 Hello and welcome to everybody here with us for what is going to be a very topical and very important discussion. As you all know, if you're all here today it's because the fourth Industrial Revolution is well underway and it's having ripple effects across the planet, not least of course in the world of work. It's a story that we're going to be dealing with, it's about challenges but it's also about opportunities as new technologies are transforming our society and the job market. It's one that's already entailing job losses around the world and we've got industry experts with us who'll be talking to us about that, about the difficult decisions they have to make. Do they reskill, upskill? Do they decide to fire and hire new talent? Because what we're looking at is a world where we have emerging employment that we don't necessarily understand. We'll be discussing with the Dean here of the Indian Business School how he prepares his students but we also have to prepare the younger students for this world of work which is uncertain and for doing that we'll also joined by Catherine. I'll be introducing our guests in more detail in just a few seconds but how you kind of prepare these youngsters for what is an uncertain future and it's very much a grey area. Now the World Economic Forum has been preparing some of the groundwork here and I'd like to thank them for hosting this discussion and it's identified if anything that this has to be a collaborative effort, an effort between business, government, educators and of course civil society but as I was saying there is limited information available and really I suppose one of the crux issues here is the business case and whether there really is a return on investment when it comes to upskilling and re-skilling employees. So I'd like to introduce myself. I'm Isabel Kumar. I'm from Euronews. We've got a fantastic panel to help us unpick this issue and let me begin right here by introducing Mr Rajendra Srivastava. Now he is Dean and Novartis Professor of Marketing Strategy and Innovation at the Indian School of Business. So he's preparing these bright young minds for this future of work. Then I'm delighted to have Catherine Kirkmuff who is Vice President of Social Responsibility and Engagement at the Lego Group Denmark. So then if we rewind, these are the youngsters who she is helping prepare to teach them to learn how to learn, teach them how to prepare for a new workplace environment. Then on the cold face in some respects we have Swapan Jauri who is Corporate Vice President of HCL Technologies and then giving us a global perspective but also half inside looking in is Eric Loeb who is Executive Vice President of Government Affairs at Salesforce and Salesforce is committed to investing in the workplace as is HCL Technologies. So they have some very interesting stories to tell us. And at the end of this discussion we're hoping to be joined by Mr Mahendra Nat Pandey and he'll make some closing remarks and he's the Minister of Skills Development and Entrepreneurship in India. Now I'm upskilling as well and I am going to be trying to use a new piece of technology that has been given to me, was probably not that new but it's the first time I'm using it by the World Economic Forum and it's called Slido. So during this discussion if you want to ask questions you can bring them in as you go along and you will be using the hashtag. So first of all you have to go on to wef.ch ask now. So that's wef.ch ask now and use the hashtag skills and then in theory I should have these questions coming on my screen and in theory that should be working. Let's have a look. If Cody's here I might ask for a little bit of help here because it seems to have disabled itself. Anyway let's get on straight away with this discussion. As I was saying Swapan now you are on the cold face let's say you're really in the thick of all of this. So as we're dealing with this very fast changing environment do you think the needs your needs those of your employees are being met at the right pace of change when you look at this imperative? Well thanks Isabel first of all and it's great to be on this panel on such an important topic not just from a company perspective but I think from a more from a social perspective. I personally believe and I think most of my company which is atrial technologies also has this thought is that I think we're nowhere near the pace of skilling that it should be. From a company perspective that's a great belief to have because then that urges us and pushes us to you know keep increasing that pace so it sounds good from that point of view but the reality is you know that even within organizations or you know outside in the general in terms of our social frameworks you know the pace is not good enough and when I say the pace is not good enough it's not just about picking it up from a technology perspective it's not about just not just about new technology it is about how you do things how standardized do you get with things right and how do you make them work in a manner which is repeatable replicable you know which can make it pervasive you know does somebody who's got it or mastered the art of a certain thing is able to then practice it in a way in which it can be passed on to somebody else you know and therefore you know just increase that speed so both from an individual at an individual level as well as at a macro level of an organization and the super macro level of the society at least we don't see the pace being there. Okay so Rajendra now if Swapan doesn't see the pace being there now you're one stage before you're teaching some of the brightest minds of India the Indian business school is the best business school in India one of the top globally so how are you preparing these young people these these young adults to enter the workplace. We take people with about five years of experience and then we build on that but I spent a lot of time in the US and then Singapore before I came to India and looking at the pace of change let me just give you some stories about how the this talent issue and the growth issue of the global issue so just before I left the US this would be about probably 2005 I was in Detroit and there's a school called local Indian University they were going to close down the school of nursing and the hospitals were desperate because they need nursing talent and there's a lot of burnout in nursing and so the solution that they arrived at was that they would get the students and American students didn't want to do it so where did they get the students they got the students from Kerala to serve ultimately the hospitals in the United States and that particular story has kind of grown and it is in that context I've made statements like India has a talent pool and if we channel our resources targeting areas where let's say if we are looking at at a medical tourism we could be at the top of the charts the reality is Thailand is doing lots more medical tourism than India is trying