Tag: academic

WFSGI Manufacturers Forum delves into a digital world

WFSGI Manufacturers Forum delves into a digital world

The upcoming WFSGI World Manufacturers Forum this year focuses on digitalisation, automation, disruptive technologies and innovation – and will offer delegates the chance to take part in a tailor-made guided tour around Productronica, the world-leading trade fair for electronics development and production.

The fifth such event organised by the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI) is titled ‘Moving on to a digital and automated business of the future,’ and takes place on 14-15 November at the Munich Trade Fair Center (Messe München).

The event picks up on themes from previous years, which have most recently looked at ‘Beyond Lean […]

Poverty as a math problem: Available jobs and incomes don’t add up to living wages

Poverty as a math problem: Available jobs and incomes don’t add up to living wages

Editor’s Note: This is the third column in a six-part series under the theme “Poverty is a math problem (and so much more).” In the spring of 2012, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a special section titled “From Graduate School to Welfare.” Among the essays in this section was “The Ph.D. Now Comes with Food Stamps,” which revealed that in recent years the number of Americans with advanced academic degrees receiving federal aid of some kind had increased by approximately 300 percent.

A few years later, in the midst of America’s supposed economic recovery from the financial crisis of […]

Future in the labor market: With work but no job?

The phrase “Future of Work” has become a buzz term. The International Labor Organization (ILO), which is observing its centenary in 2019, has organized numerous conferences and studies on the topic. The techies and futuristic academics have a grand time imagining work done by robots and/or facilitated by artificial intelligence and big data analytics. The HR specialists, trade unionists, economists and sociologists have all joined the discourse and have been debating about technology and the changing work organization in the 21 st century.

For those analyzing the jobs market, the main concern is whether technology-driven changes on how work is […]

COLUMN: Learning to live a fuller life

Have you ever wondered when you stop gaining qualifications? Most of us assume it ends with the external discipline of school or college or university. In short, we tend to think of education as something given to us by institutions (or, for millions of young people these days, bought with huge loans) rather than something we give to ourselves.

Of course, you don’t just learn at school. When I was young in the 70s and 80s people talked of graduating from the University of Life.

That particular academic institution offered no formal diplomas or degrees, just its own kind of wisdom, […]

The Paradox of Worry About Job-Taking Robots in an Environment of Labor Shortages

The Paradox of Worry About Job-Taking Robots in an Environment of Labor Shortages

The big idea that has captured much of our collective imagination is that the robots are coming to take our jobs. Well, maybe not our jobs – as higher ed people seem convinced that no A.I. could ever do what they do. But everyone else’s job.

At every academic / educational technology conference that I attend we always end up talking about robots. Those of us who work at liberal arts colleges actually feel pretty good about the future of robots, as we think that our broad education in communication, collaboration, and creativity will withstand automation. Still, even the liberal […]

Education reform: Why role of regulator, service provider and policy maker must be separated

Education reform: Why role of regulator, service provider and policy maker must be separated

The massive regulatory cholesterol in higher education was justified saying “there are not enough colleges”, “not everybody can afford private colleges”, “it is very hard to measure the quality of a college”, and “consumer choice is often restricted by geography”. (PTI) Government regulations are justified in the name of creating public goods (assets where private sector animal spirits alone are not enough), controlling externalities (reducing costs imposed by somebody on everybody), reducing information asymmetry (protecting uninformed consumers) and ending monopolies (giving consumers choice). The massive regulatory cholesterol in higher education was justified saying “there are not enough colleges”, “not […]

Hooray — Here Come the Robots!

Hooray — Here Come the Robots!

Fears that robots and artificial intelligence will make human labor obsolete are overblown. But we’ll have to work hard to adapt. Japan is at the forefront of the robotics revolution. They are starting to take over professions such as nursing. Source: Getty It’s one more quiet morning on Main Street, sometime in the 2030s. Outside, the only noise is the hum of driverless cars and the whir of delivery drones overhead. In the hotel, a robot concierge waits to carry the bags; in the supermarket, shoppers choose from robot-stacked shelves. There’s no bustle at the factory gate, or outside […]

The new face of labor: How the next generation can shine in the face of massive change

The labor force that we recognize today won’t be the labor force of my 8-year-old daughter.

Everywhere I go, when I talk with to academics and business people, the theme of the radical pace of change emerges. Technology is driving innovation, which in turn is driving massive change in our labor force.

In just three years, by 2020, a whopping 43 percent of the U.S. labor force will be freelance, up from 34 percent or 53 million last year. The gig economy will be a reality for my daughter, and I wonder if that’s going to be a good place for […]

Trump tax cut failure or a US debt default will spell danger for financial markets and the UK economy, warns HAMISH MCRAE

Trump tax cut failure or a US debt default will spell danger for financial markets and the UK economy, warns HAMISH MCRAE

Holidays are over, schools go back, and in the US, Labor Day on Monday marks the end of the vacations there too.

This autumn the focus here will be the Brexit negotiations, which will continue in their bad-tempered way. Do not expect any breakthroughs; the trench warfare will continue for a while yet.

But across the Atlantic something big may happen that will rebound on us in the UK too. The question is whether Donald Trump can get sensible tax reforms through Congress when it resumes on Tuesday. ‘The question is whether Donald Trump can get sensible tax reforms through Congress […]

CITI: Retail jobs will ‘vanish’ due to technology and it ‘will affect every city and region’

CITI: Retail jobs will 'vanish' due to technology and it 'will affect every city and region'

As much as 80% of retail jobs at risk from automation, Citi and University of Oxford predict.

Low-skilled jobs most at risk and will have profound effects on communities.

‘Watershed’ moment coming for retail jobs, Citi and Oxford warn. People walk by the Amazon Go brick-and-mortar grocery store without lines or checkout counters, in Seattle Washington, U.S. December 5, 2016. REUTERS/Jason Redmond LONDON — Analysts from Citi bank and academics from Oxford are predicting seismic changes to the retail industry that could mean low-skilled jobs "vanish.""The lesson of the twentieth century has been that most jobs […]