable in the digital economy jobs being created now, and for those which will be created in future.

“Breadth of understanding is often as important as depth of knowledge. Business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs now need fluency in a broad range of subjects, and these go far beyond what has traditionally been taught at school and universities,” says John Ingram, CEO of Pamoja Education.

In order to thrive in the digital age, he argues that workers must equip themselves with a range of modular skills including areas such as coding and engineering, all the way through to language skills, sales, networking, marketing, design, and even social media influencing. This is effectively the only approach which makes sense in a world where project-based work will become ever more prevalent, and clearly delineated job titles are likely to be eliminated altogether. Fluid and flexible skillsets, coupled with an equally elastic approach, will be essential for the professional survival kit of professionals entering the workforce in the next few decades.

If we equip our young people with modular skills we will maximize their chances of not only weathering the inevitable disruption, but of thriving in it.
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Tackling the Opportunity Gap

Paradoxically, however, in spite of the fact that creative skills are an essential part of building the next generation’s professional profile, arts and creative subjects seem to be on the decline. A Recent Edge Foundation report found that in the last decade GCSE entries in creative subjects have fallen by 20%. This might be due to the additional budgetary and logistics pressures faced by schools in countries like the United Kingdom, where teacher numbers are dwindling. Schools faced with difficult choices often have to prioritize their resources, and the number and quality of specialist subjects on offer is often the first casualty. Yet Ingram believes that this is an area where technology can play an important role, helping to bridge the gap between limited resources on the one hand, and greater learning demands on the other:

“There’s no substitute for classroom teaching, but while schools struggle to find the staff to teach a full range of subjects, we should be exploring the technologies that can allow students to take courses they’d otherwise have to miss out on. Even when schools are well resourced and offer a good range of subjects, there are still often more niche subjects such as Film Studies they cannot cover which could otherwise allow students to follow their passions, stretch themselves, and grow as individuals.”Ingram explains.

So even though most education experts agree that face-to-face teaching cannot – and should not – be altogether replaced by tech-based alternatives, it is literally impossible to square the that circle without integrating technology into long-term strategies for delivering learning outcomes. In practice this means that while it isn’t feasible for schools to maintain the capacity on site to deliver every niche subject that students might want to study, they will now be able to do so.

It is the ability to creatively and proactively extract actionable insights from data – and to execute effectively on these – that will become invaluable in the digital economy
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Making Teaching Resources Go Further with Technology

“Having offered IB courses online to schools across the world for over a decade,we’ve found that online learning can broaden pupils’ digital and collaborative skills, encouraging them to carry out research, co-ordinate group work and discuss material in an online community,” continues Ingram.

Indeed, research has shown that these features benefit students’ wider education by encouraging them to take ownership of their learning process, helping prepare them for their university careers where they’ll need to study independently. That proactive mind-set then ideally carries through to the approach that those pupils will adopt in the workplace, collating and leveraging information towards accomplishing strategic tasks, projects and goals.

The next few years will mark an exponential disruptive shift towards automation, and that will present a threat to new and existing professionals across a wide range of industries
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At its heart, education is about opportunity, and online learning can potentially make crucial opportunities available to those who would not normally have access to them. This is why it is crucial that educators see technology not as a threat, but as a tool for enhancing their own pedagogical capacity.

The next few years will mark an exponential disruptive shift towards automation, and that will present a threat to new and existing professionals across a wide range of industries. Yet if we equip our young people with modular skills by enabling them to pursue a broad range of creative interests from early schooling onwards, we will maximize their chances of not only weathering this inevitable disruption, but of thriving in it.

At its heart, education is about opportunity, and online learning can potentially make crucial opportunities available to those who would not normally have access to them
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This article was originally published on IDG

Can creative #edtech help #teachers prepare #students for jobs in the #digital #economy? https://t.co/sASWwWjBrw @alicebonasio @IDGCN @CIOonline

— IDG Contributor Network (@IDGCN) May 3, 2019

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.

The post Broadening Access to the Jobs of the Future appeared first on Tech Trends.

Fail fast culture is essential to creativity and innovation, but what does good, creative failure actually look like?

One of the most overused and misunderstood doctrines in tech is “Fail Fast” or some variation thereof. We have got used to celebrating a culture where it is permissible for most start-ups to flounder in their first year (or even a few months) of poking their head over the parapet, and for entrepreneurs to squander millions on the road to that unicorn valuation.

Fail Fast is one of the most overused and misunderstood doctrines in tech
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We have got used to celebrating a culture where it is permissible for most start-ups to flounder in their first year
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Innovation does require the space for creative people to take risks and try new things, and it stands to reason that a good proportion of those ideas won’t work the first time around.

Like fat, not all failure is created equal, however. There’s definitely such a thing as “failing well”, just as eating olive oil, salmon and avocado is healthier than scoffing down a deep-fried Mars bar.

Innovation does require the space for creative people to take risks and try new things, and it stands to reason that a good proportion of those ideas won’t work the first time around
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Like fat, not all failure is created equal
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The idea behind good failure is to learn quickly from your mistakes and incrementally modify your approach until you perfect an idea enough to reach the tipping point of success – or run out of money – whichever comes first.

But what do good and bad failing cultures actually look like in the real world? Funnily enough, the best examples I’ve seen recently have come from two UK conferences, neither of which was hosted by a technology company.

The idea behind good failure is to learn quickly from your mistakes and incrementally modify your approach until you perfect an idea enough to reach the tipping point of success – or run out of money
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Failing the smart way

It might come as a shock to those locked inside the Silicon Valley bubble, but the concept of embracing failure isn’t a tech industry invention at all. It has, in fact, long been recognized as an essential part of the creative process for many industries. And UK cosmetics company Lush shows how that can work even in a, extremely competitive retail environment.

At their creative showcase in Manchester last week, Lush displayed a dizzying array of products – many of which weren’t yet available in shops – but that is nothing new in itself. From its earliest days, their R&D process involved constantly trying out new formulations, often discontinuing other products to make room for them in their shops. Customer feedback was always greedily gathered, and sales figures pored over, so that products that failed to hit the sweet spot were quickly withdrawn to make room for the next wave, and so on.