but India could do that but if we look at let's say the Japanese society it is getting old very quickly so if you connect the dots then the growth can be tremendous and so if I fast forward I went from the US to Singapore I started in July 2008 that very month I get a request from the Ministry of Education this is just when the market was crashing saying that we needed to do something what is the solution they wanted they wanted to bring in people who were losing manufacturing jobs and the idea was to see if you could move them into banking or if you could move them into health care so they came to the universities and said look if you develop a program we will take care of 70% of the costs and then they turned to the banks and the hospitals and said if you give these same people internships we will pay the first two thousand dollars per month of the internship so here's a here's a government looking at a solution they pointed the problem they've seen that market crashing they know that manufacturing is not going to come back to Singapore because it's too damn expensive labor is too expensive so they're saying how do we take how do we take care of this problem all right fast forward coming to India what we see is in India there's a lot of talent but a lot of this talent is going abroad yeah so there's a brain drain because there's a brain drain and so what we what ISP started out is saying look what can we do to capture some of this talent before it goes abroad so our program is really looking at people with five plus years of experience there's another layer ten years plus experience another layer about 20 years of experience so we're looking at really you know solid people and what we're doing is we're bringing the gap between theory and practice so you need to look at both sides that there's tacit learning and there's what I would call tacit meaning experiential and there's explicit learning which is principles etc that are coming from the we'll we'll talk about all of those because I'd like to broach these issues of learning later on in the panel but if we're talking about learning well Catherine this is where you come in to play so as I was saying if we rewind if you are given a challenge for gender to re-skill people from really from one very different job to another they have to almost have a mindset that will allow them to do that and I guess Catherine this is where your work comes into play yeah if I may actually take ten seconds no more we also run a program called technology entrepreneurship program and this is a program that ISP runs not for our students but the students of about 22 engineering schools in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh what we do is we take students who are third and fourth year engineering students and what we do is teach them business management skills and you'll tell me about that after yeah okay so let's listen because I'd love to hear about Singapore and India it's very different skills as well but I'd like to talk about let's bring in Catherine yeah we come with our focus is of course you know how do we make sure that children grow up and get the breadth of skills that they need and so they're ready to upskill or re-skill and so I think we all recognize that we have a global not just crisis in terms of skills but actually also in terms of learning and it's very interesting right because we all recognize that is a bit like we recognize a climate change which takes decades to get into action we know the children are not developing the skills the need to be you know the future citizens we focus on the hard skills and standardized testing and they grow up and they do not have what we call the breadth of skills they don't grow up and our critical thinkers problem solvers and able to communicate and engage and of course I'm now I'm talking roughly but that's what all the studies and inside show so IQ has actually raised the last decades but if you look at critical thinking or creativity is significantly dropped and I assume this is some of the re-skilling that Raj was talking about when they when they join the IES you can just learn teach learn everything from a book yeah and that's the issue that's how we teach children today mostly overall and I mean the world has changed we we have robots internet and artificial intelligence and so forth but we still educate children the way we did when we grew up and that's a big issues we need to fund the mental change the way either the learning environment about children and it's not just the formal education it's at homes children they spend 20% of their time in school the risk is that homes are in the communities any parents here probably wondering what should we be doing but that's the whole that should we should play more with our children so what we work for is the play-based pedagogy and it's activity based you can call it many things some people you know when we talk a play about play or play sports a place leisure no no that's the way to learn intrinsically when you're born you learn through play it's the best way you're motivated you're engaged you dare to fail you you take risks and so forth right so at home and we actually have programs parenting programs because parents if they do not bring more play to their children help both push for an educational change so the formal education change but also bring a foster more play at home this change will not happen so we have various programs where we try to inspire parents around how they can easily and you don't need to live and be fortunate maybe to have legal bricks or other play materials you can play in the kitchen you can play in the in the you know the local park whatever you can find trust and make boats out of it there's no limits to what you can do with your children and that's what we're also trying to do but we recognize that you need to work with all the stakeholders it's the parents it's the school systems policies it's teachers it's curriculums it's quite a big effort but we definitely need to start acting more and Eric let's bring you in here because I know that the issue of education in India is important to self or Salesforce so just tell us a little bit about what you're doing in terms of that glad to but before I do I just have to share Catherine has the greatest business card that I've ever seen in my life this is so you know lifelong play and lifelong learning just kudos I enjoy this forever so to start I thought it would be helpful not just to frame the the the skills gap issue in India but perhaps globally and also perhaps sharing a corporate perspective there's an element of course that that is CSR and and from a Salesforce perspective we engage with the public schools in the communities where we are because this is of course the pipeline but what I would highlight as well is it's deeper than that it is it is a matter of of core strategic comparative for a company if you are optimistic about your future as a company and you're optimistic about