Empowering the Future
By Litsa Panayotopoulos, EIE Committee Chair | Business Partners, Jan-Feb 2020

NBG Business Seeds is an integrated program designed to foster innovative and export-oriented entrepreneurship. We started in 2010 with the Innovation and Technology Competition, and step-by-step, we’re building a multifaceted program focusing on synergies and collaboration with academia, research centers, institutions, and big organizations.

NBG Business Seeds includes actions that aim at showcasing innovative ideas and projects, training and mentoring young entrepreneurs, and providing infrastructures, networking and financing. We have a strong presence in Thessaloniki, Patras and Heraklion.

Regarding financial support for startups and innovative SMEs, NBG provides targeted lending programs and participation in company equity. On a pre-seed level, apart from our competition grants/awards, we have also joined forces with The People’s Trust, a privately funded not-for-profit organization that provides grants, microfinance and business development services to small enterprises across all sectors. Emphasis is placed on the mentoring of the teams by NBG’s experienced staff who, backed by professional experience of more than 20 years in diverse banking fields, propose targeted solutions to improve each business initiative.

Besides financing, companies participating in the program receive free-of-charge services and products of Amazon, Microsoft and Facebook; mentoring actions offered in cooperation with Google, the Onassis Foundation, the National Documentation Center, Grant Thornton, McKinsey, Census, HIGGS, Watson Farley and Williams, Israeli Advanced Technology Industries (IATI), PWC, Accenture, InnoEnergy, OK!Thess, PatrasIQ KEMEL; and networking initiatives provided in cooperation with Endeavor Greece and the Hellenic American Chamber of Commerce.

The scope of educational institutions is to develop and disseminate knowledge in better understanding the world. Naturally, academic research and teaching in higher education institutions develops learners’ skills and competencies for innovative thinking and creativity, and also an attitude for intellectual curiosity and continuous learning. The challenge of course is in setting the “correct” (i.e. relevant) questions for research that makes its outcome relevant in better understanding the world. Creativity and the development of new concepts and structures is fascinating as a process but becomes innovation only when it is relevant, leading thus in better understanding the world and in addressing unmet needs of the society.

Creativity, and the development of new concepts and structures, becomes innovation only when it is relevant

Educational institutions very much understand the need to advance creativity to innovation by making creativity relevant through mechanisms that facilitate the interaction, dialogue and co-creation of its stakeholders (academics and administrators across disciplines, learners, policymakers, business leaders, research institutions). Centers of excellence, business incubators, convergence centers, and funded research centers become hubs of such interaction and co-creation, setting up the correct priorities and research questions and helping academic creativity to become relevant. As the world becomes increasingly more complex, the ecosystems that emerge around these hubs facilitate a better understanding of the world and along with it, innovation that meets society’s needs. Through these hubs, more-effective products, processes, services, technologies and new business models are made available to markets, governments and society; and for the benefit of the society, this is a one way street of collaborative innovation through these ecosystems of innovation.

The Greek government is introducing some bold reforms at all levels of education. It is time for Greece to overcome taboos of the past and tap its true potential—especially in post-secondary education, an area with great potential for growth, both academically and economically.

We commend the government’s intention to turn Greece into an international education destination by making public universities more accessible to international students. We believe this effort will be more successful if cooperation between public and private postsecondary institutions is allowed and encouraged. A striking example of successful synergy is the almost 1,000 public university students who do parallel studies at Deree – The American College of Greece. Deree also attracts more than 1,000 international students every year. There are lessons to be learned from this experience.

Greece should cease being a world leader in the emigration of its own students and recognize the positive contribution of private higher education, through a system that rewards excellence, meritocracy and innovation, in public and private institutions alike. A system that sets strict universal criteria, evaluates academic programs, faculty and infrastructure on the basis of established global standards and allows institutions the necessary autonomy. One that teaches students hard as well as soft skills, makes them critical thinkers as well as responsible citizens and connects them to the global job market.

Private, non-profit higher academic institutions should be allowed to operate within a system that appreciates their social impact and is free of anachronistic mentalities, for the benefit of all Greek students and Greece.

Twenty-one years ago, when I founded my company, entrepreneurship was a very controversial term in Greece. There was a prevailing mentality that creating wealth, risking failure, and aiming high were unwise things to do—especially compared to a full-benefits, easy job for life in the public sector. Our society entrapped herself in mediocracy, with anachronistic educators and short-sighted political interests.

