#thinkingforward
By Stephen Mahony – CEO JumpCO Group
Dear sir
I hope this email finds you well…
I am pleased to inform you that I have finished the Python course on Udemy ….
So began an email I received recently in my inbox. The sender is a young South African learner, Tshepo, who recently graduated from our SETA-accredited Software Engineering Programme. Python is not part of the curriculum. So, curious, I replied and asked him what put him on the Python path? Tshepo responded by reminding me of my opening address at that year’s intake of learners, where I had given a sweeping overview of industry trends. I had described the rapidly approaching tsunami of digital disruption, which would shake many economies to their core, impact millions of traditional jobs, blur consumer value chains and see the merging of disparate industries.
Tshepo is one of many JumpCO Lab graduates since 2002. Smart, hungry to learn, to adapt, and already embracing a journey of lifelong learning so key to the modern career path of our generation. This last year, he and many of his fellow learners complimented their formal course curricula with additional certifications in Critical and Creative thinking, Problem Solving, Application Development and Web Services – all self-initiated during a difficult year of pandemic enforced lockdown. For Tshepo, however, the classroom stays open. Thinking forward is second nature. Tshepo epitomises for me much of the challenge and opportunity in our complex digital world.
When I started JumpCO in 2000, the Software Lab was a parallel initiative. through the Lab, we shadow the technologies and services offered within JumpCO and invest in emerging technologies and skills to bridge the skills shortage in the ICT sector. Creating jobs, solving critical problems for our customers, and always thinking forward to the next wave of disruptive opportunities has been our modus operandi for 20 years. We’ve delivered banking solutions across Africa, renewed legacy systems while migrating businesses to integrated cloud services and built a digital platform to provide a truly adaptive and alternate learning experience. We have developed our own proudly- South African Learner Management Solution, infused with AI, data-driven analytics and SMART marking tools.
Digital disruption is certain to continue and will accelerate. It will address challenges in our communities and our organisations, affect quantum shifts in our perspectives and demand new behaviours to accompany them.
It will catalyse new ideas on how we view our world and enable fresh approaches to its new and traditional problems. Socrates is credited with having said, “I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think”. And to that we add, think forward.
There will be many like Tshepo who will follow us, then leapfrog us and take our organisations forward into tomorrow. Let our continual evolution be to embrace change, to encourage lifelong learning, lateral thinking, and creative collaboration, and to realise the best of technology and our humanity for a world tomorrow as we dream it possible. We call this thinking forward. Join us – https://jumpco.io/contact-us/.
Digital disruption is certain to continue and will accelerate. It will address challenges in our communities and our organisations, affect quantum shifts in our perspectives and demand new behaviours to accompany them.