your needs over time to grow then you then you need to think about this as a core competency a core part of your strategy of long-term future pipeline of talent and that's certainly from a Salesforce standpoint how we think about it there's another part about it as well from from our framing and I'll get into some of the details there's an alignment of values so so our company it's an enterprise software company but we're driven by four values and their trust customer success innovation and equality and educational inclusiveness touches all of those if you're not bringing in and cultivating diverse talent then you're certainly not advancing equality but you're not advancing innovation and on advancing trust in your society and you're not helping with your customers ultimately so these these really are core strategic imperatives when we think about it and here in India the the needs really clear this this panel and also the I will just make a plug for the for the forum which it which has a skills task force focused on India and the reasons are statistically pretty clear it's just under 5% of the workforce here that has had formal skills training just around 7% of the population has college university access so so we're talking about a vast amount of talent in society for which the traditional educational paths have been unaffordable or unobtainable I'm a huge fan of the traditional education path but it's clear we need to have supplements or alternatives not only for lifelong learning but frankly fundamental learning and alternative approaches in for which the formal path again is unattainable or or unaffordable and I'll talk a little bit later about that but one last point that I'll make as to why this is this is existentially important to a company like us outside the US India is our largest workforce location as we projection to future and independent studies have said not not just sales force employees but the broader ecosystem which includes HCL and others that there could be one million jobs in the next few years created that require sales force skills and so if we're actually going to be able to grow into that there there has to be a skills gap solution for it so that's perhaps a bit expansive of a discussion but I really want to make the point here not just for Salesforce as a company but I think quite a lot of companies should be thinking about the skills gap issue and the solution to it not as a peripheral thing and nice to do but a very central part of of your strategic planning for the future what at which point I'd like to bring in Swapan because we're just discussing earlier about this and how you have brought this right to the center of your strategy and what I would like to know is in terms of investment and profitability have you factored all that together yeah I think I completely agree with what Eric said you know it is it is central to the strategy and you have to take a much broader view to it you know then probably what is taken today I think from up from an in HCL technologies or for that are probably in every other IT company of scale you know the what we believe is that the whole problem of skills is it is made by us and it is for us to resolve in you know at least in our space right and and why I say it is made by us is that I think over the over the last 10-15 years and I'm not not referring to Salesforce and you know there has been a lot of unstructured innovation or you can say innovation which has been done because you know it's going to yield something which is it is very nice from a technology perspective you know these fantastic outcomes but what has not been thought through along with it in advance you know is what skills would you need to make it really work right so that's what is so you've got the technology and you've got the new stuff in you've got customers who are now almost salivating to get that in but you've not got the skills over there so I think what we've done first of all is to realize that this will keep happening and you know the pace of innovation has just been going up and up right and you know while I may crib about it but I can't stop it right so it is it's something that is going to happen and therefore what we've started looking at first is to be proactive about what skilling we're doing in the technology space so working with you know a company like Salesforce or for that matter lots many other technology companies you know know what's going to happen kind of predicted a bit and work towards you know skilling people or reskilling people in a large measure to do that so that is one who is I think what I what I feel and again I'm not representing an organization view on this but probably you know maybe and it could be two is you know skilling is a lot about the individual person I mean the person itself has to be committing to the skilling and the reskilling right I mean no matter how many programs that I bring up which will allow for skilling to happen or for people to pick it up if you don't have it in you that you must skill and take it up you know it's not going to really happen and does that reskilling how do you take it is it mostly hands-on reskilling as Raj was saying or is it more theoretical when you kind of get down to it? Oh for us it's definitely more hands-on so we would have labs we would have you know centers where you could come and practice there is a there has to be some theory to it you know you would do a classroom session but then you'll basically promote a lot of you know hands-on skilling in fact I'll go one step further for us it is very business-driven too so today when customers hire people or let's say they want to hire me in their project what they do is not the old style of doing a questionnaire and again we've gone in kind of created this mechanism so there's nobody will interview you the so-called classical interview is about to get obsolete yeah so I'll bring you a very interesting concept so we do hackathons for hiring right also to Catherine's point about you know kind of skills that you need not just technology but critical you know decision-making teamwork you know so in especially in the technology world a lot of hiring today is a squad hiring right so it's about a set of people working together to produce something right so instead of hiring an individual you hire a squad and you don't hire a squad only by taking the theoretical credentials or doing a few questions in an interview you actually put a problem there and say go ahead and solve this in one hour two hours whatever you think is the right time and depending on how fast this all what's the quality of the output you decide hey this quads better than the other squad and you hired the squad right it's catching on it's not that this is this is the thing that's happening but it's definitely catching on we've done this with at least seven eight clients and it's an extremely successful mechanism you know that's there so therefore it has to be hands on I'd like to be in