Future Ready Through Creativity

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widely regarded

as the world’s top most chess player

ever

so you can imagine the shock 23 years

back

when he actually lost to a computer

he not only rattled the entire computer

fraternity

but also the chess productivity because

nobody could ever imagine

man losing to the machine so gary

famously said

i am the first knowledge worker whose

job is being threatened

by a mushy he then added just a week

back

saying that 96 of current jobs

will be vanishing so if all the jobs are

going to be vanishing like

you know an ice cream on a hot summer

day

then what does the future hold for us

there is hope

and for that i will segue a bit into

my journey through media and education

for some useful pointers

for the future

so it started off of course as i said

with media a whole lot of interviews

this is the president of india

these are shows which appeared in both

the europe

and northern american continent

the economic times went pink about 25

years back i was part of the launch team

for investors guide and my job was to

predict future share prices

spoken a lot on entrepreneurship we’ll

get to that sometime later

that’s an interesting insight to share

actually directed even film stars for a

glamour rat film

so that’s partially there

and the thing is this picture

brings me to a story of a small

girl who really loved to multi-color

everything inside on her first

day at school she was told by her new

teacher

no more culprits like that if it is the

sky

it has to be only blue if it is this

let’s say the forest it has to be only

green

so she came away a little unenthused

and we found her subdued over the next

few days and finally my

wife said that look why don’t we do

something

which creates happiness for children

like her

why don’t we create some theater of rain

or something

which can be wonderful activities that

bring happiness to their life

so it was this quest for happiness about

20 years back

that led to the birth of achievers

so what you see as if i’m wearing a hat

is actually my daughter pretending to be

a nut

at that time besides tv happening

i was also grooming a lot of ceos

for actually facing tv cameras how to

handle dress interviews

tricky questions strictly reporters

mainly

what i’m trying to say is i was handling

work with the biggies the big sharks

so what about the small ones you know

the daughters and

many other children like her so that’s

when

the idea came that let’s combine musical

theater

which has you know right from dancing

singing

and enactment role plays along with

poetry recitation

and then we bring it in a simple form

that children can assimilate

and then finally perform it as a it’s a

musical theater

broadway style show uh we ended up doing

hundreds of stage shows

and uh they eventually uh this is one of

our

favorite shows and we actually did an

original script for arun

sinha the first girl first lady

to climb mount everest on one foot

this is a shark topping musical in the

sense that over the last 20 years we’ve

done it dozens of times

starting with the polo hospitals in

chennai for their founders day

and uh this specific poetry

track has really inspired from president

kennedy

to jawaharlal and the latest

show this is what we are all waiting for

we

have uh very recently concluded a show

where the chief guest was from nasa

and uh the theme was

to do with stem education

infused with a lot of performing arts we

were not sure if

the head of the project from nasa is

going to take you it very kindly

because we expected somebody very high

draw rather serious focused only on the

science part

but we got the shock of her life once

she came for our show

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so let us take out a few quick pointers