Then, through the ashes of the crisis, entrepreneurship emerged as the answer to unemployment, the need for innovation, the key to a new economic model, an almighty force to save us from our past. Yet even as it became a buzzword, it remained unclear for many what entrepreneurship really is and most importantly, the sacrifices that are needed to build your dream.

It is time to move beyond inspiration and realize the conditions for entrepreneurship to flourish

Entrepreneurship lies at the heart of the economic model that a country such as Greece—full of innovative, creative and dynamic minds—needs to prosper. It is a way of thinking, the collective force of values, talents, ideas, dreams, the ability to collaborate and excel and to employ the full arsenal of soft skills each of us carries. It also takes so much more than formulating a business plan or securing financing. It is a constant fight—against odds, the competition, and a system that’s yet unable to help you.

It’s time to move beyond inspiration and work together to propel entrepreneurship forward. It is time to unite our forces with all stakeholders and invest our resources, experiences and trust in entrepreneurship as the right choice for moving the whole ecosystem forward.

Fifty years ago, Alvin Toffler wrote, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Toffler’s prophetic notion defines the future of education. Consider the following scenario from HBR.

How are we preparing the youth of today for a future we can’t fully imagine?

John:

John went to an Ivy League B-school. His track record was flawless. But John struggled with the ambiguity, and he didn’t take prudent risks or seek feedback. John had succeeded in the past by doing what he knew and operating rather conservatively within his domain.

Alex:

Alex was “DTM” – difficult to manage. He wasn’t afraid to challenge the status quo and he was comfortable taking risks. He was flexible and sought feedback from the people around him. He learned what not to do and recalibrated his approach.

This scenario is a perfect example of learning agility—the ability to continually abandon skills, perspectives and ideas that are no longer relevant, and learn new ones that are relevant.

Learning agility is important in education because it highlights the importance of mindsets, identifies the dynamic interplay between content and character and underlines the need for a curriculum that includes a balance of content knowledge, skills development, character-building, and growth mindset.

We must foster learning agility in the K-12 setting by building students’ capacity to learn, unlearn and relearn in any situation. This makes sense and addresses the proverbial question: How are we preparing the youth of today for a future we can’t fully imagine?

In an increasingly complex and competitive world, no higher education institution can successfully fulfill its mission on its own. International collaborations and partnerships are essential in broadening the institution’s scope and turning it into an effective agent of learning. Such collaborations may include student and faculty exchanges, joint curricular offerings and research projects, and connections with businesses and communities beyond the institution’s locale.

Research, knowledge and infrastructure from different institutions can accelerate innovative thinking

Student exchanges are instrumental in allowing students to experience different styles of education, immerse themselves in a new culture and language, find new interests, make lifelong friends, and in general have transformative experiences that will follow them for a lifetime. As such, they truly become citizens of the world.

Faculty exchanges expose the staff to new educational paradigms, new ideas, and fresh perspectives. Additionally, those exchanges may become the springboard for joint curricular offering and research projects. The combination of curricular expertise from different institutions can become the genesis of innovative and unique curricular offerings. Similarly, the combination of research, knowledge and infrastructure from different institutions can accelerate innovative thinking and the generation of new knowledge.

At ACT (American College of Thessaloniki), the tertiary division of Anatolia College, we are the beneficiaries of partnerships with more than 60 academic institutions around the world. Each year we receive 400-500 students from various universities, and we send students to faraway places like the United States, Mexico, and South Korea. Students and faculty from 30 to 40 nationalities mesh on our campus and create dynamics that radiate beyond our campus boundaries.

Universities-industry collaboration is perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation through the following approaches: commercialization and R&D; student and staff mobility; curriculum development and delivery; lifelong learning; entrepreneurship; and governance. Academics are more oriented to discovery, while businesses are much more oriented towards application and implementation. Society is directly influenced by such university-business dynamics. Public policy action is advocated to change cultures, attitudes, and incentives in this domain towards supporting such collaboration. Building the capability for engagement is a critical challenge for effective university-business interactions.

The Quadruple Helix (QH) model of innovation refers to a set of interactions among academia, industry, society and governments to foster economic and social development. Building such interactions with proper protocols and missions can lead to innovation outbursts, entrepreneurial capacities, and enhanced knowledge and technology transfer with the ultimate goal of successful engagement in national/regional development, upgrading thus the wellbeing of the affected societies. QH collaboration is pervasive in the majority of EU-funded R&D projects, acknowledging thus its importance. Even more, the EU discourse currently involves the concept of QH-driven “Responsible Research and Innovation” which is required in order to successfully achieve the aforementioned goals.

