It has been a few weeks since we attended and sponsored the world’s leading festival for business and creativity – Pause Fest 2021. But I haven’t fully immersed into all I have learned quite yet!
Throughout the 10 days of this online event, we have connected, learned, inspired by many leading experts. From Google Empathy Lab, Tik Tok, Soul Machines, Hootsuite, Hour One and even an insight into how Nasa designed their spacesuit – these are not the people you get to hear from everyday.
And that’s in itself deserve all praise to the Pause Fest team to create what I believe is the best-of-best lineup of online speakers I have ever seen.
Now, let’s get to the juicy parts.
Sessions!
While there is a wide range of sessions from all aspects of technologies and creativity, I want to highlight a few I found inspiring, especially for the eLearning industry.
The future of information giving has arrived (literally!)
If you think using a robot or AI to communicate with your learners are somewhat ‘Black Mirror’ future tech, we haven’t quite successfully created. Well, think again.
On Day 1, I attended a session by Soul Machines on the topic of “The art and science of putting a soul in our machines”. In this session, the speaker, Ben (General Manager), took us on a journey through the conception and progress they have made on creating the world’s most human-like digital beings.
And on Day 2, we also witnessed an awe-inspiring presentation by Hour One on “Virtual Characters and the future of work”, where she shared the current technology of their digital humans. The AI capability is so impressive that I can’t really tell if she’s even there in-person speaking, or maybe she used one of the bot to present the entire session.
AI or human-like digital people will play a massive role in many ways for the eLearning industry. We are talking about the possibility to deliver a more robust education we didn’t think was possible. Imagine converting your course into another language and having these digital human deliver those lessons. No more looking for trainers when you can feed them text information and have them do all the work.
It’s truly is a new way to interact with your audience.
Consideration for our audiences and learners has never been more… well, considered!
In this modern age and new technologies, we have entered the stage where technology addiction is a real problem. Most platforms these days have nailed how to keep their audience engage with their app or site.
Many sessions from the like of Google Empathy Lap, Tiktok, Nasa and Canvas have touched this topic on how many large tech organisations are looking to create something ‘more’ than just a luring addition or ‘this will work’ approach.
Many have walked us through a process that will be most beneficial to consumers & users as well as the company.
The eLearning industry is in the same position. In 2020 we saw rapid growth in our industry due to the pandemic and the need for organisations to get online. While it would have been easy to jump online, the consideration of how the learner will take on the once, very interactive, in-person learning to an on-screen education… That’s another story.
That is why all online learning provider must support those shifts as much as possible. From creating more engaging, better interactions and higher quality digital courses. We can deliver an excellent education environment as well as content quality to our learners.
The future of the workplace culture will never be the same.
Many sessions covered the ‘shift’, the ‘new normal’ and the ‘future’ since the change we all faced last year.
It is easy to say that the way we work will never be the same again. Also, society as a whole probably developed new skills combined than ever. I’m sure everyone (including seniors member of your family) now are very accustomed to using video conference, for example. And I know many in our office who have taken up addition hobbies like baking, learning new languages or renovation skills.
No denial that 2020 was one of the most challenging years for many. And while the pandemic has caused many tragedies, it also opened up new opportunities.
We heard from the Swoop Aero session, where they now can deliver healthcare products through drones, solving the problem for a remote or regional area. Proving that we are now starting to look for technologies that are safer, more sustainable and reliable.
Or the fact that you can work from anywhere means that we’re relying on technology ability more than ever.
Many organisations are now open to finding the right talent outside their local area to join their team. Onboarding training technology needs to deliver quality content to successfully onboard the new employee.
It’s exciting really, to hear this from all leaders in the tech space.
We are moving forward at a rapid rate.
The technology we once think is 5 – 7 years ahead are happening now. Problems we didn’t know we needed to solve are being looked at right now.
And eLearning plays a big part in that.
To me, that will only show the power of will what a group of experts and passionate people can do.
