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Innovative Approaches to the Skills Revolution-The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Challenges It Brings

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Dijana MARTINOVIC

4. The Industrial Revolution is currently taking place in our human society and is slowly taking over and becoming present in all segments of human activity .

We live in a turbulent world full of challenges, from climate change, wars, financial instability to pandemics. These challenges include a lack of funding sources, insufficient investment in and maintenance of infrastructure, and most of all the preparation of people of all ages for life in the 4 Industrial Revolution. That time-time of the 4th Industrial Revolution requires concrete solutions for all issues of human action, and education and development of new skills are the basis of these changes.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is already taking place in our human society and is slowly taking over and becoming present in all segments of human activity: industry, finance, economy and of course education. It represents a rapidly evolving new environment characterized by new technologies such as Internet technologies and content (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI), which are rapidly bringing about changes in the way we live and work. It also brings us many innovations and opportunities to develop new skills. Some of these innovations and opportunities include renovating and setting up a new education system and a strategic approach to increasing creativity and innovation in both education and work.

In order to explore all the possibilities and challenges that the 4th Industrial Revolution poses to the development and revolution of skills, my article first explains and conceptualizes the very concept of the 4th Industrial Revolution, and then defines new skills necessary for successful coping in the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Industrial revolutions

4. The Industrial Revolution is an era of combining biological, digital and physical worlds. The term and definition were first mentioned at the World Economic Forum by the chairman, Mr. Klaus Schwab, when he described the most common technologies of our era.

The main technologies that are expected to be the main carriers of 4.IR are Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things, Cloud Computing and nanotechnology. In addition to these major ones, 3D printing, robotics, blockchain technology (chain of information blocks), and quantum computing are also appearing. In order to better understand how we came to the 4th Industrial Revolution, we will take a look at the history of revolutions and what the first three previous revolutions brought us.

The First Industrial Revolution represents an era marked by the change of production in an economy based on agriculture to one based on production. It is noted that it began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century and lasted until the middle of the 19th century. It is also characterized by the use of water and steam for mechanization of production. Other phenomena that marked the 1st Industrial Revolution were the use of steel, iron and energy sources such as coal, electricity, steam engines and oil.

The Second industrial revolution appears in the period from the late 19th to the beginning of the 20th century and represents a period of a kind of technological revolution. This is the period of the emergence of mass production, which was made possible by the progress of technology for mass production. The emergence of new technologies enabled the mass employment of factory workers and significantly increased the number of workers who belonged to the middle social class.

The Third industrial revolution is characterized by the use of electronics, computers, information technology and telecommunications for the purpose of production automation. From the 20th century until today, all the progress and all the successes of this revolution served as an introduction and precursor to the 4th Industrial Revolution. 

Currently, the global pandemic is accelerating the process of digitalization and the coming and the development of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the beginnings of which we are already in.

Potential, and accelerated growth of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, the Internet, 3D printing, quantum computing, nanotechnology, etc. are the equivalent of a steam engine in the 1st Ind.Revolution, electricity and oil in the 2nd Ind.Revolution and information and telecommunication technologies in the 3rd Ind.Revolution.

As in previous industrial revolutions, the arrival of a new revolution means that both people and companies must adapt to new working conditions and a new reality. In order to face the new changes and to adapt to the new labor market that brings new work automation, it is necessary to acquire new skills and key competencies that will allow us to more easily navigate in this new era of human development and functioning:

1. Problem solving

Computer thinking is a skill of the 21st century. Problems occur every day and in any field, but the ability to solve them is especially appreciated in the professional field. The ability to analyze and find patterns, the use of abstraction and algo-rhythmic solution design, are the basis for finding new strategies and solutions to new problems.

2. Creativity

Creativity helps us to be different from others and create all these innovative solutions. More and more people are likely to acquire the same technical skills, and there are already robots that can perform some tasks, so proposing new ideas and developing creative solutions will be an exceptional skill in a world that is evolving faster and faster and that every day shows new proposals and new ways of implementing creative solutions.

3. Critical thinking

To get along with a work team or someone who explains a problem to us, the first thing we need to do is listen. In turn, if we listen carefully to others and the ideas they present, we will be able to get to know different points of view and learn to analyze problems and face them from different perspectives. If we develop critical thinking, it will be much easier for us to find creative and effective solutions to any problem.

4. Empathy and teamwork

Empathy for other people is essential, both for creating the best solutions to problems and for working with project partners. If we know how to work as a team and use each other's strengths and expertise, we will be much more efficient when creating solutions that take into account the needs of those who seek them.

5. Communication and leadership

When we have an idea or want to share an opinion on an issue, it is important to know how to communicate in a clear and understandable way. Adopting an appropriate voice register, a good capacity for argumentation and knowing how to communicate what we want to our listeners is key to developing our idea or involving others in the project we lead.

6. Organization and self-management

The ability to organize and manage all the resources we have at our disposal in the best possible way (time, money, material resources, human resources) is also a highly valued characteristic. Knowing how to analyze the resources we have and make the most of them will obviously help us create solutions in a faster, simpler and smarter way.

7. Coding skills

Finally, it is important to point out some technical skills. Programming is already a part of our lives, but it will play an increasing role in our daily lives. For that reason, learning to encode will be as necessary as learning to read or write, because in a world where everything works through software, ignorance of its language will make us lag behind and be at a disadvantage. One of the great challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution is to try to adapt as many people as possible to the new process of transformation. It is therefore essential that they have prior access to training that is linked to the new reality and that helps them acquire the necessary skills. In that sense, it will be necessary to change the educational system, as well as activities such as learning codes, whose main goal is the development of computer thinking (problem solving), skills that both children and adolescents and adults can acquire through learning programming.

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