Catherine's I can see you nodding what do you think about that no but I recognize it and we hear it from different companies it's a way to do it and we also do it ourselves in certain situations right now I'm just nodding because I think that shows exactly that when you come to a situation like that right you need to be able to work in that group you know to be curious to be brave you know to lean into the dynamics to find the solutions come up with them and so forth it's not just coming with your percentage of I went to this university this is my grades doesn't really say anything about how capable you are of bringing your competencies into play but what about the older workforce is there not a fear that then the old work force is gonna get left behind in these type of situations not really because that's exactly what we're doing a lot of the work at ISP is team work it's problem-solving it's not here's a math problem we'll solve it here's a problem situation involving government labor etc etc so it's a lot of case study work but what we're doing is we're blending case study kind of research experiential learning along with the principle sometimes what we do is we give them the problem first let them have a crack at it and then we give them the framework that they have learned themselves in the process of solving the problem so one of the things that happens is when I run into people who hired our students and they learn I'm from ISP the first thing they say oh my god we love your students I said why oh they can get something done okay so this ability to get things done the ability to take integrate information from a team and work together to solve a problem is often what is needed at the upper levels but at the you know when we can't I mean we're talking about reskilling people already 30 years old but you take younger people I think they need exposure to experiential learning so a good example is Indian Institute of Management in Thor and what they did was they they took a they were doing only postgraduate programs and they've combined undergraduate and postgraduate and the the students are spending in over a five-year period they get a bachelor's and a master's but they spent the equivalent of a year and a half working for a company and that blend of theory and practice is I think what is important another school of notity Gandhi Nagar so it's a new IIT but they're doing you know similar things so what we have to do is we have to change the narrative form wrote learning which is what we've done for decades and decades to actually getting people to understand things because what is happening as as we go along people are going to have to go through four five six different jobs maybe more than that over the course of the career so it really helps them if they're ambidextrous yeah well you're teaching to the converted I think in some respects when it comes to to Catherine because wrote learning is definitely a thing with a person I think it has been for sure decades in terms of Lego I think it was just an interesting question around you know what about the all the part of the workforce and just to bring in an old perspective of that I also read a research and I actually don't remember where it's from but it's actually sometimes actually the the creativity the innovative solutions actually comes from you can say the older workforce I don't know how we define that right but something happens actually when you when you get older so I think it doesn't matter it's not a question of age it's a question of whether you're a lifelong learner you know whether you are self-motivated and interested in continue learning and bringing those squads together I suppose if you bring squads together it's there's a disparity of age groups or do you keep it almost unilineal it doesn't matter no exactly yeah it's all it's all about the output as Raj was mentioning yeah and then to the point that Catherine just made I think as I was saying it is all about the individual learning capability and I mean learning technology is it's not like whether it's not a maths or arts issue right you know that I can't get maths at all right or I can't do arts at all it's a it's a question of you know if you do want to learn technology then age is not an issue at all so we have lots of people who would have already put me 20 years into doing a certain technology work but they are more than happy to you know get on to what is current and what will count you know today I think more than happy to take Eric then in some respects just drawing in on what everybody's saying so if we're dealing with a very kind of uncertain landscape in the future work but there is almost a certainty there that that's human nature so it's those who are proactive those who want to learn who have the keys to success in this respect and is that something that's reflected in the way you're bringing this narrative forward yeah well it's a good point I mean you want to make the experience attractive and so there there are different ways you can approach this but experiential bite-sized gamified approaches that's certainly what what we have found seems to get the most traction being a kind of a data driven company you you know what works and what doesn't work by whether or not people are taking the courses or completing the badges what what Salesforce decided to do based on what I set out before about knowing that there was a need to to address a skills gap was to actually was to create a platform for it it's called it's called trailhead and and it started small and has really grown it's now over 500 different badges and there are hard skills and there are soft skills right I think it's really interesting what I said before about soft skills a lot of people particularly if they haven't been in the formal workplace don't know how to interview don't know how to prepare a resume so so we found pretty quickly that it's not just about teaching someone how to be an application designer and giving them the certificates but if they want to move from that to getting a job they need some of the soft skills as well so so so trailhead and this gets into some of the comments raised before about older workers who need to make an adaptation we've created this platform it's really taken off they're now 1.4 million people who have not only completed badges but about 25 percent of them have either gotten entirely new jobs or gotten promotions and pay increases from it it's an entirely free and has a whole community built around it so that people are are encouraging each other forward but you you do need to determine you know how is the how is the information going to be not just attractive for people but very relevant yeah and and it's in the relevance where we have seen so many examples whether it's here in India and and I've met with some of the people when I've been here who they for no charge took this with their own motivation and time and leveraged the training into something that was effectively a