The knowledge economy and a new paradigm for developing human capital
KEY CONCLUSIONS
Human, not technology takes the lead in the knowledge economy
“People’s self-identity in this rapidly changing world is the key to it, whereas the technology has always been, is and will remain just a tool, which, among other things, serves our own positioning <…>,” Maxim Shereykin, Director General, Agency of Technological Development.
“First of all a person should know and understand themselves. Self-identification, self-awareness, understanding what we want, who we are in this world, where we are going and why… Today it is probably our most concealed and under utilized major asset in the knowledge economy,” Olga Golyshenkova, President, International Association for Corporate Education.
“Technology management is a complete nonsense. Technology is made by people, and it is much more important to be able to manage the process of recruiting a person’s skills to use these technologies. And the person who mastered technology will be able to develop it in the future and come up with an original one,” Robert Urazov, General Director, Agency for the Development of Professional Communities and Skilled Workers (WorldSkills Russia)
“The key to a new paradigm is a human; you can implement any information system, any technology, but a person with inappropriate management decisions makes any technology implementation pointless,” Evgeny Charkin, IT Director, Russian Railways.
Technology is a tool for uncovering the potential of human knowledge
“We need to be able to manage technologies, because if we don’t, then unfortunately the true human potential and knowledge will remain concealed. The value of explicit knowledge (technology falls into this category) will plummet,” Boris Slavin, Academic Advisor, Department of Applied Mathematics and Information Technologies, Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation; Member of the Board, Russian Union of CIO (SoDIT).
“Technology management is critical for success. Technology in general is quite useless if you do not know how to manage and work with it. The data is a ‘new oil’. Oil without a motor that runs on it is useless. Therefore, it seems that the data will also require relevant people, scientists, to process it and translate it into something valuable,” Nelson Zhao, Co-Chairman, Stanford US–Russia Forum, Leland Stanford Junior University.
ISSUES
University graduates lack practical skills
We are in the state of emergency. We are phenomenally over ‘diplomated’ and under competent. Lots of diplomas, but few skills. Education is not your package once and for the rest of your life. Knowledge enables with theoretical understanding, and practical skills create the economy,” Robert Urazov.
Standards of education expire rapidly
“Forego standards setting. Time is valuable and you are wasting it on creating standards. Education standardization on average takes four years, whereas the same four years in the IT industry is a suicidal term. Just like intellectual property patents, standards in education must go. The only reason they are still here is because we have a conservative legislation that keeps them alive,” Robert Urazov.
SOLUTIONS
Introduction of advanced production technologies
“Breakthroughs are only possible originating from a solid base. The first breakthrough is to increase efficiency through the introduction of advanced production technologies. Russia has much better chances here than the rest of the world. The world <…> can afford postponing the introduction of robots, additive technologies, they have large-scale production, effective and smooth-running systems. Russia, having a heavier production structure, lacking global market entries, has no other option but to adopt customization, small batch and individual production. This, in turn, calls for advanced production technologies,” Maxim Shereykin.
Revival of engineering education
“We need to re-invent the concept of an engineer; we lack the effective engineering skills. This is a pre-requisite for any technological breakthrough. Task manager is extremely important, a person who would transfer and combine digital with real production and technologies. Such people would become the digital transformation competence holders,” Evgeny Charkin.
Growth of intellectual capacity of human capital
“We need the total intellectualization of the Russian population. Russia is a vast country with few people living here; every person competes with ten, twenty, sometimes even fifty people in China. The low chances that a person from Russia has to get to a technological breakthrough require a much higher intellectual capacity per unit of human capital. In order to achieve competitiveness, we need to deeply re-consider our education system. We simply can not afford the so called human waste,” Olga Golyshenkova.
“We need to enable both, children as early as possible and their parents, to try themselves in different ways and encourage non-linear career paths. Knowledge management is the next literacy project for society. If we want total intellectualization of our population, then we need to understand how to perceive and work with knowledge as an asset from the cradle,” Olga Golyshenkova.
Enhancing human creativity
“The world craves for so-called human touch, for services, goods, things made by people and for people. In broad strokes, we need to get ready for the skills of human creativity: the ability to create and the talent to transfer human skills,” Robert Urazov.