Nevertheless, this is not the case in Greece. Low communication among quadruple helix actors, rigid structures of academic institutions, obsolete regulatory framework, lack of business-oriented culture, limited support for entrepreneurial activities, low innovation score, and severe brain drain, point towards the fact that quadruple helix interactions are not being performed in this area. This is our challenge.

Students today are using technology to develop ways of learning that fit in with their personal lives, shaping their own skillsets as technological advancements shape the world they live in. This is a glimpse of what the future workforce might look like: a generation of tech savvy superlearners ready to fuel the economy with their multiple skills.

In the meantime, it is our responsibility to support the current workforce to rise and meet the standards of the future. The recent The State of Digital Skills in CEE survey (conducted for Microsoft by IDC) finds that companies in Central and Eastern Europe are already facing a skills crunch, with only 3.5% of employees fully meeting digital skills needs. Without action, this gap between supply and demand will only widen.

The solution is to upskill the existing workforce. We need to find a shortcut between education and employment, arming existing workers with skills that will help them and their organizations evolve into the new era.

Microsoft in Greece has been investing in this direction in multiple ways:

• In schools, by reskilling and training teachers to encourage the adoption of new technologies in the classroom.

• For the existing workforce, through seminars and workshops, with over 1,000 participants from our broader ecosystem in the past year.

• For underserved communities and the unemployed, we are collaborating with NGO Social Innov to offer free digital skills courses to more than 10,000 people per year.

• Online, through learning platforms, such as Microsoft Learn or AI Business School, for those who wish to create their own online learning path.

In January this year, Parliament passed a bill on higher education, paving the way for much needed reforms in the public university system. Among its more controversial provisions is the link it establishes between funding and results. For the first time in Greece, it introduces the notion of performance-based funding in education; 20% of the state higher education budget will be allocated on the basis of quality indicators.

Faculty unions claim this will lead to “unbridled competition” between public universities. But it is precisely this lack of competition that has impeded innovation in public higher education. To meet the lofty goals of extroversion the legislation seeks to promote, the university must expose itself to competition by evaluating its educational effectiveness through quantitative and qualitative measures, including benchmarks and peer comparisons. It must measure student success as well.

The challenge for any institution of learning is to become an institution that learns

The university community must continually ask itself: Are we serving our students well and the society which we prepare them to contribute to? This is not a matter of indicators alone; it requires fostering a culture of self-assessment, a disciplined, daily askesis of inquiry into the quality and effectiveness of what it does. The challenge for any institution of learning is to become an institution that learns.

The success of this bold initiative will depend on how reforms are put into place. In this undertaking, the public system can look to several “living laboratories” in the country which have successfully fostered this culture of self-assessment—namely, the three U.S.-accredited American institutions of higher education in Greece.

It’s 08:15. The bell rings. It’s time to start the day. We sit in the same seat, follow the same instruction, have our same 15’ lunch break, and perform the same tasks in the same exact way, every day. If you stop and think, this is exactly what happens in two very different circumstances: in schools and in factories. And this is no coincidence.

The biggest flaw of our educational system is that students are not allowed to use cheat sheets

With its roots in the early 19th century, is this education model still fit for purpose? Today, the focus is not on memorizing facts but on developing students’ capability to search across multiple sources to find the relevant information and then critically analyze it for their benefit.

Our educational system should encourage collaboration and appreciate creativity. Most importantly, it should modify all forms of examination—drastically. The system’s biggest flaw is that students are not allowed to use cheat sheets; this is obviously wrong.

I remember, back in 2010, I was about to sit an exam on programming and software development. Seated in front of desktop computers in the lab, we received the exam questions on an A4 sheet, and we were forbidden to use any books or notes, access the internet, or collaborate with each other during the exam. And it just hit me; I wondered, “When will I ever come across such a situation in my life? Which company would ever ask its engineers to develop software or solve complicated problems without consulting each other or the relevant literature?”

Entrepreneurship needs an attractive business environment to flourish. The Greek ecosystem is not welcoming; red tape, slow justice, difficult access to financing, a society that still finds merit in the idea that profit is dishonest and unfair. To be an entrepreneur and to create the ecosystem you also need talent. Is education helping develop entrepreneurs? Can business culture change through initiatives in education?