It might come as a shock to those locked inside the Silicon Valley bubble, but the concept of embracing failure isn’t a tech industry invention at all
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Over the years, that has seen the company build up an extremely loyal customer base which appreciates the fact that Lush tangibly listens to them and values their input (hundreds of punters in Manchester queued up for hours and paid over £20 a ticket for the privilege to attend the showcase, which would be a tall ask for any other retailer to say the least) and also grow into an international chain which appeals to an increasingly broader audience keen on ethical, animal-friendly and plastic free cosmetic alternatives.

Which is why, although they’re relative newcomers to the digital space, Lush sounds credible when it talks about its technology roadmap, currently being developed under the leadership of Jack Constantine, son of Founders Mark and Mo.

although they’re relative newcomers to the digital space, Lush sounds credible when it talks about its technology roadmap
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If there was ever a case study of turning failure around and coming out smelling of roses (and many other delicious things) it’s probably Lush
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From AI and image recognition to help customers navigate their sometimes bewildering products, to 3D Printing and VR/AR tech that will allow you to virtually try on their new makeup range, it all makes sense in the context of their ever-evolving approach. It’s an ethos of failure-as-a-stepping-stone-to-success that filters from the top.

Before starting Lush, Founder Mark Constantine went bankrupt with a venture called Cosmetics to Go, which drew in the punters, but ultimately could not make the numbers work to turn enough of a profit. He lost everything and went back to the drawing board with those hard lessons learned. That experience was later enshrined in the Lush Manifesto (which they printed for years on every shopping bag) which stated their fundamental belief in the right to lose everything and start again. If there was ever a case study of turning failure around and coming out smelling of roses (and many other delicious things) it’s probably Lush.

And the other way…

At the Conservative Party conference, the Chancellor of the Exchequer repeated the party line that unspecified technology can somehow magically provide a solution to fundamental and complex political problems
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In contrast, for a glaring example of what embracing failure in a counter-productive and reckless way looks like, we need look no further than the on-going Brexit saga, and a very different gathering happening this week in the UK.

At the Conservative Party conference, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (for those not familiar with UK politics, this is the man who is basically in charge of running the country’s economy) repeated the party line that unspecified “technology” (possibly Blockchain?) can somehow magically provide a solution to fundamental and complex political problems, including the extremely thorny issue of free movement across the Irish border.

For a glaring example of what embracing failure in a counter-productive and reckless way looks like, we need look no further than the Brexit saga
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Now, some might generously argue that this figure-it-out-as-we-go-along and hope for the best determination to press on with Brexit is akin to the gospel of Zuckerberg, who has done rather well for himself in moving fast and breaking things (such as democracy). Yet the really scary thing is, even Facebook seems to have a more coherent strategy for where they’re headed than the UK government at this stage.

Constructively using failure to innovate is like feeling your way around a room in the dark. The idea is to gradually build up a mental map of where obstacles and dangers might lie as you bump into them, until you find a path through.

Constructively using failure to innovate is like feeling your way around a room in the dark
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What Brexiteers are doing at the moment, however, amounts to having a map of that dark room which clearly shows a cliff and deliberately choosing to ignore it, all the while insisting that the only way forward is to run towards said cliff at full speed and with a jolly heart.

A culture of failure is in essence a culture of learning, and learning has nothing to do with stubbornly choosing to ignore facts. On the contrary, it requires the humility to recognize your mistakes and pivot accordingly. Sadly, there seems little chance of that at this point, and we’re all probably be saddled with the costly consequences of their disastrous failure for years to come. It’s a sad state of affairs when the hippies making the giant bath bombs are the sensible ones you wish were in charge.

A culture of failure is in essence a culture of learning, and learning has nothing to do with stubbornly choosing to ignore facts
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This article was originally published on The Next Web

The art of failing well https://t.co/OazzzZWFDE

— TNW Contributors (@TNWcontributors) October 3, 2018

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Rinse and Repeat appeared first on Tech Trends.

We’re heading to Manchester for the nicest-smelling gig in the technology calendar.

We really enjoy Lush’s soapbox activism at Tech Trends, so we were glad to be invited to come back to the company’s creative showcase, which this year takes place in Manchester.

A vibrant, varied and interactive event where bath bombs launch activism and where creativity can set you free
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If you’re wondering what a naked cosmetics company has to do with technology, take a look at our previous articles where we delved into how they not only used data and 3D printing in their product-making, but have been championing digital rights and using digital tech to advance their overall mission under the leadership of Chief Digital Officer Jack Constantine.

#bathart is about more than aesthetics. Beneath the bubbles, there’s a whole world of passions, ethics, inspiration and meaning to explore
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Check out the full agenda here, but here are some of the highlights we’re looking forward to:

Mark Constantine talks about the Secret Lush Cosmetics Masterplan

Whatever the event, when Mark takes to the stage his ramblings are almost as legendary as his colourful shirts. He’s famous for never sticking to a script – let alone a time slot. But this time it’s different. This time it’s personal. This time he has a plan. The Secret Lush Cosmetics Master Plan to be specific. Join him as he discusses his three-point plan to take over the world, one naked, solid product at a time, and how each and every Lush staff member can make it happen.

Events organisers regret that they cannot take responsibility for unauthorised rambles
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Ending Animal Testing

The Lush Prize is a major initiative aiming to bring forward the day when safety testing takes place without the use of animals. The focus of the prize is to put pressure on corporations’ who toxicity test on animals for consumer products and ingredients. Join previous winners of the Lush Prize, along with a member of the Lush Prize management committee, and be part of a conversation about the wealth of testing options available to us today and the value of the Lush Prize project.

Think Tank: What is beauty in the age of Instagram?

Social media. It gets the blame for everything, including our increasing obsession with perfection; the perfect life, the perfect clothes, the perfect face. But our relationship with beauty goes back far further than our Instagram feeds – think movie stars, Barbie dolls, royalty and goddesses. In this frank Think Tank, we give you the opportunity to examine our relationship with beauty. What is it? Does it exist? How do we redefine it? And can social media be a tool to help us on our way? Join Umber Ghauri , Kelechi Okafor, and Jay Fletcher as they help facilitate a group discussion on how we can reclaim ‘beauty’ for everyone.

Come on in and join us as we make bath masterpieces like never before
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“Alexa, Where have all the women gone?”

There is currently a higher percentage of women in the antiquated House of Lords, than there are registered female owners of emerging tech companies in the UK. Join Catherine Allen, and guests as they discuss how and why we are falling short when it comes to gender representation in the tech industry, and how we can encourage more women into tech.

