Author: Amanda

While governments can tackle the bigger issue of the IT skills shortage, enterprise can nurture tech talent in the short term by taking IT skills training mobile.

The UK has gained a reputation for being at the forefront of innovation thanks to exciting developments spawned from TechNorth, Silicon Fen and various other tech clusters up and down the country.

For the UK to remain such a major player, the development of digital and technology skills needs to be a priority to ensure we can maintain a pipeline of talent and innovative home-grown technology businesses.

With this in mind it is good to hear the popularity of STEM career paths is on the rise. However, it’s lagging behind the rate of global growth in this area. For example, the EU Commission reports that by 2020 the continent will have a shortfall of 900,000 much needed IT professionals.

Putting this in perspective, this is the same figure as the population of Stockholm.

Starved skills supply

While the government works to solve this problem through vocational paths, labour market regulation, apprenticeships and education policy, the solutions proposed are long term and fail to address the immediate demand for skilled IT workers.

For example, Tech City’s Tech Nation report highlighted that one million digital technology roles were advertised last year alone. The skills gap is an immediate problem both to the industry and overall economic growth.

A skills gap and a high demand for tech talent has also resulted in professionals being in the position where they can choose to work as contractors for hugely inflated salaries.

While this might seem advantageous, this has the potential for long-term and negative consequences for the industry. This is especially true for fledgling start-ups that may lack the funding necessary to attract the digital talent to drive their ideas forward. 

Where this leaves the CIO

Upskilling existing employees is often a neglected avenue. However, the old methods of upskilling are not necessarily the best for today’s developers and IT professionals.

The YouTube generation craves immediacy and wants access to information so they can resolve work-related problems when they need it, whether on the job or on the move. They certainly won’t wait for a scheduled classroom training course.

We know how time-consuming it can be to take people out of action for several days, and the disruption this can create. Pluralsight's research has found that more than 70% of Pluralsight users in businesses learn outside of working hours; there is high demand to develop skills outside of the working day.

An accessible approach to learning

The reality is that forward-thinking companies are making a fundamental shift in the way they offer learning to their IT departments. With more than 93% of companies now using online learning courses of some description, it’s clear that a different style of learning, more focused on real-time problem solving rather than traditional classroom training is already taking an increasingly important role in the tech sector.

However, not all online learning solutions are created equal, and businesses need to think carefully about what their developer and IT talent wants. Developers want to learn from the people who are pushing the boundaries of application design and try new coding languages as soon as they emerge.

Forward thinking organisations are embracing this notion by empowering staff to select the training that’s right for them, and this leads to greater relevancy and higher engagement for the trainee.

For instance, Pluralsight’s Authors are gurus and innovators in their own right – and their reputation and expertise appeal directly to today’s discerning IT professional. 

On-demand learning allows you to address all of these requirements by giving employees control over their own learning. Today’s workforce want their information in a searchable format of their choice so they can digest a short burst of training to upskill rapidly – and on a device of their choosing. 

It gives them the ability to apply their learning immediately, adding context to their understanding. Significantly, learning retention is proven to increase productivity by 14% due to higher levels of engagement and improved time to competency when learning becomes available at the point of need. This means that businesses can deliver their services around 26% faster, just by altering their accessibility to training.

IT talent needs to constantly refresh and improve their skills to maintain their relevancy. This also creates a culture of continuous learning, motivating your talent to constantly challenge themselves and learn outside of their current skillset.

What was gospel two years ago is now demoted in favour of new frameworks. In 2012, our most popular courses were dominated by ASP.net – nowadays it’s Angular JS and C#.

By providing a 360° learning experience through skills assessment, focused training, re-assessment of newly acquired skills, combined with practical exercises, online mentoring and discussion forums, your employees will significantly improve their productivity and effectiveness.

Crucially, it will enable you to build a pipeline of skills long term, helping you evolve your talent in line with market changes. This type of responsive learning will ensure your talent remains agile and innovative so it can evolve alongside the business’ strategy in the long term, not just stemming short-term skills gaps.