Knowledge does matter. But skills matter more.

The education system rewards compliance, uniformity, and factual recall. Long school days, memorization, specializations. Moreover, school environment has little to do with reality. People are constantly connected, with nonstop access to the web and machines, drowning in information. But at school, students are not allowed to use a … calculator.

Additionally, Greece has been working on the wrong theory of change, still preparing youth individually to fit the immediate needs of the workforce. But these needs are changing fast and constantly, and so is the structure of a person’s life.

Gone are single lifetime careers and 9-5 office days. Now people may have multiple careers, competition is global, information is abundant. Knowledge does matter. But skills matter more. It’s no longer what you know, it’s how you find it and how you use it. Can you ask the right question? Experts identified skills needed in our era. Unsurprisingly, these include, critical thinking, complex problem solving, coordination with others, accessing and analyzing information, curiosity, initiative, adaptability, decision making. We do not need better education; we need transformed education focused on developing skills. This may enable a better business culture.

It is well documented that innovation and entrepreneurship drive economic development for the benefit of society. New ideas, new technologies and research lead to the creation of new products and services. However, the exploitation of research results and the formation of new products is not a self-propelled process. A lot of effort is required and young entrepreneurs need to be guided to the creation of the company (startup), the making and the successful marketing of the product.

TTOs create a whole ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship at universities

Since most research is done at universities, it is expected that universities themselves build appropriate structures to facilitate the commercialization of research results. And this has long been the case in many countries, especially in the United States. Greece is very much behind in such developments and therefore appropriate initiatives should be undertaken for that purpose. Long-term, generous funding should be made available to establish technology transfer offices (TTO) and incubators/accelerators that help researchers become entrepreneurs, protect their intellectual rights (patenting), license research outcomes and/or spin-off creation. TTOs create a whole ecosystem of innovation and entrepreneurship at universities. The collaboration of Greek universities with universities abroad will accelerate the successful operation of TTOs and incubators because it is well known that effective operation of a newly founded TTO usually takes several years to occur. Of course, the relevant legislation must also be reshaped to further support the creation and operation of TTOs and incubators at universities.

In an ever-changing world, having traditional roles in education and research without coherent links to the labor market results in a lack of competitiveness in the international business arena. Trying to connect universities with the labor market is internationally an ongoing tendency, as the importance of teaching the skills and operation of business is at an all-time high.

Under this scope, policymakers should mandate partnerships between higher education institutions and social partners to ensure that key information is available to support curricular design and development. There should be a cooperation that includes sector specific work placements as integral parts of the study program. In Denmark, for example, universities are required to set up employer panels that contribute to the development of programs and study plans. Other higher education institutions are required to set up education committees whose members include individuals from outside the institution and have knowledge of the labor market. The role of these committees is to ensure that programs are relevant to the needs of the labor market. Another example of successful collaboration between trade unions and higher education institutions is the Trade Union Congress’ Unionlearn initiative in the United Kingdom, which provides training and skills upgrading for union officials and members.

We don’t need to invent the wheel to gain a competitive advantage as an educational system, business market and society. We only need to step forward and look towards the direction of establishing institutionalized platforms that would put in place a mechanism for partnership and support between business and education.

Student-centered holistic education is the focus of ACS Athens, a K-12 international school with an American philosophy of education, committed to developing Conscious World Citizens*. ACS Athens aims to respond effectively to the sociopolitical and ethical challenges generated by a continuously changing globalized and technology-focused landscape. Addressing the challenges faced by the broader community by morphing students that respond to such challenges, it encompasses an education model that integrates civic engagement and social responsibility. Its programs help students succeed in a competitive society while acquiring ethical decision making and effective problem-solving mindsets.

Young people possess natural wisdom, often thwarted by the lack of creativity in formal education

Though the world is saturated with limitless and outstanding tools that produce multivariate information, schools must inspire continuous learning while motivating young people to be ethical citizens. Students work in artificial intelligence labs, robotics or STEAM** courses and simultaneously develop soft skills: communication, teamwork, problem-solving. Education aims to envision and model the kind of world we desire to live in. Through specially designed programs, projects and curricula, students cultivate social awareness, and develop social engagement. As mindsets mature, students become young adults ready for social initiatives.