Lush Giving & Regeneration

If you’ve ever wanted to know more about Lush Giving, now’s your chance. To help create a world that works for every being, Lush counts on the generosity of customers, founders and staff to fund grassroots groups that are actively trying to stop violence against people, the environment and animals, as well as those who are developing innovative and regenerative alternatives in their areas. Join us as we celebrate the projects we have funded in the past, the diversity and reach of our global giving and the evolution of some of our funds. Learn more about Re:Fund, the next stage of Slush and the Flight Tax that replaces Carbon Tax. Take a deeper dive into the three areas that Re:Fund spans: Displacement & Disaster, Permaculture & Agroecology, Rewilding & Biodiversity. Need a break? The Spring Prize Lounge is here to offer you a little rest and regeneration.

Fun House

Welcome to the house of fun. If your #BathArt rivals Picasso, and you dream in 4D, then the Fun House is the place to be. An experiential adventure playground that’ll ignite your senses, head here for an immersion in extraordinary. We guarantee you aren’t ready for this jelly…

This is a ticket to other-worldly wonders and underground campaigns. After this there is no turning back
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#Lushmood Space

How do you want to feel today? No, really! Head to the Lush Mood Space and be immersed in a multi-sensory dreamscape that’ll give you the time and space to transform your state of mind. Choose from four states of mind to gain what you really need when you really need it.

Road to Pelindaba

The Lush Showcase marks the launch of Lush co founder Mark Constantine’s biography, written by his lifelong friend Jeff Osment. This immersive installation lets you jump straight into the pages of the book, as well as the giving you the opportunity to explore how Jeff researched and wrote Dear John: The Road to Pelindaba.

Digital Ethics

Is our addiction to technology causing global destruction? As an increasingly digital society it is vital that we acknowledge the sociological and environmental issues that are fuelled by the unnecessary – yet seemingly unavoidable – upgrade cycle of smartphones. The Digital Ethics space will seek to educate our audience on the smartphone industry’s multiple malpractices, whilst highlighting the individuals and organisations fighting for a fairer future.

If you want complacency, turn back
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When? Sunday 23rd and Monday 24th September 2018, 10:00 – 19:00

Where? Manchester Central, Windmill St, Manchester M2 3GX

How Much? If you fancy joining the fun, tickets are priced at a rather reasonable £20 for adults or £7 for children and can be purchased here

What to expect:

• Innovative digital solutions
• A first look at new products
• Discussion, debate, activism and action on topics spanning human rights, animal rights, and the environment
• Immersive Lush Spa experiences
• Talks from inspirational guest speakers
• Live music from interesting and talented folks
• Hands-on opportunities to make Lush products and find out more about how ingredients are sourced

If you support the status quo, run and hide
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For all the latest keep an eye on our @techtrends_tech Twitter feed and feel free to say hello using the hashtags #LushShowcase #LushDigital and #Techforgood

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Tech Trends at #LushShowcase 2018 appeared first on Tech Trends.

We are getting to a tipping point where the convergence of Artificial Intelligence and Immersive Technologies will transform the way we teach and learn beyond recognition. What does this mean for educators, and the rest of us?

“It seems to me that it is through this machine that for the first time we will be able to have a one-to-one relationship between information source and information consumer.”

These are the eerily prophetic words of the late Science Fiction author and futurist visionary Isaac Asimov, long before Google became a part of our lexicon.

“In the old days people would hire a tutor for their children and they’d adapt their teaching to the tastes and abilities of their students. But how many people could afford to hire a pedagogue? Most children went uneducated, and the only way to educate the masses was to have one teacher for a great many students, and to organize this they followed a curriculum. So we either had a one-to-one relationship for the few or a one-to-many relationship for the many, but now, there’s a possibility of a one-to-one relationship for the many. Everyone can have a teacher in the form of the gathered knowledge of the human species.”

Asimov’s tantalizing promise of scaling one-to-one instruction would, quite literally, give students the best of all worlds.

Now let’s take this one step further, and imagine teaching a class with hundreds of students, yet being able to pay perfect attention to each one, detecting the slightest hint of confusion and projecting the appropriate reaction accordingly. This would give teachers super-powers they could not dream of leveraging in normal classroom environment.

Imagine teaching a class with hundreds of students, yet being able to pay perfect attention to each one, detecting the slightest hint of confusion and projecting the appropriate reaction accordingly
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That scenario might actually be much closer than we might think, with the advent of immersive technologies that integrate with Artificial Intelligence (AI). Since Virtual Reality (VR) relies on motion capture to work, it already has the inbuilt mechanisms capable of capturing and interpreting body language to create a “digital footprint” of each user.

The next step then is to use AI and machine learning to “teach” systems to filter, adapt and personalize interactions accordingly. It would be the ultimate fulfilment of Asimov’s vision, and something that leading academics in this space have long predicted.

“VR is the most psychologically powerful medium in history,” says Jeremy Bailenson, Communications Professor at Stanford University. In his recently published book Experience on Demand, Bailenson recounts how, although he’s been studying VR and its practical applications since the 1990’s, he is often taken aback by how much more impactful it is compared to other media, particularly where it is applied to learning, which led him to confidently assert that “almost any skill can be improved by virtual instruction.”

In his study of transformed social interaction Bailenson investigated how this could work in practice: “Unlike telephone conversations and video-conferences, interactants in virtual environments have the ability to systematically filter the physical appearance and behavioral actions of their avatars in the eyes of their conversational partners, amplifying or suppressing features and nonverbal signals in real time for strategic purposes. These transformations can have a drastic impact on interactants’ persuasive and instructional abilities.” In other words, the amount of engagement that a teacher’s avatar had with its virtual students had demonstrable impact on their engagement – and in their learning.

When VR becomes more accessible and affordable, distance learning could be the medium’s most important use case
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The reason which makes VR such an effective and impactful learning tool is that it allows learners to achieve what is known as psychological presence. This essentially means that when we enter a virtual environment, we believe we are present, in spite of our conscious brains telling us that this is indeed a simulation. An important element in achieving such psychological presence is the concept of embodied cognition, which tells us that people absorb information better when performing actions themselves – rather than watching others do so or hearing/reading about them.