certificate that they could use to apply for a job and I've just kept laddering off of that and it's exciting to see it is exciting and what's also exciting is that I have figured out how to use a slide oh and I've got one question that I would like to post to all of you and it's going to be a quick fire round as we move the discussion the question is what are the new skills that are needed so this is kind of putting you on the spot but in a sentence each can you each bring me a different skill that is needed to confront or to challenge head on this future of work I'll start with you well in management the key thing is to get things done and while everybody's talking about data being the new oil meaning Facebook selling data to make money for us the narrative is data is the new lubricant new new transmission oil you can get your company working a lot better if it is based on insights that are then integrated with the framework so I'm not talking about artificial intelligence I'm talking about augmented intelligence where you combine artificial intelligence along with theoretical frameworks Catherine we of course talk about the soft skills which is a set of skills but if I should just pick one I would actually say it's a skill of learning it's a big skill right but I would say the skill of learning and D learning and learning so being a life learning because that is if you have learned a certain way to do things it's a habit we all human beings then you need to kind of be able to kind of D learn process or methodology or way of thinking and then learn it again and I think that if I should you know take one thing that will be the skill yeah that's a very important skill yeah absolutely I think I'll take on from what Catherine said I think that reminds me of an Alville Toffler view which is about you know to learn you have to first and learn that's that's one of the big things that he talked about I think just taking a few from there one of the important things to do today and I'll come to a more specific answer on with skills but you had a one sentence answer let me all right I think it is it's basically and getting done but getting done at speed is what is very critical today right you know you can no longer have the luxury of you know thinking about it going back home and deciding something it's all here and now right so that skill is extremely important but also if you made a mistake making a you may come back yes that's true so mistakes are admissible stillness thank God for that okay Eric I'd highlight a soft and hard skill on a soft skill I mean clearly collaboration working with others and across teams but on a hard skill we have to acknowledge that there that there has been many instances been a disconnect between say formal education and the world of work and and so that's part of what the programs like Trailhead are for is to fill that gap and to make sure that someone is is able to contribute immediate value and and that is of course relevant for them and and their employability as well as for employers so yes you can have your point all right thank you so I think from a hard skill what's going to happen in five years ten years from now you have to be able to use you have to be know as to how will you use an AI tool you know today an AI tool is meant for the programmers is meant for those guys who are doing innovations was building it up I like everything else in technology has pervaded all our lives you know and it's gradually happened AI in that manner will come in so you should be able to pick up an AI tool and know how to use it to automate something that you do right it may not be done by somebody else but you know you use that tool to do that it will it will be required again going back to the speed point because if you don't do it somebody else will be doing it at a higher speed so when we just take a step back so we we've obviously taken quite a private sector view on this but but where do governments fit in and in terms of investment in this re-skilling because obviously the owners of responsibility you're taking a fair amount of it on yourselves do you receive the government support should then be more government support not necessarily only in India South Asia but maybe you know Catherine you can talk about the situation in Europe and kind of globally yeah sorry you on the spot let's go to swap and we have a little I was just in reflecting on something Eric was saying yeah in fact I mean as we were talking there's a thought that was running my mind and it's now connected with the question that you asked I think at least in India and in probably a many more South Asian countries you know skilling is essentially around skilling as a bit for business right I mean the whole focus on skilling is when it's for business and I'm not talking to not talking about the academic thing which you know which Raj would be dealing with that then of course is different but for the most part skilling and re-skilling is all about it's a business it's a business by itself and I think at a at a very broad level and probably making a nebulous statement but I think the governments have not really looked at what can they do in a structured manner to ensure that you know skilling does not happen only for business reasons you know you should be able to do more than skilling so India has a program it's called I don't remember the name of the program so it's a PM sponsored program around you know how you you know which encourages people to skill and the lots of centers that are opened up but that's about it you know it's just a thought and again all those centers that have opened up are all about essentially what money you earn from there it's not about really what did you really produce from there so I think that the big thing required from the government is a little more structured thinking around what's the framework in which you know you should be doing skilling you know does the framework have to be map skill requirements to income groups does it have to be mapped to the kind of person you are are you urban are you rural are you a millennial are you something else you know I think the government has to play a greater role in bringing this together as to what should be the policy that should apply for a country and it's different I mean you go to Singapore I think Raj was talking about it they step in very quickly right but it's not possible everywhere and therefore for different places you'll have to do it differently but I think that's where you need to step in and do it differently. The timing couldn't have been better I'd just like to welcome the Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India who's going to be making his closing remarks at the end of our discussion but Catherine and Eric I'll begin by Eric because perhaps just a complementary point on that you know one of the things when when you're working with government is sometimes when you're trying to look at it at federal level it's so complex because