Young people possess natural wisdom, often thwarted by the lack of creativity in formal education. Yet, as digital natives with limitless access to information, young people can lead the way in education. By providing choices and opportunities that allow them to connect learning to life experiences, and doing so with intentional excellence, K-12-and beyond educational institutions can morph youth into Conscious World Citizens.

* As defined by the UN: un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

** Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics

The Greek higher education landscape is about to change dramatically. Greece has finally decided to follow the lead of so many other European countries and open up its university system to relationships and affiliations with universities abroad that can potentially bring large numbers of students to study in Greece, encourage faculty and departmental collaborations, joint diplomas, and research efforts.

Generation Z have no time to spare as the world around them is forever changing

The first step was the creation of an English-language bachelor’s program at the University of Athens, available only to non-EU citizens. Nevertheless, American students, who are used to an abundance of university support services from housing to safety, welfare and mental health support, are unlikely to join, opting instead for shorter programs. Generation Z have no time to spare as the world around them is forever changing. Students’ anxiety to enter the job market does not allow for more than short-duration programs abroad.

In 2017-2018, over 5,000 U.S. students chose Greece as their short-term study abroad destination, and Greece is showing a 20% rise in study abroad numbers. The initiative of the Minister of Education, Niki Kerameus, rides on this wave and tries to foster sustainable partnerships between higher education institutions in the U.S. and Greece. Unfortunately, the effort excludes private universities and study abroad programs operating in Greece, some of which have been bringing U.S. students to Greece for many years. College Year in Athens, in particular, has been operating in this area for almost 60 years and has about 10,000 alumni, who remain spiritual friends of Greece, and many of whom are active professors of Greek subjects in the U.S.

As Greece’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has been forming over the last few years, with varying levels of success, it is pivotal to focus on the key strategic areas that will allow Greece to once again play an increasing role in the international business arena, after many years of stagnation.

The three strategic pillars in this effort are education, real innovation and successful implementation of new entrepreneurship. These can be supported by the existing, strong and healthy, extrovert Greek companies to create regional and international players and leaders in the new economy of tomorrow.

The three strategic pillars in this effort are education, real innovation and successful implementation of new entrepreneurship

A major component of this strategy begins with the educational years of late elementary and middle school, when our children need to be introduced to entrepreneurial culture, allowing them to better integrate themselves in the new world of entrepreneurship and business creativity during their high school and university years. This will be achieved gradually, through mock-business plan competitions—such as the SEN/Junior Achievement Greece competition—and the close cooperation of the universities’ technology transfer offices (TTOs) along with university and privately led accelerators/incubators and market participants, which will prepare the aspiring entrepreneurs to better cope with all the necessary steps and navigate the difficulties ahead.

AmCham’s Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee is assisting in this ongoing effort. The new government will need to address issues with early stage incentives in new companies to be formed, to help them succeed in the tough world of healthy free market competition.

Recently, Salesforce published its “State of the Connected Customer Report,” including insights and views from over 8,000 consumers and business buyers worldwide. This year’s winner buzzword wasn’t from tech—it was the Greek ethos. Ethics in customer relationships and buying decisions are no longer “nice to have” but rather an essential part of business. According to the report: 80% of respondents said they are more loyal to companies with good ethics while 68% said they wouldn’t buy from companies with poor ethics; 73% of the respondents went a step further saying that trust in companies matters to them more than it did a year ago.

21st century capitalism will have all stakeholders at its core—not just shareholders

It seems that it’s no longer enough for the world’s most innovative companies to simply lead the way technologically. They need to lead the way ethically as well.

Ethics is not an outcome; it is a process. Companies need to have measurable goals and targets or they’re simply going to suffer on their bottom line. It seems to me that the concept of shareholder-primacy which was all about profit maximization will soon be dead. A new model of capitalism is emerging, especially as millennials and Gen Zs enter the labor market. 21st century capitalism will have all stakeholders at its core—not just shareholders. It will continue to focus on shareholder returns, while building better societies for all.

Startup Toolkit contains everything startup founders need to know in order to set up their companies

The economic and social crisis in Greece, which spanned a whole decade, has offered as a welcome side effect some much needed hope for the future: Although the unemployment nightmare for hundreds of thousands of young people forced many of them to seek a job abroad (resulting in a quite disappointing brain-drain), it also obliged many others (public sector dreams being dead) to find alternative ways, put their many skills to use and try founding their own companies. In a few years, the startup scene was booming, offering quite impressive answers and innovative solutions to many everyday problems. Nowadays, a whole ecosystem is established, vibrant, properly funded and boasting numerous success stories.