“Embodied cognition acknowledges that the mind and body are agents working together to make meaning of our experiences. It’s the idea that our mind alone does not dictate our worldview but instead that our cognition is shaped by the relationship between our mind and our body to inform and navigate our world, make meaning from our environments, and ultimately to result in learning,” explains educational and developmental psychologist Lindsay Portnoy.

Emerging research on VR indicate that the environment is a powerful tool from which we can create meaningful experiences that can effect great changes in our ability to perceive and understand the world around us. One study demonstrated that immersive VR provides better learning of physical movements than a two-dimensional video, and researchers from the University of Chicago found that simple gesturing in elementary students could potentially change and improve their knowledge. Current research by Disney, on the other hand, shows how VR is fast becoming seamless enough to enable it to replicate and synchronize with physical world behaviours such as catching a ball.

The reason which makes VR such an effective and impactful learning tool is that it allows learners to achieve psychological presence
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The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning technology will enable such datasets to be leveraged in a responsive and contextual way. This combination of AI and immersive capabilities means that future learning environments will become increasingly personalized, adapting to the individual needs of each user in real-time by analysing their “digital footprint” data.

“I’m reminded of an article I read about a father who felt “super human” while using his Amazon Echo. He and his kids loved interacting with the speaker and found the ability to call Ubers, order pizza and play music to be truly empowering and immersive – it really felt like they were interacting with an actual person,” says Ryan Andal, president and co-founder at Secret Location, who says he’s felt the same “super human” effect while using VR: “When I imagine how many jobs will be lost through automation and AI, I’m encouraged by how VR can combine with AR to allow us to be ‘super human’ and decrease knowledge gaps, learning curves and barriers for collaboration. VR will essentially allow declining markets to rejuvenate much faster than normal because of how powerful it can be as an educational and training tool.”

Andal believes that when VR becomes more accessible and affordable, distance learning could be the medium’s most important use case, opening the doors to spreading education – in its broadest possible sense – into areas typically shut out from it.

“We often think of education in the traditional sense – children in a classroom – but I believe VR is best used for training and learning new skills or trades. In that sense, VR is a complete overhaul of what’s possible! It eliminates the need for expensive materials to practice on and can put students in an array of situations that cannot normally be simulated for training purposes. VR means students will get that coveted “real-life work” experience sooner than usual.”

We are, in fact, already seeing such practical training applications emerging in a broad range of areas. The U.S. alpine team recently turned to VR to allow American racers to memorize the hill and take hundreds of virtual runs down a fast, tricky course in preparation for the 2018 Winter Olympics. They are the first known Olympic team in the world to utilize virtual reality in their training.

Troy Taylor, high performance director for U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association, believes giving a racer the ability to experience the course in VR multiple times ahead of the games gives his team a crucial competitive advantage. STRIVR, the company which developed the simulation, has been working for many years with various sports outfits such as the NFL and NBA to improve athlete’s performance through virtual training. This has been so effective, in fact that some players reported having flashbacks to games they’d only experienced in VR.

Immersive Tech eliminates the need for expensive materials to practice on and can put students in an array of situations that cannot normally be simulated for training purposes
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Walmart is also leveraging this to train its employees following a successful pilot program last year. The company is also working with STRIVR to incorporate VR more widely in its training. The goal, STRIVR CEO Derek Belch told The Verge in a recent interview, is to put employees in scenarios that would be inconvenient to physically re-create — like dealing with spills, or preparing for a Black Friday shopping spree.

“We’re using computer vision to map scenes, so we literally know exactly where someone’s looking,” says Belch. “Wearers might look around an environment and find the spill, for example, then answer a multiple-choice question about what effect it could have on the store,” he explains.

The global EdTech industry is set to grow to an estimated $252 billion by 2020, and VR is expected to capture a large proportion of that booming market. The combination of ideological and commercial incentives will therefore likely lead to accelerated development of applications and capabilities that will empower teachers and learners like never before.

The Global Education and Skills Forum will be hosting an Immersive Learning Showcase and series of insightful discussions on the 17th and 18th March 2018
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Where the Internet has made great strides towards democratizing knowledge, VR will democratize experiences. Immersive technologies represent a revolution in the way we transmit knowledge and will shape how we learn and conduct business more collaboratively in a globalized, boundaryless world.

The global EdTech industry is set to grow to an estimated $252 billion by 2020, and VR is expected to capture a large proportion of that booming market
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The implications of this are profound according to Bailenson: “I firmly believe that for people who love to learn, the future is going to be filled with thrilling educational experiences,” he concludes.

For those interested in exploring the potential of Immersive Technologies in Learning, the Global Education and Skills Forum will be hosting an Immersive Learning Showcase and series of insightful discussions on the 17^th and 18^th March 2018. GESF 2018 is an initiative of the Varkey Foundation to improve standards of education for underprivileged children around the world.

Where the Internet has made great strides towards democratizing knowledge, VR will democratize experiences
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This article was originally published on ERP in News

Thanks for the mention! smartntx: RT @alicebonasio: Rise of the Virtual Super-Teacher https://t.co/kGj0kdX2At via @erpinnews

— ERPINNEWS (@erpinnews) March 12, 2018

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

 

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter

The post How VR and AI Will Supercharge Learning appeared first on Tech Trends.

Welcome to our first reviews post of the new year, and true to form, we pretty much have a gadget for everything. Enjoy!

Zeiss VR ONE Plus Headset

Zeiss is famous for pushing the boundaries of optical excellence and their stills cameras are legendary. They now created a Virtual Reality headset that provides a very comfortable experience (especially for glasses wearers like myself) and great imagery for a reasonable price. The VR ONE Plus is well designed with ventilation ports to prevent fogging and easy access to the headphone jack.

The VR ONE Plus is well designed with ventilation ports to prevent fogging and easy access to the headphone jack
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Any smartphone with a screen size between 4.7” and 5.5” will fit and the expandable handset tray works well and fits nicely into the side of the headset and it all comes apart for cleaning those greasy lenses. I tested it with the budget Honor 7X, a great phone but not the most powerful and the screen is only 1080p but the results were OK. The headset boasts an ”eye-box” that claims to remove the need to make any mechanical lens adjustments during your experience. I am not sure exactly what this is but my screen was certainly in focus during testing, so it worked.

