TED Talks Daily - An optimist's take on reskilling in the age of AI | Sagar Goel

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

One in three workers globally will see their jobs disrupted by AI and tech advancements this decade — but there's a way to stay ahead of the curve. Skill-building strategist Sagar Goel shares practical examples from a partnership with the Singaporean government that helped thousands of workers transition into new careers, offering a lesson on the importance of reskilling and becoming a lifelong learner.

TED Audio Collective I'm Elise Hu, you're listening to TED Talks Daily. The tiny country of Singapore has become a testing ground and a beacon of hope for digitally re-skilling thousands of workers. In his 2023 talk from TED at BCG, strategist Sagar Goyal offers a story of optimism and problem solving in the face of AI and other technologies that are impacting all of our industries. Coming up after a break. Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home.

As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb? It feels like the practical thing to do, and with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. AI keeping you up at night?

Wondering what it means for your business? Don't miss the latest season of Disruptors, the podcast that takes a closer look at the innovations reshaping our economy. Join RBC's John Stackhouse and Sonia Sinek from Creative Destruction Lab as they ask bold questions like, why is Canada lagging in AI adoption and how to catch up? Don't get left behind. Listen to Disruptors, the innovation era, and stay ahead of the game in this fast-changing world.

Follow Disruptors on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform. I want to tell you about a podcast I love called Search Engine, hosted by PJ Vogt. Each week, he and his team answer these perfect questions, the kind of questions that, when you ask them at a dinner party, completely derail conversation. Questions about business, tech, and society, like is everyone pretending to understand inflation? Why don't we have flying cars yet? And what does it feel like to believe in God? If you find this world bewildering,

but also sometimes enjoy being bewildered by it, check out Search Engine with PJ Vogt, available now wherever you get your podcasts. And now, our TED Talk of the day. Just the other day, I was having this casual coffee chat with a friend and he asked me, am I going to be replaced by AI? I don't want to go back to school to learn new skills. I'm 40. And even if I do, won't employers prefer to hire someone half my age? I mean, I get his concern and of many other friends and clients who've been asking me similar questions. To be very honest,

sometimes I worry about it too. You see, I'm a consultant and consultants like me are famous, or some of you may even say infamous, for creating these extensive, deeply researched, well-polished slide decks. But you know what? We take great pride in this ability. But what took us days and sometimes weeks in the past can now increasingly be done in a matter of hours, thanks to AI. And while this sort of thing is happening all over the economic landscape, one in every three workers globally

will find their jobs significantly impacted due to technology in this decade. And that's not just bank tellers, factory workers, and warehouse staff, but executive managers and office workers too. You and me and all of us. That's going to be more than 1 billion people impacted. And companies can't hire their way through this problem. Firstly, there just isn't enough talent in growing areas such as data science, cyber security, or

clean energy. And even if companies manage to somehow hire their absolute best talent, in five years, half of their skills will become redundant. Two and a half years if you're working in technology. This is what we call the half-life of skills. The only solution is to reskill millions of people every year and get them to use those new skills to transition into new occupations. But as I say this, I do realize this is going to be a profoundly complex societal challenge,

and so big that governments, companies and individuals must together. They must work together. I am confident that the only way forward is to replace our fear and our skepticism with curiosity and optimism. And I know this is possible because of my experience working with the Singapore government on one of their largest digital reskilling programs. Singapore is a tiny country barely visible on the world map and devoid of any major natural resources. But they realized early on that the only way to grow the nation is to grow its people. And since then, they have embraced reskilling so excitedly that if you visit Singapore, you're likely going to be bumping into skills ambassadors at shopping malls talking excitedly about the impact of adult

skill building through gamified interactive kiosks. They share positive stories of reskilling on national news, and they even talk about reskilling as part of the national defense agenda against threats and challenges to the economy. There was even a lifelong learning float at Singapore's National Day Parade this year. Unusual, isn't it? To see a country take such a positive and proactive approach. Well, it was no surprise for me that in 2020, during record unemployment, the government reached out to my company to ask if we could take a few unemployed workers as interns. But that conversation quickly spiraled into something much bigger. And soon we were working jointly to launch an at-scale six-month program called Rise

to reskill thousands of individuals from traditional declining roles into roles such as data scientist, digital product owner, and digital marketer. But as applications to our program increased, so did my nervousness. Many of our applicants had been out of formal education for more than 20 years. We had Simon, a 53-year-old from the construction sector who survived two economic crises to realize that he now wants to get into a digital career. We had Hafiza, who spent more than seven months looking for her perfect job to realize that she needed new skills