Source: Information Age

Despite previous predictions pushing the launch of G-Cloud 10 as far back as 2019, the Cabinet Office Minister for Implementation Oliver Dowden has announced that the launch will take place in June 2018.

What is G Cloud?

G Cloud (short for Government Cloud) is the government’s flagship cloud services framework. At its most basic level, it is an agreement between the government and suppliers who offer cloud-based services.

Through the G-Cloud, UK public sector bodies can access a wide range of pre-vetted vendors and services, through transparent, accessible and competitive online platform, known as the Digital Marketplace. Central government, local councils, NHS Trusts and other public sector bodies are able to procure cloud-based services such as web hosting from one centralised website, leading to significant savings in time and effort expended.

There is currently very little information available on G Cloud 10 and what changes will be made. At the moment, Cloud 9 offers access to 2,856 service suppliers across three categories or ‘lots’:

·         cloud hosting, for example, content delivery networks or load balancing services

·         cloud software, such as accounting tools or customer service management software

·         cloud support, such as migration services or ongoing support

How can SMEs benefit from G Cloud?

In addition to the great benefits enjoyed by the public sector, the service providers in the private sector have benefited in a multitude of ways. There have been nine iterations of the G-Cloud since the release of the first version in February 2012. Since then, public sector buyers have spent over £2.8 billion with private sector companies.

 SMEs make up around 90% of the suppliers on G-Cloud with small IT suppliers accounting for 48% of total sales, making this initiative a strong boost to businesses across the UK, and opening this dynamic market as an appealing opportunity for new service provider entrants.

Oliver Dowden, Minister for Implementation, said the following about UK SMEs:

“Small businesses are the backbone of our economy, so it’s crucial that we listen to them when shaping policy, as we have done today.”

How can my SME benefit from G Cloud?

You have to wait until the bidding goes live in April, but apart from that, there are no barriers for you to enter your cloud service offering. As long as your company offers services in one of the three lots – cloud hosting, software or support – you are free to apply. You can only do this when an Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) contract notice has been issued. At that point, you will have 4 to 6 weeks to apply to the framework. On average, a contract notice will be issued every 6 to 9 months. If your application is successful, buyers will be able to find your services on the Digital Marketplace.

G Cloud offers many benefits to SMEs. Your business gets a much wider exposure and the respectability that comes with being a chosen provider for a public sector body, leading to increased profitability, brand recognition and trustworthiness in the eyes of potential clients. Another benefit is that everyone gets an equal chance at winning business through the bidding process. Do not be deterred by the competition because you stand a strong chance at beating it.  And finally, it helps your SME to become more well rounded by having clients in both the private and public sectors. This allows you to refine your service offering and make it a truly comprehensive and competitive solution for any interest parties.

Who can apply?

While G-Cloud a UK government framework, you do not need to be based in the UK to provide your services on G-Cloud. G-Cloud is open to cloud service suppliers of any size. In the past, smaller suppliers may have found it challenging to invest their time and effort in the lengthy application process. This process has now been simplified, creating a fairer marketplace that is more open to competition. 

In conclusion

With the date for the launch of G Cloud 10 confirmed, suppliers of cloud-based services will be able to bid to provide their solutions via the new framework from April. The announcement suggested that G-Cloud 10 could eventually be worth £600m. A full report of G-Cloud sales can be found on the Crown Commercial Service website, and reveals very interesting insights into which public sector bodies are taking full advantage of the tool and provides information on not only who spent what, but also on which SMEs have successfully pitched their services and been able to grow their businesses through G Cloud.

For us at Certes Computing, we have been able to win over significant business through G Cloud by providing our specialist services. If you would like to learn more about the services we offer, please refer to our Turnkey information page which will tell you more about our managed services offering. Alternatively, get in touch by e-mailing enquiries@certes.co.uk or calling our team on 44 (0) 1675 468 968.

