Is Your Child Prepared for the Age of Automation? – Updated

Work gives us a sense of self-worth. For hundreds of years, surnames of people were carved out of their profession. If we take a glance back towards England, Smith was used for blacksmiths, Miller was used for grain mill operators, Weaver was used for clothes makers. Children inherited the tradition and carried forward the family tradition. 

Now, we no longer take our surnames from our work but what remains essential to our identity is the work that we do. It is this very identity that’s been put into danger with the rise of Automation. People are not just afraid of losing jobs and wages, but also their sense of purpose.   

According to the World Economic Forum’s 2020 Future of Jobs Report:

• 85 million people will be replaced by machines or algorithms by 2025
• By 2025, humans and machines will do the same amount of work
• 83% of businesses plan to accelerate their pace of automation

Companies are starting to move a great share of work from humans to machines:

Unpredictability is the key 

There is a cluster of jobs at which machines would easily replace humans. However, one factor where machines struggle and humans surpass them is the involvement of unpredictability. 

The jobs that present a lot of unpredictable elements, unfamiliar conditions, complex and ambiguous data – humans will always remain a step of the robots or the machines. Therefore, the best way to survive the age of automation for children is to get familiar with unpredictability. 

Prepare your children for the real-world

With the advancement of technology and the rise of the virtual world, the innate ability to deal with real-world problems is becoming rare. 

Apart from learning technical skills, if you want your children to be future-ready and boost their chances of employment, you have to make sure that they spend a lot of time away from their gadgets and find themselves in unfamiliar, messy, and real-world circumstances of life. 

There is a great need to experience the physical and real world around us and eliminate the digital filter. As Artificial Intelligence makes way into our experiences of the physical world, it determines how we learn and interact. What this does is reduces our skill level to deal with things that provide no data for AI to use. 

Virtual experiences come with constraints and limits. After a point, people have to go out in the physical world and have real, in-person connections. This natural ability isn’t something that AI is going to beat us at. 

Involving kids in Automation 

We live in a technology-dominant era. Kids are very familiar with technology and automation as they’re always surrounded by smartphones, computers, tablets, etc. Kids exposed to technology in their early years will have a better go at working with it in the coming future. 

It is important for parents and responsible caretakers to help kids identify their interests in STEM and cultivate them. This is the way to create leaders and entrepreneurs of tomorrow. 

1. Introduce Robotics to kids 

Teaching robotics at a young age is a great way to inculcate crucial life skills. If you see your child interested in the STEM field, then what’s essential is to move them forward in the field of robotics. 

Learning robotics can help develop:

• Creative thinking
• Persistence
• Problem-solving 
• Technical thinking 

Learning robotics will open up employment opportunities for kids and help them in school, college and careers. 

2. School programs

Indulge your kids in school programs that offer a STEM curriculum. This is a great way to make your kid future-ready while having them involved in the community. Children who are involved in extracurricular and after-school activities tend to have better academic performance, better social skills, and disciplined classroom behavior. 

Learning alongside their peers makes it easy for them to develop a passion and move towards a bright future. 

3. Summer camps

The ideal way to keep your kids indulged in their time away from school. Send your child to a STEM learning camp. 

One such great virtual summer camp is Moonpreneur’s MoonCamp. 

MoonCamp is a virtual camp for tech enthusiastic kids aged 9-17. The Camp includes a combination of technical skills, entrepreneurial mindset, and soft skills. Children can choose between robotics, home automation, and future tech, get hands-on learning kits and get knowledge on business and eCommerce via gamification.

4. Encourage kids in STEM

STEM learning provides opportunities to learn coding, robotics, app development, game development, automation, all while having fun.

We can prepare our children for the automated future by encouraging them towards STEM learning. These skills are only going to increase in value and demand and getting kids indulged in them today ensures a better tomorrow. 

Final thoughts 

The nature of the “jobs of the future” will see a massive change. The revolution is taking place now as we speak and it is important for us to prepare our children for what’s coming ahead. Automation is the future and it makes life more convenient. 

The question is, before experiencing the glaring threat of getting replaced in the future, do we want to pose a tough challenge? 

Moonpreneur’s Innovator Program instills an entrepreneurial and innovative mindset that will be critical for the future of work.