You can use the VR ONE Plus with or without a head strap, but it is a very comfortable and sturdy strap if you do choose to use it. The tinted visor on the front of the headset is enabled for Augmented Reality apps. I couldn’t test this but the visor does leave the camera unobscured so I will chase down a more powerful AR-capable phone and update you. You can choose content from hundreds of different VR apps, games and experiences available through the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. The big names are all supported –  Within, Jaunt VR, NYTVR and Arte360 as well as VR games and even FPV controller apps for radio controlled vehicles.

Overall it’s a sturdy and useful headset, is smartphone brand agnostic and was easy and comfortable to use. The Zeiss VR ONE Plus was also well made and lacks those dangerously sharp, unfinished plastic edges that are the curse of cheaply moulded headsets and have previously opened a capillary or two of this unsuspecting reviewer.

RRP: £69.99

Apricorn Aegis Secure Key 3z – USB 3 Flash Drive

RRP: From £70

Cue CleverBot

It has long been a dream to own a ‘living breathing’ interactive robot that will respond to commands whilst exhibiting a distinct personality of its own and Wonder Workshop believes that it’s latest automated toy ‘CUE’, launching this month, is the next leap towards that goal.

You can engage in chat, control movement, create reactive sensor behaviours or even code creative interactions using block or JavaScript
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Unlike many previous automated robots – which were essentially remote-controlled toys with minimal interactive functions – CUE has a more emotive AI system as well as a choice of 4 playful avatars to customise how your robot interacts with you. Linked to an app you can engage in chat, control movement, create reactive sensor behaviours or even code creative interactions using block or JavaScript programming at a variable skill level depending on age and ability.

The robots display autonomous behaviours and encourage emotional engagement, further enhancing the learning experience. Companion apps are available on iOS, Android, and Kindle

Pitched at 11+ CUE is certainly a little advanced for younger children who will delight in the bot roaming the room learning to avoid obstacles whilst chattering away, but will struggle both with setup and some of the more text-heavy interactions. I test played it with a 4-year-old, a 13-year-old and an 18-year-old and although the 4-year-old happily ran around after it like a puppy, the CUE was definitely more suitable for the early teen bracket. Simple functions such as the ability to record phrases into the Bot and send them off to relay messages will delight younger children (and provide an endless source for mischief) whilst the coding possibilities held the teenager’s attention.

The greatest expectation with any automated toy - especially one that pitches itself as an interactive robot - is how ‘alive’ it feels
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Unlike many previous automated robots CUE has a more emotive AI system as well as a choice of 4 playful avatars
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The greatest expectation with any automated toy – especially one that pitches itself as an interactive robot – is how ‘alive’ it feels as on the whole most toys that make this bold claim tend to disappoint and their limitations grow apparent pretty quickly, especially when they come with a hefty price tag. CUE chat can feel quite scripted, like keywords inevitably trigger pre-programmed answers and the repetitive nature of the toys responses whilst roaming soon reveal the limit of its conversation and personality, but functions such as watching CUE react to sounds, looking down at your hand as you reach towards it and an ability to react to its surroundings (and muddle past obstacles) invest personality into the toy and had my children laughing with it rather than at it.

Despite its prevalence in the world, coding is still considered to be a difficult subject/skill to learn, but everything becomes easier if you can make it fun. Cue and Dot are equal parts learning tool and toy. They have been developed to teach children vital skills, widely prized on the jobs market, without browbeating, allowing them to develop at their own pace. Vikas Gupta, Wonder Workshop CEO and Co-founder

The ability to toggle the avatars are definitely a plus and the ability to learn how to code to control CUE will certainly add additional playability. R2D2 it isn’t – not yet – but in terms of an automated toy that can be used both as a simple plaything and a fun way to get children interested both in tech and coding, the CUE is a big robotic thumbs up.

• 3 Proximity Sensors
• Real-time Bluetooth
• IR Robot Interaction
• 3 Processors & Sensor Fusion
• Dual Motors & Potentiometers
• 3 Microphones & Speaker
• Programmable LED & Buttons
• 2 Powered Wheels & Encoders

RRP: £169.99

Review by Ashley Thorpe, Animator & Filmmaker at Carrion Films and Film & Games Correspondent at Tech Trends. Follow him on Twitter @CarrionScreamin

Aukey Bluetooth In-Ear Headphones

These Aukey Bluetooth Wireless Headphones are currently discounted on Amazon and after testing them out they seem to be a bit of a bargain. They boast three EQ sound settings plus aptX technology ensuring that, when used with compatible devices, you get the very best audio quality over Bluetooth 4.1. They also use CVC 6.0 noise cancellation with the built-in dual mic so your calls should sound clear, so the question is, what don’t they do?

Well, I can vouch that they are a comfortable fit and come with several different size ear buds and ear hooks so even a Klingon jogging on a treadmill could wear them without issues. They are super-lightweight (13g / 0.46oz) despite the built-in rechargeable battery and Aukey claims an extended playtime of 8 hours of music (about 120 songs) or 240 hours of standby time on a single 1.5-hour charge. I have used they on and off for a month and not needed to recharge so far.

Water and sweat proof they are IPX4-certified water-resistant with internal nano-coating to withstand sweat and rain when used outdoors and the earbuds magnetically fasten around your neck when not in use. Like all Aukey products, these headphones are backed by a 24-Month Product Warranty which, when combined with Amazon’s excellent returns procedures is very reassuring indeed.

But, I hear you say, do they sound good? Simply put, yes, they sound as good as any in-ear Bluetooth headphones I have used so far, with a solid and pleasing sound. At the reduced price, they are a bargain!

Specifications:
Technology: BT 4.1, A2DP, AVRCP, HSP, HFP, aptX
Microphone Noise Reduction: 6th generation dual-mic cVc
Charging Time: 1.5 hours
Play Time: Up to 8 hours
Battery Type: Li-Polymer (2 x 60mAh)
Operating Range: Up to 10m / 33ft
Weight: 13g / 0.46oz

Compatibility:
Echo Dot. iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch. Android Phones and Tablets: Samsung, Samsung S8, HTC, LG, Sony, Huawei, Blackberry, One Plus, etc. Windows Phones. Siri Wakeup: If Bluetooth earphone connected with iPhone, please short press both volume buttons + & – while the earphone is in the standby mode, and Siri is activated when a prompt tone is heard.