Content: Share This

So you can get the best out of using social media for your job seeking it would be a good idea to know what recruiters are searching for on various social media and optimise your social media accounts give the employersthe best impression about you and the skills you possess.

Source: Recruitment Buzz

Given the changing regularity associated with mobile working, there's never been more pressure on enterprises to address their approach to mobility

This year, the UK government has committed to the roll out of free Wi-Fi on all trains by 2017. Major mobile operators have responded by signing agreements that commit to provisioning 85% of the country’s mobile data connectivity needs by the same year. The vision of a ‘mobile Britain’, it would seem, is on track. 

For UK enterprises, this represents a serious opportunity to introduce forward-thinking mobility strategies, as well as build more flexibility into their employees’ working patterns. 

However, pairing mobile working with regulatory compliance considerations does require careful planning if any mobile-first strategy is to deliver on its promises.

To deliver on the potential of a mobile workforce, businesses must ensure that access to sensitive information and systems is available from anywhere in a controlled and accountable way. For technologists, this means establishing an IT setup that is robust, secure and accountable.

Such is the proliferation of mobile working (according to the Office for National Statics, there are as many as 4.2 million home workers, or 14% of the UK workforce), that legislation is always changing to meet new technology standards. 

In June 2014, employees across the country were granted the right to request flexible working after 26 weeks of employment. For the CTO and IT team, this has sped up the need to support remote working, creating the need for an IT strategy that is robust, and conducive to remote productivity.

Cloudy with a chance of regulation 

The majority of businesses will provision mobile and data services via cloud infrastructure: it’s flexible, scalable and capable of keeping up with constantly changing demand for bandwidth and information. 

Whether using public services, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, private infrastructure, or a hybrid combination of the two, when employing this model, it’s important for organisations to know they retain ownership of their data. 

In the UK, the Data Protection Act outlines that “data controllers [ie. the business] must be in control of data at any given stage, even if the data is sent to an external party”. In practical terms, this means retaining control of the data at all times, even if it’s being hosted by an outsourced cloud infrastructure provider. 

Outsourcing shouldn’t be seen as an easy way to sidestep regulation, but as an ally to achieving compliance in a timely and cost-effective manner. For businesses, it also poses the question of e-discovery. In other words, how quick and easy it is for an organisation to produce data when requested by regulators? 

Without complete control and access to owned data, wherever it’s stored it has the potential to become a compliance challenge. This puts increased importance on a firm’s choice of outsourcing partner.

Standards everywhere

While the Data Protection Act is a universal guide, specific standards exist within every industry, and they don’t differ when it comes to handling mobile data. For example, Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance has the PCI Data Security Standard (DSS), which applies to companies handling credit card information. 

Heavily regulated sectors such as healthcare and legal also come with their own set of challenges. The technology supporting these industries will need to be prepared to stand up to rigorous industry inspection. 

The CTO and CIO need to be prepared for these legislative standards, to plan for compliance accordingly. 

For enterprises utilising a cloud-based model, it will be important to ensure that any chosen provider not only has the correct certifications in place, but also has clearly defined protocols for how they address the constant evolution of technology regulation and compliance.

As the world becomes ever more connected, the role of the data centre as the enabling environment for the mobile economy becomes more important. 

Data centre operators have a duty to take regulatory standards into consideration when implementing security measures, and should be prepared to demonstrate their credentials to any business looking to trust them with mobile provisioning. 

As business moves across locations, networks and devices, via employee mobility, IT needs better visibility and control to protect sensitive assets, without imposing restrictions on flexible working or the productivity that comes with it. 

The mobility of resources — geographic and range of devices — comes with a unique set of considerations that IT practitioners need to address proactively.

Source: Information Age

It isn’t always what you know, although that is a great help. You need to make your employer fall in love with you. But how can you do that? It’s a simple task to do, so simple that you wouldn’t believe it.