Yet back in the middle ‘10s, the rules of the game were not so easy to follow and implement—they still aren’t, in many ways!—and that was the reason the American Hellenic Chamber of Commerce’s Education, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Committee decided, in addition to its many other projects, to offer a helping hand to all those daring university students and young researchers in the form of a practical manual. Presented in compact form and enjoying great support, Startup Toolkit contains everything startup founders need to know in order to set up their companies. It is frequently updated with new content (its third edition will be published soon), and new chapters are added regularly to address the constantly changing and ever widening range of requirements. Feedback is enthusiastic, and surely, this is a very positive sign for us.

Over the past decades, we have come to recognize that powerful technological, economic, and social forces are transforming our world. We are witnessing new business models that incorporate technology to connect organizations and people in an interactive ecosystem. Political impact and cognitive power are embodied in Big Tech. Entrepreneurship is taking place in a business environment, empowered by digital technology that overcomes barriers of space and time, employing smart and innovative solutions that connect producers and consumers quickly and more precisely. Today business is complicated because possibilities are endless. There are many circumstances that influence the success of a business, while amazing amounts of value are created and an even larger amount of data is exchanged by the largest, fastest-growing and most powerfully disruptive companies.

Entrepreneurship is built on creativity and risk taking and takes focused practice, learning and thinking outside the box

Within that global marketplace, transparency, engagement, and originality, along with reputation capital, are key values that every entrepreneur should pursue. Confidence and self-esteem are also critical elements of the success equation. Furthermore, removing ego in favor of the big picture and the larger goal of building a great company is essential. The ladder to the top has steps that have to be followed, starting from evolving from being a capable individual into a contributing team manager and eventually into an effective leader.

At the end of the day, entrepreneurship is built on creativity and risk taking and takes focused practice, learning and thinking outside the box. It is a combination of intuition, analysis and professional commitment, in a business community where algorithms prevail.

Globalization is here. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is happening now. Companies are becoming larger, smarter and are expanding their operations worldwide. Unemployment is high, as is the demand for skills/jobs. A prevalent gap exists between student skills and company needs. An effective solution to this skill-chasm is the prioritization of outward orientation by the educational system in conjunction with an increase in company offered internships. The integration and introduction of domestic knowledge and culture, higher education schemas and norms alongside educational philosophies on a worldwide scale via tertiary education internationalization is paramount in ensuring and assuring to students and future employees competitiveness and success, both in the local and the global market.

Thus, on one hand, educational efforts act as a tool in enhancing the quality, mobility and suitability for labor markets, by aimed investment in students. On the other hand, increased opportunities in the form of internships, on a permanent basis, provide students with challenging and innovating environments in which to experience theory become practice, whilst augmenting their readiness to be valuable employees. Furthermore, internships contribute, on average, to the decrease of turnover with direct positive income to the company’s operational cost. Additionally, outward orientation reinforces confidence, actively supports international influence in the world knowledge system, and concurrently invigorates the likelihood of a country to transition towards its epicenter.

Ultimately, outward orientation is vital to global prosperity for students and companies alike.

As Europe progresses ever further into the digital age, the transformations that this has brought on a regional and national level have been staggering. Nowhere is this truer than in the relationship between education and the job market, as attested by the abundance of studies and reports highlighting the extent of the digital skills gap.

Education today must be an avenue not only to self-sufficiency but to a life of choices as well

At Cisco, we choose to see these evolutions as opportunities for growth and innovation. Through our CSR program, the Cisco Networking Academy, we seek to address the digital skills gap by providing courses, which lead to recognized by market certifications, that are designed and updated to match the needs of employers worldwide, while providing one of the most diverse course catalogs in the market for our students.

Because education today must be an avenue not only to self-sufficiency but to a life of choices as well. This is why Cisco continues to innovate and develop courses like our new CCNA v7 aimed at developing the professionals of tomorrow: with strong core competencies in digital skills and the right mix of soft skills required by employers today.

By continuing to grow and operate the most complete digital learning platform available in the market free of charge, Cisco makes the choice day after day of partnering with private and public sector entities in Europe to ensure that the European journey into the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a successful one, built around young people ready to take on the challenge of making innovation work for them.

Innovation and technology shape and improve the quality of our daily lives.

The processing power of an average smartphone today exceeds the processing power of mainframes five decades ago, while world data is doubling every 20 months, and internet-connected devices exceed 12 billion.