of the number of departments involved in the processes and one thing we have found effective here is is looking at the of the state level so a location where where we have a large presence is in Hyderabad so we've worked with the Telangana Academy of Skills and Knowledge and have found that in that framework where it's there's a pretty focused understanding of how how we can work together work with the colleges in the area we've been able to take some of the things I talked about with the platform as well as volunteers from from our workforce to to develop a partnership on education and we have about 6,800 students right now that we're that we're working with so I just raised that as an example sometimes when trying to think of it at the federal level the complexity is so high so maybe go a bit more local to where you have presence and activity and find something very concrete that you can engage on together that's interesting Catherine there's no doubt when it comes to learning both the informal and formal in education or outside the formal institutions governments are critical in terms of both of course a level of investments into a child's development whether it's in school or it's in the early years it's also you know the the willingness to be innovative in the space and and really try to have a new perspective on what are the skills so really know what what are the skills that children need to develop and it's both the hard skills of course they need to read and write and do math but it's as importantly that we develop the soft skills and that's need to be very clear across policies you could say and so that's of course a key role but then very much innovating in pedagogies approaches to learning so how the children learn these skills and I mean of course there's no doubt when it comes to formal education the governments are the very critical actor but actually also in the informal learning environments because it starts with the early health or development of children where of course there needs to be some fundamental things about health and nutrition and all that I mean that's very fundamental but also building into the systems how parents connect with their children in the early years and how they stimulate it because it's actually both we all know the first thousand days but actually from the age from three to five that's the biggest opening in terms of developing the executive skills and it's a bit devastating as a parent sometimes to know that you could have passed a chance locally you can repair some of it later but if you get it right in those years the chance of succeeding later on is just immensely higher yeah high stakes in that respect I'm gonna take a bit of a sharp turn now because I want to bring in another question that I've received on the slider and I'm gonna it's an interesting question because what I think I'm discovering from this discussion is that this is so extremely broad and touches so many areas of life and this question is how will the slowing economic picture worldwide affect the needs for re-skilling because that is likely to have a knock-on effect on so many areas as well but particularly re-skilling you're asking me I'm asking you okay so well we have to I think we tend to look at the killing and re-skilling as generic and so you know if I put on the India hat you know it's you know what are the opportunities that we have I made a comment earlier on that India could be a supplier of healthcare globally and so if the government took targeted efforts and said look you know going down the line we could be a global healthcare supplier not only to people coming to India but our workforce going globally if you look at Japan even China China you know they've got a situation where you got one child two parents and four grandparents so somebody has to take care of the grandparents it's not gonna be that kid but we need to look at we need to look at narratives where we can play an important role we could be also looking at how do we use technology to get around some of the problems that we have you know when I take the United States online learning really hasn't worked because they've got so many universities of note and even you've got associated colleges two year colleges and so on there's lots of education opportunities in India we don't and I think you'll see just as in India we saw the wireless phones mobile phones leapfrog or we've seen that we're using digital technologies to leapfrog the needs for credit cards etc. I think we will see a much greater penetration for learning that is coming that is sitting on a digital platform but it would be very good if the government can work with the private sector so if we can the government and the private sector can together provide platforms in two in areas that it leads to jobs part of the problem is we have educational institutions now somebody with the economic problems coming in they go to say okay I'm gonna go to a school and you know skill myself up but the problem is that the schools aren't really collaborating with industry so you know companies like Infosys have to run Infosys Academy because people coming out of engineering school so there isn't the infrastructure available yeah but what we need is the industry government collaboration with academia being the bridge well listen we've time is running out sadly so I would like to bring in if anybody has questions from the audience and we could bring it yep do you raise there we go we've got a we can probably only have time for a couple of questions sadly so thank you the panel I'm Zaki from Singapore and from the government actually and glad to see a couple of panellists are talk about some of the programs that we've run in actual fact as I agree with all of you that you know the economic structures important because you need to also find out you know what kind of skills they have to train people in at the same time collaboration between government and industry is very crucial because you also want to make sure that the mapping is you know it's done well so that you know the jobs are all created at the same time you train people the relevant supply of skills for those jobs and create you know an economic structure that could support not just upskilling but a transformed economy that allows for the future of work so my intervention is based my question is really this that you know we are setting up a future of work regional initiative in which we want to bring collaboration among I mean it's an invitation to India reps as well as a work in India representatives as well as World Economic Forum representatives here who may wish to collaborate with us as we help bring in internet we'd like to bring internet experts down as well as create a platform we can share best practices at the same time as well create an opportunity to help regional countries who could look at you know improving competencies as well as collaborative initiatives across not just within ASEAN but also across Asia as well