Questioning the answers
based Cloudebate™ discussion panels that include academics, media, students, alumni and industry experts. This next Cloudebate is aimed at investigating just how universities should be teaching, how its students should be learning, what curricula should embrace, and what kinds of technologies, partnerships and revolutionary thinking should be employed to maximise a responsible and productive way forward. This follows on the Cloudebate™ held in April which investigated the relevance of the academic thesis process in today’s fast past world.
What you do is what you get
We are all aware of the critical importance of sustainability in everything we do. Resources, renewable energy, food production, climate change and the technologies that enable us to meet the demands of an emerging bioeconomy that will drive the future — all of these need to be studied, taught and developed. A multicultural and globalising world where the internet of things that turns data into objects, trends into choices and choices into societies, is already upon us. In centres of teaching and learning, intellectual capital is the currency. Research is the stock in trade. In a world where AI is gathering momentum as a major force, are the accustomed ways of doing and communicating all this still valid? There are many questions that demand answers from universities, and UJ is asking them.
What you ask is what you do
How do we better integrate our sciences, humanities and approaches in teaching and research? How do we incorporate social media and identity groups? Who should our partners be? Which technologies do we use? How do we have an impact on and involve all socioeconomic levels? How do we restructure our curricula interactively to provide the trained workforce that will help build the society we would like to see for ourselves and for our children? How do we create a culture that can advance our tools and technologies in an ethical and sustainable way? When does university education end, and can it be extended across careers through ongoing research, learning and teaching?
All of these questions require careful consideration, strategising, planning and implementation, if society wants its university graduates to shape their lives, and our future ways of living, with wisdom and skill.
Creating tomorrow
It’s a discussion that urgently needs to take place, and UJ is fostering it in this, its next Cloudebate™. And because it’s a discussion that involves everyone, if you’re a teacher, a student, a parent, an employer or anyone with an interest in how we shape our society and our continent for the future, you’re invited to join in on 5 June – book for free at www.uj.ac. za/4ir.
The fourth industrial revolution is a critical juncture for all of us and, on our continent, UJ is leading in researching it and within it. The university is initiating and pioneering the kind of analysis and fearless investigation that is relevant and applicable to the enormous changes facilitated by the ever-expanding technology around which our lives are now structured.
It is through this committed examination of the world of AI, the internet of things, the rapidly changing relationship between student, teacher, academic institution and society as well as the implications for true sustainability in university education, that UJ is reaffirming its commitment to creating tomorrow.