If you have ever been on a date you know that everything matters in the short time that you have with the other person to make that first date turn into a full blown relationship. At this point everything you do matters, and because you are aware of this what should be simple may turn you into a babbling buffoon.

Love waits for no man

On a date you need to be at you location on time. Making your date wait shows that you are not interested. This holds true for interviews. Remember, they have made time for you so the least you could do is arrive on time. A good rule of thumb is to aim to arrive early to give you some time to gain your composure. There are situations that can’t be helped which will affect you reaching your destination on time. For this, the considerate thing to do is to notify the interviewer with plenty of warning and explain the situation. When arrive apologise for being late and show them that their time is important.

Love at first sight

Your appearance is the first thing that people see when meeting you and if you’re meeting them for the first time, this could be the difference between the interviewer taking a chance on you or waiting for Mr/Mrs Right to come along. Dress to impress.

Interaction

How you interact with the employer can be a major deciding factor in how the interviewer will feel about you and you need to make a connection. The best way is to be friendly and approachable. Smile to everyone you meet and say hello. If you meet your date’s friends, they can influence how your date feels about you. When your interviewer arrives stand up to great them and shake their hand. This is the best time make small talk to break the ice. Most of all you need to be confident.

Just the two of us

Now that you and your date have met and both of you have settled, it’s time for conversation to begin. How you interact is still important at this point so continue to be polite. The interview is about you and most of the question will be towards you. Try not to make the conversation one-sided. Just because you’re in the spot light doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions. You want to find out about the company and the interviewer as much as they want to find out about you.

Bring a gift

On a date, bringing a small gesture of affection isn’t required but it’s always good in earning bonus points. Use this in you interview, your gift should be a samples or evidence of work that you have done in previous employment. Saying that you have accomplished feats is one thing, showing the evidence and explaining the results will have the interview swooning for you.

By this stage you should have the interviewer’s full attention and the chemistry between the two of you is at its peak. You have shown that you’re interested in the role and the interviewer wants you. Still you cannot be eager; one false move can destroy all your hard work that you’ve put in. If you had made a good impression and kept the interviewer interested your working relationship could begin to blossom. Many interviews may come in stages. So a few more dates/interviews may be needed to cement the deal. Continue to follow these advices and it will help to change your interview dates into a working relationship for many years to come.

Now that you know what a competency based interview is, how can you prepare for one? The best way is to read the job description for the job that you have applied for. Job descriptions are filled with ‘key words’ for skills that are classed as essential or desired. Using the ‘key words’ think of a couple examples where you have showcased those skills and what the results were. Don't be discouraged to use an example if the outcome didn't show positive results, you can use this opportunity to show that you have learnt from your past choices. Explain that you see what went wrong and what you would have done differently. This can show the interviewer a lot more than just saying you received a negative response to a task.

There may be times where you will be attending an interview for a new career or you do not have much experience in a role, what can you do to show you have evidence of required skills? Skills are transferable to different situations if you don't have an example of skills in employment then you can use examples from other areas. School/College/ University, Hobbies, volunteer work or your personal life can all be used to share evidence of skills that you have.

Examples

Ability to defuse a situation – If you play a team sport and you have had members of your team disagreeing with each other which required you to resolve the confrontation, use it as your example. Not only will it show that you can defuse a problematic situation but it also shows that you can work within a team.

Ability to communicate – Presentations that you have given within your time in education is a superb example for this. Presentations require confidences and the ability to communicate clearly. If you can give an example of a time where you have given a presentation this would be a step in the right direction.

If you are struggling to find an example of skills that can be transferred you can always talk about a fictional situation and how you would go about handling it.

Show and Tell

As well as explaining evidence you have encountered you should also show evidence if it is possible. Showing evidence on what you have worked on previously can present the interviewer with more information about you in a shorter amount of time.