including India so my question is it's an invitation actually so for the panel to come on board but at the same time your views as well and to you know you may not be able to take on everything but really in terms of upskilling reskilling where do you see economic structures and where governments could play a role in this thank you A quick response, it's interesting to see you reinforce a dialogue that we are already having with the Singapore EDB I'm sure you might know a gentleman called Chintha so you know we've very recently also spoken to him about areas that we can proactively work and go beyond the shores of Singapore to do these kind of things so I think and I think that itself answers the question in a way it's all about being able to align skills with what the government sees on a broader time horizon as well as a broader regional view you know then what is normally taken I think that's that's where if that thinking comes in and if you play towards my collaborating that I think that that makes a big difference Would anybody else like to touch upon this issue? I know we've talked a bit about government collaboration already but if they've gone the additional Singapore's by the way I spent about eight years as provost at SMU I'm very familiar with Singapore and around the time I left which was about four years ago what Singapore was beginning to do is work work the way down from the university level to the poly level and then go lower I think what is needed is not only skilling and reskilling at the upper end but we need to come to the middle layer and make the workforce far more productive and that is that at that time required more often a cooperation between universities and the polytechnics in India it would be the cooperation between you know the universities and the ITs I'll tell you a little story this is from President Nathan who passed away about three years ago we have a tiny yeah just give you one one very quick story and he was asking me he said Raj you go to India and you're trying to help with things out there what is it you're trying to do so I started giving him giving him an explanation and how educational institutions could have an impact he had this pained look on his face and I said sir what did I say wrong he says you know Raj you've got all these people who go to the Middle East they come to Singapore they learn welding they learn this they learned that and these are skilled people and now they've gone home so why don't you let skilled people who have the skills teach other people who need the skills because sometimes the skills are not there in the academic arena I mean we live in a very high level plateau and when it comes to fixing when we're talking about plumbing or air conditioning and all those kinds of vocational skills those those I mean we have the labor force we have a huge number of people going to the Middle East and countries like Singapore I think the Ministry for Education should tap them into teaching people practical skills absolutely as we're saying it's not it's a massive paradigm shift we're talking about here in some respects because it's rethinking the education process and how skills are picked up now we've got time for one very brief question if you can make it brief and then the answers equally brief because then we'll be hearing from the Minister sir hello my name is the banker and I'm a global shaper with the New Delhi hub thank you for to the panel for giving us exception insights this afternoon a lot of you said that sometimes skills lie outside the academic arena and somebody who's working like me in the career guidance space I see a lot of students under tremendous stress within comes to academics so my question is what can universities and schools do better to ease that pressure on a student and in focus their admissions more on skills rather than just academics we don't do it on skills we of course look at IQ which is in GMAT or GRE but a very important component is communication skills some elements some proof of teamwork in the past some leadership elements and more recently we have started looking at HQ if you ask me what is HQ there how is it different from EQ HQ is for heart quotient are you just thinking about yourself or are you thinking about society and what you can do but we're beginning to look for that so that has always been the case at ISP we don't go just by the score I'd like now to invite the minister to come to the stage we're gonna hand you a microphone and I know you have a few words to say so please join me in welcoming Mr. Mahendra Nath Pandey Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India you can all stay you may say as you wish sitting standing here take my name World Economic Forum CII jointly say program ke beach ya hama re guest Unruh person Catherine Crickman vice president Vice President Liu Group, Denmark, Swapna, Swapna Jowari, Rajendra Srivastav, Swapna Jowari, Eric Loebji, and our journalist senior, Nisabhul Kumar, our CIA and Economic Forum, and all the other guests. On behalf of all of you, I wish you all a very good luck and a very, very good honor. Today, I am welcoming all of you on the issue that you are discussing, on behalf of the government, and I wish you all a very, very good honor. Yesterday, I had a small group meeting, I had to break my way because of my younger brother's sudden illness, and I have just recently come to your place, from Banaras, which is my native place. I have heard a little about you. Our government has done very well in this regard, and first of all, instead of the skill ministry in India, there used to be a lot of skill departments on different sides, some in finance, some in labor, some in MSME, all these working skills used to be there. But when the Prime Minister, Mr. Narendra Modi, was the CM of Gujarat, he had studied this matter based on his international visit. He was the leader of China, Singapore, and other countries. There was a lot of skill gap in our country. While focusing on this matter, when he became the Prime Minister of India, he first planned the skill ministry in 2014-15. And then he focused on it. The result of that was four to five years in our ministry, which is the journey that has been completed. Before the NHDC, who used to work on this work based on finance, he was more focused on it. The PM's brother, Prime Minister Kausal Vikas Yojana, from Alhubara Country, today, I am happy to say this, that in every field in India, there has been a discussion of skill gap and skill-giving, which will not take anything wrong from me. The subjects of higher studies and higher levels have been successful in reaching common people. And because of that, our state skill development mission and ITIs are working in the 20th century. Now, the government in Modi Part 2 in India, which is a very strong mandate, has created the most important committees of the Cabinet, the Security Committee of Suraj Shah, which is related to foreign issues. After that, in order to further