RRP £23.99 down from £34.99

Tom Atkinson is a Digital Producer & Photographer at R3Digital and Reviews & Dept. Editor at Tech Trends. Follow him on Twitter @R3Digital

Eva II Sex Toy

The Dame Products team behind the original Eva and now the Eva II vibrator have a vision – a brave new world in which women have routinely orgasmic sex just like men through the creation of a small, wearable clitoral stimulator. It’s a noble cause, but how far does their latest offering go in fulfilling it?

Eva II is great for all kinds of play. Use it on your own, or any time you might want your hands free. However you want to enjoy Eva is the right way to use it! Eva II only needs the help of a single finger to stay secure.

Everything about the Eva screams ‘high end’ – through the miracle of wireless charging the device is totally waterproof and easy to clean and the design is all smooth ambiguous curves in muted matt green or pale pink. The vibe itself is powerful for its size and needs to be since the hands-free design allows the device to sit against your sweet spot rather than to press down as you would with a normal vibrator.

The Dame Products team behind the Eva II vibrator have a vision – a brave new world in which women have routinely orgasmic sex
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It does take some practice to comfortably ‘wear’ Eva; its arms are designed to sit snuggly under the labia but it’s quite a squeeze to get them there. After the struggle, it is still easy to dislodge once the actual sex is underway depending on your personal physique and choice of position. It’s also a challenge to adjust the level of vibration since it involves pressing a lubed up button on a piece of smooth plastic.

With flexible wings that tuck under the labia while Eva II sits on top, you can have clitoral stimulation during penetrative sex. Eva II is smaller, lighter, and simple to use – plus, it’s totally waterproof, and comes with a sleek charging base/travel case to boot.

All in all, it’s not really hands-free, but it’s a vast step forward from using a traditional vibrator during sex and its smart presentation and virtuous concept make it the ideal option for those wishing to introduce toys to their partner.

RRP: $135

Review by Naomi Hepworth-Andrews, Digital & IT Consultant, mother, ferret fanatic and tech enthusiast.

The post January 2018 Tech Trends Product Reviews appeared first on Tech Trends.

At Microsoft Build 2017 there was a focus on Artificial Intelligence as an enabler of widespread creativity across all industries.

It is hardly surprising that Artificial Intelligence was a major focus of Microsoft’s Build 2017 conference. In fact, given the rapid advancements in all areas of AI technology and the raging debates about if – or rather, when – robots will take over our jobs, it would be surprising if one of the world’s biggest technology companies weren’t thinking about these problems in a big way.

AI has the potential to disturb every industry
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When Harry Shum – Executive Vice President of Microsoft’s AI and Research group – took to the main stage on Monday, he talked about how soon it will be almost impossible to imagine a technology that doesn’t tap into the power of AI in one way or another. What made this possible, he continued, was the convergence of three forces – increased cloud computing power, algorithms running off deep neural networks, and access to massive datasets. This means that AI does indeed have the potential to disturb every single industry and process out there.

Microsoft wants to use AI to amplify human ingenuity
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But while the disruption does seem inevitable, companies like Microsoft are betting they can make it a positive one, talking about the possibilities it brings to amplify human ingenuity, augmenting people’s capabilities and helping them to be more productive.

“I’m really glad we’re having all these conversations about the disruptive power of AI, and it’s a good thing that we’re being so thoughtful about the ways in which we’re designing these systems, because it’s crucial that they are designed for people, to help them do their jobs better,” says Lili Cheng distinguished engineer, general manager FUSE labs.

Microsoft has been creating building blocks for the current wave of AI breakthroughs for more than two decades, and now it wants to leverage that accumulated research with the massive amounts of data available to them through the Microsoft Graph portfolio of products and Azure’s computing power, moving towards its vision of the “Intelligent Cloud”.

“One of the things we’ve done with our bot framework and the cognitive services is that we componentized things so that they can be reused into other context. For Cognitive Services there are 29 and you can choose whichever one(s) you choose,” explains Cheng.

So by adding a few lines of code, developers can mix, match and customize AI functionalities to suit their needs, spanning functions such as translation, video deconstruction and search, gesture recognition and real-time captioning.

Broadly speaking, therefore, Cognitive Services are plugin functionalities that developers can use to enable systems within their apps to hear, speak, understand and interpret human needs. For example, LUIS (Language Understanding Intelligent Service) helps developers to integrate language models to understand users using either prebuilt or customized models. While the Custom Vision Service makes it easy to create your own image recognition service.

Microsoft now wants to redefine itself with AI by infusing it into every product and service it offers, from Xbox to Windows, from Bing to Office
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The overarching idea is to move towards what the company calls “conversational AI,” (where instead of humans having to learn about computers, computers will be able to understand humans) and thus enable more fluid and natural interactions between humans and machines.

Clearly when one thinks of conversational AI this includes Cortana – Microsoft’s personal intelligent assistant which is already used by 145 million people across the world, and the company is certainly focusing heavily on making it easier for developers to reach this growing audience by working in partnership with companies like HP, Intel and Harman on IoT devices such as Invoke intelligent speaker.

However, this is an extension of the Cognitive Services offering the company launched back in 2015, which has since attracted over 568,000 developers from more than 60 countries to sign up. Microsoft now wants to redefine itself with AI by infusing it into every product and service it offers, from Xbox to Windows, from Bing to Office.

Cognitive Services are plugin functionalities that developers can use to enable their apps to hear, speak, understand and interpret human needs
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AI has the potential to become a much more creative tool, not something that can only be leveraged and understood by Data Scientists
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An example of this was the demo showcased during the keynote which showed how Microsoft’s translation APIs could provide real-time translation in multiple languages during any PowerPoint presentation. It not only embeds live transcriptions of the presenter into a specific language, but also generates an unique link which lets attendees get further live translations into their own preferred languages – all in real time. Other such functionalities include Project Prague – an early stage SDK that matches captured user movement against an extensive library of hand poses, allowing the developer to tie app actions to gestures and create a more intuitive user experience through gesture interaction.