to pivot away from the traditional media industry that she worked in, which was getting impacted by technology. As I spoke to many of our learners, it was clear to me that this was not going to be an easy transition for them. So right from the first week, we focused not just on building their skill set, but building their mindset and building their confidence and their ability to reskill and make a career

pivot happen. And this is when we taught them skills such as first principles problem solving, a strategy we consultants use to solve some of our clients' difficult problems. First principles problem solving is challenging assumptions to identify the real problem to be solved, and then looking at issues from multiple fresh perspectives, even when you may not have deep subject matter expertise to begin with, and then distilling the core insight in a concise way. These first principles, problem-solving skills, would prepare our learners to thrive in these unfamiliar situations they will find themselves in, in these new job domains. And then to teach them the digital or the technology skills, we had to make things very, very real and practical for

our mature learners. So we put their skills in action on real projects. And this is where we invited executives from companies like OLAM, Danone, and Singapore Airlines to host hackathons. I still remember one of the hackathon showcases where our RISE learners presented the deep user research they did

and the mock-up of the digital app that they were recommending. One of the client professionals got so excited and he told them, this is like professional consulting work. I sat there, smiling cheek to cheek, because I knew that if these learners had applied for jobs, their applications would have been screened out even in the very first stage. And yet more than 80% of our learners found jobs.

Our friend Simon, he got hired as a digital project manager in InsureTech. And Hafiza, she works as a digital marketing specialist in cybersecurity company. Every time somebody from our program found a job, we felt like proud parents. Such bliss, I tell you. But the government of Singapore had an important role to play in the success of programs like RISE. They created a national job database and they incentivized companies to hire such re-skilled talent.

They're even steering academia to transition from higher education to continuous learning. And they have so successfully changed the narrative from fear to curiosity that in 2021 alone, more than 660,000 individuals and more than 24,000 companies participated in their programs. And if you thought Singapore was unique, we are not the only ones. Italy, Spain, India and many other countries are launching similar skilling initiatives. But beyond the role of governments, companies play an important part to shift this mindset from skepticism to optimism for reskilling. Take IKEA, the global

furniture player. In 2021, IKEA launched this AI bot they call Billy to manage majority of their routine customer inquiries. But hold on a second. What would happen to all those call center employees? Would they lose their jobs? No. This is where IKEA chose to take a revolutionary approach, and they actually ended up reskilling more than 8,500 individuals who are call center employees into interior design consultants to provide new personalized design services to their customers.

And the best part of this story is that IKEA won the hearts and the minds of its employees and customers, but made an incremental sales of more than $1.4 billion in 2022 alone. Now, ultimately, beyond governments and companies, the real change must come from all of us. I've been trying to invest in my own skills and not worry too much about my pretty slides in AI and to model the lifelong learning behavior to my six-year-old. He has this piggy bank that we call My Learning Bank to save money to learn new skills. Very recently, we used our savings on a course for robotics for kids. He just loves building things, I tell you. And he was very, very excited to show off the giraffe that he had built that could walk step by step. And step by step is all we need to embrace the reskilling revolution. Job evolution due to technology is just going to be

this new reality of the world we have to live in. But we must embrace this, not with fear and with skepticism, but with curiosity and optimism for building our skills again and again. Thank you. Support for this show comes from Airbnb. If you know me, you know I love staying in Airbnbs when I travel. They make my family feel most at home when we're away from home. As we settled down at our Airbnb during a recent vacation to Palm Springs, I pictured my own home sitting empty. Wouldn't it be smart and better put to use welcoming a family like mine by hosting it on Airbnb?

It feels like the practical thing to do. And with the extra income, I could save up for renovations to make the space even more inviting for ourselves and for future guests. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca slash host. That was Sagar Goyal at TED at BCG Paris in 2023. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective. That was Sagar Goyal at TED at BCG Paris in 2023. And that's it for today. TED Talks Daily is part of the TED Audio Collective.

This episode was produced and edited by our team, Martha Estefanos, Oliver Friedman, Brian Green, Autumn Thompson, and Alejandra Salazar. It was mixed by Christopher Faisy-Bogan. Additional support from Emma Taubner, Daniela Balarezo, and Will Hennessy. I'm Elise Hu. I'll be back tomorrow with a fresh idea for your feed.

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