CAMPUS | 16/06/2021

The Future of Education Is Digital and Sustainable

INNOVATION IN EDUCATION IS NOT THE SIMPLE SUM OF THE PURCHASE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND A LEAP INTO THE CLOUD, JUST AS SUSTAINABILITY IS NOT JUST THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THOSE WHO DEAL WITH CSR, EXPLAINS GIANMARIO VERONA IN HIS EDITORIAL IN THE JUNE ISSUE OF VIASARFATTI25 MAGAZINE AND IN HIS INTERVIEW WITH ANANT AGARWAL, FOUNDER AND CEO OF EDX.

Digital transformation and sustainability are the levers of the growth we hope to see. Growth (and our competitiveness) will be all the more rapid and lasting when investments in these two areas are strategic and implemented with a reorganization of business processes. In other words, we have to get away from the mistaken idea that digital innovation is the sum of the simple purchase of new technologies and a leap into the cloud, and that sustainability is merely a matter for the corporate social responsibility department. That is, we need to move away from passing fads and act on innovation. The Next Generation Eu and its Italian application, the PNRR, clearly indicate this and provide us not only with the direction but also with the tools and capital.

This applies to our businesses, but even more so to the educational system, on whose rethinking our future and that of the generations to come depends. For schools and universities, thinking digital and being sustainable means first and foremost being inclusive and able to tailor training to the needs, rhythms and abilities of individuals. It means being able to innovate rapidly, not to follow the market but to anticipate needs and guide them. It means thinking in a transversal way, having the ability to create courses capable of opening the minds of young people. They must be trained to think about the convergence and intertwining of various disciplines and not about their segmentation. All this is possible thanks to the skillful integration of remote and in-person teaching, which should never alternate separately (except in times of health emergencies such as those we have experienced and hope not to relive) but must be integrated to get the best from both and create a new educational model.

Bocconi has been engaged in this direction for years, well before the pandemic, thanks to the efforts of BUILT (Bocconi University innovations in learning and teaching) and the integration of subjects such as critical thinking, computer science, artificial intelligence and geopolitics each student’s individual study path. For an institution like Bocconi, this also means being inclusive.

Digital innovation in education is also the topic of Gianmario Verona's interview with Anant Agarwal, founder & CEO of edX and professor at MIT, for the Executive Chats series.