What to remember

Remember competency based interviews ask for evidence that you can complete required tasks. Read the job descriptions and think back to when you have accomplished and acquired skills that are being asked for. When explaining your evidence go into as much detail as you can. Detail the processes of the tasks, any complications that came up, how you handled the complications and the outcomes. Be honest with the outcome even if they were not as expected. As long as you can show that you learnt from your experience it will not be seen as a negative.

When it comes to malware, cybersecurity threats and basic human error, organisations need to focus on more aspects than just their environmental risk

A cyber attack is truly an executive's worst nightmare. When an organisation's sensitive data is hacked, leaked, compromised or lost, it can send business operations into a downward spiral without much warning.

In years past, we've heard of cyber attacks on large organisations like Target, Home Depot, Sony and eBay. Over 80 million people enrolled or formerly enrolled in Anthem plans, including Anthem employees, had sensitive personal information – such as social security numbers, medical IDs and home addresses – exposed to hackers during its cybersecurity crisis.

In 2016 and beyond, cyber attacks are only expected to increase, simply due to the sheer number of devices, nearly 6.8 billion, circulating through the globe.

While no organisation is ever completely safe from the horrors of a cyber attack, there are measures of protection and preparedness that executives can and should take.

Businesses should always assume that IT security investments, no matter the size, couldn’t fully protect them from emerging cyber security threats like ransomware.

That said, the best way to protect an organisation is to ensure you're making appropriate security investments in addition to working with a proven IT disaster recovery (DR) solution provider that does both replication and backups of your data.

Take ransomware, for instance. It’s a constant cyber security threat within an organisation – hackers can trick employees into running software that encrypts data with a key to which the IT department doesn’t have access.

Frequently, while an organisation is in duress, hackers play to weakness by introducing count-down timers and threats of destroying the data completely.

The only way the hackers will allow reentry into the data is by requiring a payment, hence the term "ransom".

Just like any ransom negotiation, they may be bluffing – the price may go up once they know the company is willing to pay.

While there are plenty of technologies out there like antivirus and intrusion prevention systems, they don't always provide enough speed or comprehensive security when it comes to catching new threats.

No matter how much money an organisation is currently investing in antivirus software, or how much it is pouring into other ransomware protection tools, the reality is that it only takes a single emerging threat and one wrong click by anyone in the organisation for an investment to become moot.

Backups and recovery

Because the threat of ransomware is fragile, it's critical for organisations to invest in both backups and real-time recovery. In the face of a cyber attack, backups are key –providing a second copy of data, protected offsite.

In addition, some organisations are large enough to have the capital and headcount to oversee private data centres in one or more locations where they can actually manage the backup replication, monitoring and testing in-house.

Many midsize organisations, however, can't afford that luxury. If multi-site recovery isn't an option, organisations should look for a DRaaS (disaster recovery-as-a-service) provider that has data centres in several different regional locations.

In case of a crisis, this allows organisations the options of recovering data from an offsite backup location or quickly failing over to another location that hasn’t been compromised.

Replicating data for real-time recovery is another wise investment to make, complementary to backups. Continuously replicated data protection, combined with the help of a DRaaS provider, can get users up and running quickly (within minutes or hours instead of days), so they can keep their typical business functions operating as usual.

However, if encryption from ransomware affects all of an organisation’s replicated data journal sets as well, it will need to rely on backup for recovery instead.

Due diligence

It's up to IT executives to ensure their organisations are performing due diligence in the form of detailed planning, budgeting, execution, testing and verifying backup and recovery services.

These routine maintenance tasks are important in long-term protection and recovery from different types of cyber security threats.

When putting a DR plan into place, organisations should consider several factors: identifying which parties should be contacted in the case of an emergency; evaluating which applications are required to be back up and running in little-to-no downtime (RTO); and how far back in time the data should be replicated and archived.

This type of foresight can be challenging and often time-consuming, but it's invaluable information to have in the case of an unfortunate hack.