The ease with which developers can incorporate these elements into their apps, together with this growing emphasis on natural interaction, means that AI has the potential to become a much more creative tool across the board, not something that can only be leveraged and understood by Data Scientists. This democratization of AI is in fact a cornerstone of Microsoft’s vision, and something Cheng is very keen to enable:

“You need to make people laugh, and you need creativity and you need all this stuff because that’s what being human is about. This better be a creator platform for writers and other non-technical people. AI can’t be just for people with PhDs we want people who are writers, artists or builders to be able to use those tools to get their jobs done better. We’re super committed to that. There’s a lot more to AI than writing code, and I think that has to be our goal, to make people want to make the things they live in all day,” she concludes.

This article was originally published on  The Next Web

How Microsoft wants us all to get creative with Artificial Intelligence https://t.co/3phsuZvZX0

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) May 16, 2017

For companies looking to gain a competitive edge through technology, Tech Trends offers strategic Virtual Reality and Digital Transformation Consultancy services tailored to your brand.

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Sparking Creativity with AI appeared first on Tech Trends.

I was told during a recent trip to Canada that diversity was key to innovation and creativity cannot thrive in a climate of fear. I heartily agree, which is why it worries me to see the political and popular rhetoric which emerged from Brexit in the UK and Trump’s election in the US.

Creativity cannot exist in a climate of fear
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Technologists in the US are also understandably concerned that they might get conscripted into enabling the creation of a “Muslim Register” or similar databases that help target people on the basis of their race, religion or national origin. The historical parallels are quite disturbing, and many recently signed a pledge to say they’d refuse to participate in such initiatives.

But with Donald Trump’s inauguration now upon us, and Theresa May’s “Hard Brexit” ordeal about to start in earnest, will liberal-minded techies be forced to look for greener creative pastures? Canada certainly hopes so, and the country is doing a pretty good job of making itself welcoming.

Not only does Canada have arguably the world’s most charismatic leader – now that Barak Obama has vacated that post -in Justin Trudeau (I mean, just look at the guy, he could be part of the recent dance-in protest staged outside Mike Pence’s house in DC) but it also boasts a host of friendly immigration and tax policies, great quality of life and a booming tech ecosystem.

Innovation needs diversity to thrive, and Canada seems to get that
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In this article for The Next Web I talk to one of the companies North of the border looking to capitalise on this, and ask British Columbia’s Minister of Technology for his insights into what gives areas like Vancouver the edge in attracting coveted tech talent to the region.

“None of this even existed five months ago, it’s crazy when you think about it,” says Ryan Peterson as he shows me around the “Holodeck,” a 25,000 square foot holographic studio where his company Finger Food Studios is making cutting-edge augmented and mixed reality products for Fortune 500 companies. It’s a cavernous warehouse on the outskirts of Vancouver, but Peterson tells me that the facility is almost full. Over the next 12 months they’re planning to double the size of their 100-strong team as the demand for MR picks up, but that’s only the beginning.

“As the demand really picks up we want to become the major hub for this, so there’s definitely the potential to be over a thousand people here. We need people to develop and design this technology. And for every engineer, we need a creative person who can harness that technical horsepower,” he says.

They’re preparing for the Holodeck’s launch party that afternoon, where – in between sampling some of what the local micro-breweries and wineries have to offer – I talked to the region’s Minister of Technology, Amrik Virk about the tech scene in British Columbia. I asked him what he made of the fact that we were standing among the world’s largest holograms (Finger Food produced a full-scale holographic model of a truck for Paccar which was showcased at the launch).

“I grew up watching Star Trek so seeing the holodeck here is amazing,” he says with a grin, before telling me that although Finger Food is certainly a poster child for the BC tech industry, they’re far from atypical. These are booming times. “When I ask Tech CEOs about their growth projection they always tell me around 20,30,40%. We have around 100,000 families in the area who put food on the table as a result of the tech industry in one of its various verticals.”

He tells me that the ecosystem is helped by a friendly tax environment – corporate tax here is the lowest in North America, 26% compared to an average of 41% in the US – and additional industry-specific incentives such as the Interactive Digital Media Tax Credit.

With creative elites feeling increasingly unwelcome in the ultra-polarized political climate of Britain and the US, will there be a surge of tech talent heading North to Canada?
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There are active moves from both industry and government to encourage more people in the technology sector to move to the region. Last year they brought in 5800 workers to fill specific needs of that booming job market, but they’re still 4000 people short of this year’s target according to Virk. “And these are really cool jobs,” he says “We’ve very much working with the federal government to also establish a path to permanency for those individuals that come here, because we want them to stay here.”

Their recent increased visa allocation is also making it much easier to get talented individuals from the tech industry, and to get them over quickly. The process, I’m told, can take as little as two weeks. Finger Food’s Creative Director Chris Waind believes that these factors are all aligning to open up the floodgates for Canada’s creative industries.

“Creativity and innovation cannot exist within the realm of fear,” he says alluding to the post-Brexit climate in the UK. “You get these people that simply don’t want to live with what’s happening in Europe at the moment, which runs completely contrary to what it is like to live in Canada.” Waind himself is a British expat who’s been living in Vancouver for the past 17 years, and he tells me there’s nowhere else he’d rather raise his family: “It’s an incredibly accommodating place to live, absolutely gorgeous. And Canadians, God Bless them, are wonderful people. They are so nice, as an English person I sometimes find it irritating. I go back to England every once in a while to get my grumpiness fix.”

“we’re seeing more hits, more queries on our websites from outside than ever before,” confirms Virk. “This is not something we started last month as a result of events in Europe and the US, this has been our mission for many years, but now that you do have those events, we can go to places like Silicon Valley and show them that we already have this tech space and say to them ‘we welcome your background, your ideas and your training.”

This is not a case of building a Northern version of a Southern industry, as #BCTECH is actually surpassing many other tech hubs in terms of growth and innovation. “You’re looking at the early 90s Seattle scene to get anywhere close,” says Waind. “I think the next 10 to 20 years you will see Vancouver being the number 1 city for tech.”

That’s easy to believe once you’re immersed in that scene, but comes as a bit of a surprise given how under the radar that growth has been. It’s perhaps a byproduct of Canadian humility that they’re reluctant to shout their accomplishments from the rooftops, but the sense I get from everybody here is that this might be about to change. As Virk tells me: “I’m suggesting now that in that humble Canadian way we accentuate what we’re good at and we invite the world to be part of that.”