from this journey in media and then

of course the performing arts as to how

we can get ahead in the future

perhaps the most important pointer would

be that happiness is at the core of it

all

a child or a student or even a

professional

in any office setting will be the most

productive

if they are fundamentally happy if a

person is not happy

then you know psychosomatically it can

lead to all kinds of

issues health issues possibly

absenteeism

a child also not wanting to go to school

so

the at the goal happiness has to be your

uncompromising target you know you need

to be really focused on achieving

an engagement level with the team that

everyone feels

willing and happy to be part of it the

most effective elements are of course

storytelling role play any kind of group

activities

can really uh bring out the best in

children

and uh students like for example when we

do workshops or corporate executives

we find that team-building activities

are

great for bon homie getting them to go

here

into a much tighter unit

and come out on top of the targets

right so then of course we are having

lots of uh

curiosity uh based activities

which are basically uh to trigger

creativity because we find that in the

future

if automation is going to be the rage

everywhere the only tasks which will not

be

automated will be the ones which are

creative so if you want an insurance

policy for the future

then it is very important to ensure

that we focus on developing our skills

connected with

creativity so what i’m getting at is

for the future a multi-disciplinary

approach

will be very critical to gain

ahead uh to ensure that you get the

brightest opportunities

that the world has to offer when

speaking of multi-disciplinary i am

reminded of

one visit to a

village in jakarta a very remote tribal

village where i was making a film

on education it was about being one

teacher school

the entire village had one school and

only one t-shirt

and how wonderful was the teaching mode

there i remember my

favorite lesson was to hit the local

pond

a shallow pond where they would all jump

in and it would be an exercise

in life sciences it could be laws of

physics they would do surface tension

so it was an amazing site and to me what

is embedded in my mind is

that is immersive learning so whenever i

meet a fancy educational technology

person these days talking about

immersive technology

my mind will only go back to that

original thought

of children jumping into water or truly

immersive experiences

now we find that

if the jobs of today

are going to be very different from what

they are in the future

then how do you prepare for jobs which

don’t exist today

almost all of you will be working

eventually in jobs

which are categories which don’t exist

today so how do you

really get ahead for those kind of jobs

when you don’t know what those jobs

are how will you prepare for it today

the paradigm shift here would be

that we essentially learn to learn

so whenever we are faced with a certain

project or a certain assignment

which needs certain skill sets we should

be able to learn the skills

at that very moment so that we perform

and complete that task

this will be a mode of life long

learning

which will ensure that not only do you

stay young

which will be a very happy you know

collateral benefit

but ensure that whatever future job

opportunities come up

you are always ready for it now uh

i am reminded of one

terrible tragedy which happened you know

2004 where you all remember the asian

tsunami

it so happened that my mother was in the

abdomen islands at that time

and she witnessed firsthand a very

severe

earthquake people know the tsunami but

not the earthquake part

she was very close to the epicenter so

it was a very violent earthquake

and later on news reports did come out

that about 200 000 people around that

part of the world i died

so when my mother returned to the

mainland and she told us about the

sheer agony and the aftermath of the

tragedy

so that spurred us to do a musical

a kind of a disaster preparedness

theater show based on the life story of

a girl who was on holiday with the

family

on the coast of ireland and when she saw

suddenly that the water had gone back

and the seabed was exposed with

fish flopping around she remembered a

school geography lesson

saying that the water will come back

this time is a very big wave

and it’s going to smash everything it’s

called as a giant tsunami

she told her parents who immediately

warned the lifeguards on the beach there

and everyone was cleared from that beach

with the result that that was the only

spot on the entire house

where no one died so if we can import

theater through theater disaster

preparedness which is one of the goals

of the united nations uh she’s at the

united nations with

the ambassador of the disaster

preparedness at that time

being president bill clinton and uh this

show in fact we performed in front of mr

rahul

and he couldn’t get up although we were

told that he’d be there because ten

minutes

he stayed for the entire show for nearly

an hour and a half

now the power of theater to bring home

learning of even great topics can not be

exaggerated so we must really focus on

how to bring learning in the future

even of the greatest subjects through

theater to make it more relatable for

the students

let’s now talk a little bit about black

holes

we all know that they suck away right

from

uh matter they didn’t take away your

life the gravity is so powerful even

light can’t escape

but do you know that even time cannot

escape

and do you know that those black holes

are the ones which are in your hands

or maybe your pockets we are talking of

course

of your mobile phones absolutely right

now the thing is

statistics show the sheer number of

notifications people get and the amount

of time

people are spending on the mobile

generally for

non-productive things is going to be the

biggest bug fair

for your future growth so if we can

guard against that

and somehow get on top of you know the

urge to

pick it up with every single thing then

we are going to be

vastly richer with time and that will

ensure

that we have uh more bandwidth to

accomplish

much more and there will be no

competition in front of us because

others are all

dropping in their combines so that’s one

good point to keep in mind

as us you know because mobile have

become virtually

weapons of mass destruction uh because

they become weapons of mass

distraction but in my mind they can be

made into weapons of you know mass

disruption in a positive way how by

using it for your vocabulary development

or instant research or

several positive things for which mobile

can be used

it can really kind of save our life and

particularly in this tweet

tick-tock work right so we find that

till now

students have been rewarded mainly for

rote learning

but the future belongs to critical

thinkers people who can solve problems

people who can address

real life problems and real world

problems

and learn how to apply knowledge to come

up with

solutions so that needs to be needs to

be the approach for future

to ensure that we are going to be

solving

the needs of whichever pop up at that

time

rather than rely purely on memory

techniques because those are not going

to get ahead in future

when it comes to logical reasoning we

find that

uh sudoku is a great help particularly

when you know uh

getting students to learn the process of

elimination which in fact

is a great thing uh for for example uh

people applying for standardized tests

i’m a master trainer for gre sap and so

on

a lot of times we are inculcating in

students the process of elimination

so if a student can pick it up in a fun

way solving puzzles like

uh sudoku that’s a great way to go ahead

or out of the box thinking with nine dot

puzzles we find those are the ways to

build

future readiness so that is something

which

i will strongly advocate that uh your

presentation skills

your copywriting skills how to write

persuasively

these are going to be your vital tickets

for future readiness

and uh i’m reminded of course since i’m

from the stock market world warren

buffet was once asked

which is the greatest skill that you

think

anyone needs for preparing for tomorrow

and he straight away said

not about investments or not about stock

markets he talked only about public

speaking

so that is a great lesson for you to

have that

this is the utmost skill that you need

to attach importance to

to ensure that you have a place under

the sun

and uh they’re going to stock markets of

course

which has been my first love uh

you know they are always hunting for uh

multi battles now what are multibaggers

these are shares stocks which go up not

just by

10 30 but they go up manifold

we talked about five times ten times so

they’re called five battles or

you know ten tigers but looking around

this room with wonderful

talent and such potential being exuded

i can see 100 tigers and thousand

backers

so i’m waiting very much for the day

when

you and you will be here on the red dot

which will then become a much bigger red

dot to reflect

your progress and me watching you

to see the exploits that you have

what you’ve accomplished and what great

ideas you will contribute for furthering

humanity

thank you