Planning out and incorporating an overall recovery plan is a key investment for most organisations. What's more, finding a quality, scalable solution that's also economical doesn't have to be difficult.

When considering a plan to execute a seamless, successful recovery plan, think about the types of third-party providers out there that exist to protect organisations.

Evaluating, engaging with and confirming third-party providers of backup and recovery services should be a serious vetting process for IT executives.

Ensure prospective providers have separate and secure locations to recover data in case there is ever a scenario in which their production data centre is compromised.

Additionally, research prospective providers' track record and experience to ensure they're a quality, trusted DRaaS provider you can easily work with from a cultural alignment perspective.

We live in an age where, unfortunately, cyber attacks are becoming more and more common and sophisticated in nature. The bright side of that equation is that as a result, DR and cyber security programmes are getting stronger and more comprehensive.

Organisations that prioritise backup, recovery, detailed planning and strategic execution of DR protocols will be ahead of the curve when it comes to cyber security.

Source: InformationAge

The excel guru of 2015 is about to give way to a new breed of data analyst, but how can we train for the skills needed in this new data-driven economy?

Source: Information Age

Think about your daily lives and how often you use and interact with technology. For some of us this may be the first thing that we do. Now think of all the information that you store on technology, sensitive data such as your name, address, banking details and so on. If you are like most people nowadays an extensive majority of your time will be using software that has your details stored (social media, banking, work, shopping, ect.)

The online technology space is a hive of information ripe for the taking and organisations are aware of this. The global cyber security market is growing exponentially with increases of 10% year on year with no signs of slowing down. By 2020, the cyber security market is expected to reach $170 Billion (£118 Billion).

Here are a few things to note:

• 181 cyber attacks since 2005
• 1.8 Billion records compromised from companies such as Sony to V-tech
• 2014 and 2015 saw major companies being subjected to cyber attacks

With Cloud computing now becoming a staple in IT departments enabling staff to work away from the office and consumer connectivity growing with the introduction of ‘smart’ cities, there are become more ways in which cyber attacks can gain access to sensitive data.

The latest form of these cyber attacks making the rounds is Ransomware. Ransomware is an access restriction malware that infects computers denying access to files, holding the files for ransom. With this form of Cyber attack the attacker(s) extorts money from their victims in order to release the lock.

Cyber security is a pretty serious business and companies are taking precautions to prevent attacks from happening to them. The demand is so high that experts in the cyber security field are extremely sought after and can earn up to £10,000 a day. However, talent in this area is sparse thus the reason for the attractive pay.

With robots continuing to revolutionise workplaces, what can employees do to apply and leverage their skills so they can add greater value?

'Welcome to your obsolescence,' shouts the New York Times Book Review with a picture of robots doing all the office work, except for one suited man mopping the floor. ‘Half of all jobs will be automated in the next two decades,’ insists a serious Oxford Martin School study. And Elon Musk gets credit for igniting the latest frenzy with his crafty comment about ‘summoning the demons’.

As thinking machines – narrow artificial intelligence, technically, or plain AI – work their way into every cubicle and cranny of the workplace, the volume is cranked up, the debate is blaring, ‘Is AI good or evil?’ But this may be entirely the wrong debate. It’s certainly not a productive debate. And AI is all about productivity.

At the last count, according to Bloomberg Beta's Shivon Zilis, there are at least 2,529 companies racing to develop worthwhile AI products. Google, Facebook, Amazon and Baidu are in the lead, and assuming history remains our guide, these companies won’t stay there.

Experience demonstrates that the ‘good-evil’ question is primarily a function of marketing and trending sentiment. Commercial entities are increasingly focused on AI for the future impact on the bottom line. It’s all about ROI.

Just as a previous generation made vast fortunes refining hydrocarbons, managing the delta between investor and borrower needs, and electrifying the world, today's AI leaders want to carve out the niche that will build the future’s fortunes – ‘cognifying’ the world and transforming our digital lives.

