Is digital intelligence the key to Globalization 4.0?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is catapulting us towards a connected society. Improvements in the availability and delivery of communications services means there are now more than 4 billion internet users, over half the world’s population.

But digital literacy and skills aren’t spreading as fast as connectivity. And that increases cyber risks, widens the gender divide, and creates skills shortages.

For example, children living in countries with low ICT penetration are 1.3 times more likely to be involved with cyber risks, such as online bullying and video game addiction, than those in countries with high ICT penetration.

By 2022, only 30% of the UK's digital workforce will be women; and the country will need an additional 500,000 workers in digital industries. In the US, there’s a projected pool of only 3.2 million candidates for the nearly 6 million jobs expected to require tech skills in the future.

As I talk to my peers leading multinational organizations, skills and talent shortages is one of their top concerns, no matter what industry or region they are based in.

It’s easy to see why. Ninety percent of jobs will need digital skills in the next three years. At a time when most of our organizations are undergoing a digital transformation, the digital skills gap is hampering progress in 54% of companies and is costing our economies billions.

Most striking of all is that 65% of children starting school today will hold jobs in the future that don’t yet exist.

Skills are no longer enough

Increasingly though I find that digital literacy and skills are no longer enough. Young people grow up surrounded by technology, but too many have no idea how it all works, and don't fully appreciate how it will shape their futures.

They see it as being geeky, not relevant, too hard, or even a waste of their time. If you talk to non-users of the internet, they don’t talk about not having the right skills. They talk about it not being for them.

When I look at our workforce, skills like data analytics and coding aren’t always the way in to an exciting job. One of our most promising young cyber security apprentices, Rachel, studied music, not coding. The skills, abilities and attitudes Rachel learned playing the violin are now helping her flourish in her role in our security team.

The rise of digital intelligence

The Coalition for Digital Intelligence calls this new requirement “digital intelligence” – not only technical skills but also abilities related to managing screen time, critical thinking and digital empathy.

Singapore’s Digital Readiness Blueprint highlights this with its recommendation of spelling out a set of basic digital skills for everyday activities. These skills include searching for information on the web, making cashless payments, using messaging and digital government services, and spotting fake news and online scams.

With the skills gap forecast to quadruple between 2020 and 2030, as leaders, businesses and governments, we need to build a culture where young people see tech know-how as the new way to get ahead and make the most of technology's power to shape their lives – a culture of creative problem-solving based on digital capability. That’s why I’m delighted that BT is supporting the Coalition for Digital Intelligence.

Helping people get more from technology

We’re scaling up our drive to help people get more from technology: by enabling teachers and parents to show the way; inspiring young people to find technology relevant and interesting; and equipping schools to use technology effectively.

We’ve focussed our initial efforts on supporting primary school teachers because they play a crucial role in setting children’s attitudes and aspirations.

We’ve already trained 63,000 teachers and 2 million children as part of our Barefoot Computing project. Free learning materials and games encourage kids’ computational thinking, helping them understand the building blocks of the digital world, like logic, sequencing, abstraction and programming. Barefoot resources also help develop other important digital intelligence skills like numeracy, literacy, collaboration and problem-solving.

Of course, it’s not just young children. Amongst teenagers, much of the focus of digital skills is on staying safe. That’s vital, but we also need to make the digital world more transparent and empowering.

Our innovation hothousing techniques helped us come up with new ways to help kids understand the commercial realities of the internet and navigate the digital world with confidence, answering questions like how companies and YouTube stars make money online, why gaming is addictive, and why they find it difficult to put their devices down.

At a time when Globalization 4.0 needs global, digital citizens, I believe that a lack of digital intelligence is an obstacle for people and the organizations that employ them. We have to address it now to enable people, and our organizations, to succeed in the future.