The public and private sectors in Greece need to accelerate reinventing themselves, innovating by embracing digital technologies to be able to deliver higher quality competitive services.

We need always to bear in mind that innovation occurs when an existing product, process or service is improved, whereas invention is the creation of a product for the first time. In Greek Mythology, Prometheus stole the fire from the gods, and this was the greatest innovation for humankind. Apple set up an easy-to-use ecosystem that unified music discovery, revolutionizing the music industry.

To unceasingly maintain and finetune the conditions needed to drive innovation in the public and private sectors is extremely complex, but a minimum agenda of fundamentals can set an efficient basis and produce significant results. Three such fundamentals that must be at the top of such an agenda are:

1. The nature of public education for graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—the STEM—where job growth is likely to be about 1.7 times faster than it will be in other areas.

2. The retraining and reskilling of employees to equip them with the skills they need for their current roles and future careers.

3. Internet access as a social good to boost connected citizens and education.

We cannot change the pace of technology; however, we can affect the speed of education. We need a pragmatic approach to accelerating skills acquisition in the age of intelligent technologies. Incremental changes from policymakers and the corporate learning system are not enough to close the digital skills gap. We must start by breaking down roles into tasks and then determine which tasks will be affected by technology, matching these with the relevant skills.

Education should be targeted at those roles most affected by automation. This is not only about technological and digital skills, but about a full range of skills, including creative and complex cognitive skills essential to the future workforce. The impact of intelligent technologies will be uneven across economies and industries, and consequently targeted interventions will be needed. The positive news is that skills development is undergoing rapid advances, through a combination of learning techniques and experiences: on the job training, virtual reality, on demand videos and classroom education.

The focus should start with empowering the most vulnerable people with roles affected by automation, with priority given to older workers and those in low-skill roles, as they are often excluded from education and skills programs. Teaching should be engaging and adaptive and encourage a lifelong learning mentality. Finally, financial incentives should be put in place for corporations for the acceleration of digital education and capacity building programs.

The race between technology and education will be long, and everybody has to work hard to change the odds, with one big goal: We must leave no one behind.

Innovation and technology shape and improve the quality of our daily lives.

The processing power of an average smartphone today exceeds the processing power of mainframes five decades ago, while world data is doubling every 20 months, and internet-connected devices exceed 12 billion.

The public and private sectors in Greece need to accelerate reinventing themselves, innovating by embracing digital technologies to be able to deliver higher quality competitive services.

Educators are faced with the challenge of equipping students with the skills to enable them to utilize technologies that haven’t even been invented yet

We need always to bear in mind that innovation occurs when an existing product, process or service is improved, whereas invention is the creation of a product for the first time. In Greek Mythology, Prometheus stole the fire from the gods, and this was the greatest innovation for humankind. Apple set up an easy-to-use ecosystem that unified music discovery, revolutionizing the music industry.

To unceasingly maintain and finetune the conditions needed to drive innovation in the public and private sectors is extremely complex, but a minimum agenda of fundamentals can set an efficient basis and produce significant results. Three such fundamentals that must be at the top of such an agenda are:

1. The nature of public education for graduates in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics—the STEM—where job growth is likely to be about 1.7 times faster than it will be in other areas.

2. The retraining and reskilling of employees to equip them with the skills they need for their current roles and future careers.

3. Internet access as a social good to boost connected citizens and education.

Change in education is often a slow process, yet we live in a fast paced and ever-changing world. Educators are faced with the challenge of equipping students with the skills to enable them to utilize technologies that haven’t even been invented yet. A daunting task and one that is even more compounded with increasing globalization. Combine this with looking after your student’s mental wellbeing and developing their social conscience and you are faced with an almost impossible task—almost.

Part of the role of being a teacher is to individually nurture, but ultimately, there is a prevailing and increasing pressure to produce exam results. Many curricula have seen little change to content or certification in the past 50 years, and furthermore, we have seen many examples internationally of regression to former templates. Are these curricula reflective of the skills that our students will need in the future global environment? We can produce students who speak multiple languages, attain the highest grades and attend advanced classes, but is this of any worth if they are unable to cope with stress, handle their emotions or practice conflict resolution?

A successful student is not necessarily one who achieves the highest grades but one who can contribute to the local and global society positively. The question must be asked whether current curricula enable us to develop the skills necessary to achieve this. Perhaps it is time to re-think.