We know already that machine learning – think of this as restricted AI – is handling dozens of valuable business activities. Cutting back the energy we use in our homes (Nest). Scheduling our meetings for us (x.ai). Ridding our email of spam (Mailwise). Helping us acquire knowledge and clients quicker (Scredible). Suggesting new connections based on our career changes (LinkedIn). Instantly translating our sentences into the language of our recipients (Google). And turning stats from sports games into genuine news stories (Automated Insights).

Across every industry, there are promises on the horizon that have the potential to positively impact our productivity and our lives just as miraculously as, first the gas lamp, and then the electric light bulb, drove the productivity of the industrial revolution. 

But just as the candle makers saw their jobs snatched away, many millions of well-educated workers see their livelihoods in jeopardy today. Most of them are mistaken, but the fear is real. This begs the question: who are ‘they’?

Journalists will face dim job prospects as robots learn to write as well if not better. Waiters will be replaced, certainly tips will decline, as orders are placed over iPads set on tabletops and busboys and girls deliver and clear.

Accountants will find that software has replaced them, and that software neither miscalculates nor leaves the risk of a government audit to chance. Interpreters will sit idle, because anybody in any language can communicate across the globe, in any language, and in real-time.

Marketeers will be slammed by programmatic buying software that eliminates the judgment for which they were once valued, much as is already happening with stockbrokers and traders.

The list is endless. It impacts job categories once considered safe. No more. The hard truth is: many thousands of people will find their job position deleted, or their skillsets replicated by a computer at lower cost.

But there is a bright side. Millions of people will also find that new jobs are opening up to support, advance and manage the new AI-enabled workplace. These are different jobs, skilled jobs, functions that require new skills; skills, ironically, best defined and taught by – you guessed it – AI-driven systems.

The reality is that the ‘is AI good or evil?’ debate is the wrong debate to be having. Absent a digital meltdown or other harbinger of the oft-predicted dystopian future, technology will march on. Quantum computing will become a reality and AI will evolve. This is what technology does. What it has always done.

And, what we humans have managed to do, to a greater or lesser extent, reasonably well over the past 65,000 years is adapt. Therefore, the question that should be asked by those future-focused folk, indeed the central question of our time, is: how do I align my skills with the AI-enabled economy?

This is the real question – itself best answered by considering two further questions: how do I fill my knowledge gaps to remain relevant? And how do I best prepare for the jobs of the future?

For all the jobs being displaced, new, and in many cases more fulfilling, jobs and career tracks are in constant creation. The most obvious realm is data. We're swimming in so much of it – 2.5 quintillion more bytes a day, says IBM – that today's data analysts will be unable to keep pace.

Indeed, McKinsey predicts that by 2018 there will be a shortage of data analysts. This field is not for everyone, but it should be great for analytical-minded professionals. But who are they?

Our broken and outdated education system has proven unequal to the task of identifying individual talent and ability. First we need to apply AI to fix this system. Naturally, data analysts are just an example, the tip of the iceberg.

It is going to require new knowledge that enables individuals to become valued and valuable assets moving forward. To meet the need, professionals in the workplace will have to fill knowledge gaps created by the pace of change. Fortunately there are companies working on apps, programs, and training designed to broaden our understanding and narrow the gap.

Currently, over 171 universities in 26 countries are offering advanced degrees in AI to prepare the next generation for these as yet undefined, or ill-defined opportunities. This is just the start. Everyone with an internet connection can have access to a personal AI that works for us around the clock, affordably and efficiently.

In fact, transformative and disruptive AI-enabled apps are evolving to meet the future’s promise, transporting us from a reliance on the old educational institutions to future-ready training programs that give us just what we need to know, when we need to know it.

This is the future. Good or evil is no more part of the picture than the concept was for earlier innovations such as fire and the wheel. This is the future, and we must be prepared to embrace it.

Original Source: Information age