study the skill gap, a committee of the Cabinet has been created, perhaps the priority has been given to it. Along with that, I have seen that, the previous issues that we had, we have also removed some obstacles. For example, the IAS on our Singapore pattern, on the German pattern, the Indian Institute of Biscuits, the concept of establishing the Indian Institute of Biscuits, was given by Mr. Modi. You know, there are some obstacles in the development process. After removing them all, I have made the work in Mumbai successful. After that, I have recently started in Kanpur. So that the Indian Institute of World Level becomes a skill. The CIA is focusing a lot on these things. And even on our new job role, in this country, as I have heard from you in a little discussion, that the needs of this skill have recently changed in every few years. So, the new opportunities of re-skilling and up-skilling, we have started focusing on artificial intelligence, 3D printing and cyber technology. And everywhere, all the institutions work on their traditional skillings, along with them, they work in a special way. We want to tell our international guests that we run 60- and long-term courses in both ways. So that while fulfilling the needs of the future youth, they get the opportunity. If they have a long-term course in the future, but if they are busy with their work, then they are also giving skillings through certain courses. The reports that are coming now, and we have given a new setup recognizing for prior learning. There are 72 lakhs of people in India who have done RPL certified. So, the traditional skills that are available in our country have been available in the past, but they were not systematized. According to which, in the world competition, our percentage is considered to be 5% for this. But today, in the journey of these 5 years, our situation is 5% because today, which has recently been observed, we have reached up to 8-10% level. But if our traditional, in other countries, they include traditional skillings and count their skill capacity and capability. If we consider that today, in India, from Prachin Desh, from all the villages to the cities, each area has its own future, it has its own lifestyle, and it has its own destiny to work day by day in life. If they are joined together, then our percentage of our own is 50-60% in the country. But based on the international methodology, we do not systematize it, because we have a long skilling gap here. The actual position is not like that. But we and you together, especially the CIA and our international experts in our country, through the word economic forum, they have a very renowned place. By using all these skills, we can upgrade that system to that level with a modern setup. We are working in that direction. Today, we have such a big country, I have studied here as a minister for the past 3-4 months. I feel that I will share with you and also share with you the cooperation of the highly intellectuals through the word economic forum and the CIA. Through the CIA and the word economic forum, we have seen and felt here, for the past 4 months, that Alhobar country has become so busy, that we have very good ITIs and NSTIs. By utilizing them, by modernizing this skill gap, by upgrading its standard, we will use it now. Let's move forward. I was listening to Mr. Silvastav, he gave an example of China. With regard to the aging problem, our hospitality and our capability to take care of ourselves, we have also made a decision on Japan. We are thinking of moving forward with China. We have the youth within India and the Alhobar world, we have the dream of making it a working force. Our ministry is moving forward in that dream. At this time, we felt that we could take this discussion to the metropolitan cities of India. But our country is still crossing 30% of the Indian population. But still, the population between 65-70% is of this level of the village. There is a small city of small towns in the village. We need to take the language of this skill and the needs of this skill. Recently, we had a meeting with the ministers of the Alhobar countries four days ago. We have given three or four tasks to them. How to take the system of the skill to the rural level, how to set it up on the rural and district level, how to sit in Delhi, and with the international discussion. That is also necessary. We respect it a lot and it is necessary. But below that discussion, at the district level and the level below the district, where our youth is, we can remove the skill gap on the platform and re-skill the skill and take it to the job platform and with the method of entrepreneurship, we can give them the platform to set up. So, we have to take it there. Right now, we have started discussing with the state and the private institution and they are going to get it in shape very soon. Along with that, we are also involving all the institutions of our country. The biggest thing we felt was that in many countries, the school education and the skilling link-up were also present in our country but there was less focus on it. We will also focus on it. And we will want our youth and our children to have their own additional education along with that education. As the requirement of the skill is as the situation is, we will take the long term courses along with it. So, we will take the youth of our country in a very good form. We are in the midst of this situation. We want all the private companies to have that skill and to cooperate with us in terms of entrepreneurship and training. We invite them through this forum. Today, I would like to thank all of you who are here with my team and who are in touch with our CII. I have received some information from the World Economic Forum. You are doing a very good job in the country and the world. Again, I would like to welcome you with thanks to reduce the skill gap in India. You have done such a discussion to get ahead of it. You are getting the forum very soon. I have some information. I would like people like you who are so standardized and world-level to meet a little more in the middle. Your things will come down and our ministry will get a lot of input so that we will be able to do better in the future. Once again, I welcome the people who have come from other countries. As a skill minister of India, I assure you that whatever is coming out of your discussion, we use our ministry and our ministry's setup to think that we consider India's economy as our wealth. We do not consider our economy as helplessness. We consider it as our wealth. In the world, we are trying to make India a capital world. Your suggestion will help us a lot. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mahendra Nath Pandey, the Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship of India. Thank you so much for joining us on the panel. We have run over time now. Please join me in thanking our wonderful speakers who have made this discussion so lively and so interesting.