Well, beam me up Scotty…

After Trump and Brexit, Canada’s Tech Industry Prepares for a Talent-Poaching Bonanza https://t.co/sqr3n9XSe1 via @thenextweb

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) January 20, 2017

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Will Brexit and Trump Drive Tech Talent to Canada? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Automation has already made many jobs redundant, and as Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated, many more will inevitably follow. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

In this Quartz article I talk about how human creative skills will always be in demand, and how restructuring our value system – from education to the workplace – around creativity will help us prepare for the wave of technological disruption to come.

Human creative skills will always be in demand
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If we don’t want machines to take over our jobs, we’re going to have to get creative. Literally.

Cheap computing power and rapidly advancing AI mean that machines already outperform us on tasks that involve retaining, processing, and repeating rule-based information. Traditional schooling, however, still centers on a child’s ability to perform such tasks. As a result, the growing emphasis on STEM-based learning may not adequately prepare children to eventually battle robots for their jobs. As Charlotte Blease, a philosophy fellow at University College Dublin, points out, the workplace of the future will require people prepared to ask—and answer—the questions that aren’t Googleable.

We need a sense of wonder in order for creativity to flourish
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What society therefore urgently needs is an entirely new value system for both education and work; one centered around the singular thing robots can’t quite catch up with us on: creativity.

A recent report by Nesta, a UK-based innovation and research foundation, found that creative jobs will be much more resistant to automation, and 21% of US employment requires people to be highly creative. But this doesn’t mean we will need more musicians, graphic designers, actors, and other traditionally creative professions in the future. Rather, we should be taking the aspects that make these professions so unique and teaching them to employers in traditionally non-creative industries. We need to enable creative thinking in all aspects of business management.

The workplace of the future will require people prepared to ask—and answer—the questions that aren’t Googleable
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“How are you going to deal with your job not being relevant any more? You’ve got to tap into the creative spirit to repurpose your skillset,” says Ryan Peterson, a Vancouver-based technology entrepreneur. When it comes to imagining new realities, Peterson is something of an expert. His company Finger Food Studios invents and sells state-of-the art Mixed Reality (MR) technology to Fortune 500 companies, so he views the disruption that automation brings as an opportunity rather than a threat.

“We have the chance to basically re-architect the human experience and move all this [creative] talent into higher performing jobs, but that will take incredible imagination,” Peterson says. “You’re going to have to infuse some of that creative firepower to be able to deal with these [automation] changes in your business.”

Fostering those creative-thinking principles will prove essential if we’re to outsmart the oncoming automation wave. Here are three key ingredients for future-proofing your workplace:

Curiosity

We need a sense of wonder in order for creativity to flourish. Curiosity is a cornerstone of creative thinking, and we need to actively harness it in order to tackle the challenges of this brave new world.

“Having a culture of curiosity—where you feel empowered to really have an imagination and feel curious and explore—is our strength as a company. We excel at curiosity, and in the execution of it,” Peterson says.

Richard Hytner, an adjunct professor of Marketing at London Business School, agrees, saying that any leader looking to ensure the future of their enterprise should encourage their teams’ “contagious curiosity” by inviting them to bring their child-like self to work every day. Creativity, he says, works much like a bulletproof vest for businesses, allowing them to adapt to fast-changing environments that might destroy those that are slow to evolve.

When curiosity and diversity converge, they create an environment where ingenuity can flourish, and there are places where this out-of-the-box thinking has become a prevalent cultural trait
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Conflict

Building a creative workplace also requires a healthy amount of friction. In the 1950s, psychologist J.P. Guilford first put forward the theory that creativity was dependent on what he called “divergent thinking.”

Finger Food’s creative director, Chris Waind, uses this theory in the workplace. The key is fostering a very safe work environment in which people can freely disagree with each other.

One example of how to do this is by seating people next to each other who see the world differently, such as developers sitting next to designers. The idea is being confronted by different opinions creates that slightly uncomfortable sweet spot where innovation actually happens. “Too many people agreeing with each other makes for a wonderful poetic workplace, but great things are often born of people disagreeing, different perspectives,” Waind says.

Ingenuity

When curiosity and diversity converge, they create an environment where ingenuity can flourish, and there are places where this out-of-the-box thinking has become a prevalent cultural trait.

When living in New Zealand, for example, Waind encountered a term called the “#8 gauge wire” mentality, which is Kiwi slang for “we used our ingenuity to fix it.” It stems from the MacGyver-style creative thinking adopted by resourceful rural farmers who live and work on small islands. Typically, #8 gauge wire is used for sheep fencing—a common sight in New Zealand—but farmers are often forced to solve a wide range of different problems using this plentiful material, and little else.

Peterson believes that to survive the future of work, companies need to actively invest in their own demise. This is something that industry experts like Luke Williams have long advocated; Companies content to focus on incremental changes will almost inevitably become casualties of technological disruption. Even traditional institutions such as banks recognize the advantage of “thinking like the enemy.” This is why the industry has begun actively recruiting hackers to help them build more robust systems. “If you’re a global Fortune 500 company and you do not have a team that you are paying to disrupt your business, than someone else will,” Peterson says.

What is urgently needed in order to enable that climate of proactive—and ultimately positive—disruption is for us to start focusing on what sets man apart from machine: creativity.

Don’t want a robot to steal your job? Be creative https://t.co/3rW3WijaEw

— Quartz (@qz) January 13, 2017

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Will Artificial Intelligence Take Over Your Job? appeared first on Tech Trends.

We hear a lot about the digital skills gap and the need to get more kids interested in STEM  – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics but there’s a missing element in that line of thought, which more people are starting to notice.

We should be encouraging STEAM – in other words adding “Art’ (in its broadest sense) to that list because creativity is an essential ingredient of technological innovation. And like any other skill, it needs to be taught, developed and encouraged from an early age and throughout our lives.

In this Huffington Post article I talk to Creative Director Chris Waind from Canadian start-up Finger Food Studios (the company behind Sphero’s app and collaborative platform) about how designers and other professionals in the technology industry need to develop diverse skil-sets and embrace divergent thinking, and what he looks for when recruiting his own creative tech talent.

Creativity and Technology go together like a horse carriage
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From STEM to STEAM: How Science Needs Creativity to Flourish https://t.co/R4FV42C3SQ via @HuffPostBlog @Sphero… https://t.co/MhlbWBdYoW

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) January 8, 2017

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Beyond STEM and into STEAM: How We Need Creativity to Power Technology appeared first on Tech Trends.