With recent international research finding computerisation will potentially make one half of all jobs in the US redundant within the next 20 years, QUT's corporate education leader says there needs to be a radical rethink about how schools, universities and workplaces prepare people for change.
QUT Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Little said the onus was on educators and business leaders to equip students and staff at all levels within organisations with the skills to think creatively to enable them to not only survive but to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
"The ability to solve problems and use changing technology to advantage are key skills now but they will become even more crucial in the future," Professor Little said.
"In order to do both effectively, people need to be able to think creatively and this is a skill that needs to be taught right throughout the education system and in the workplace, too.
"While some people may be great strategic thinkers, and others have an analytical bent, it will be an individual's ability to draw on the power of both the left and right sides of their brain that will see them meet the future with confidence."
He said QUT was bringing to Australia a group of US creative thinking experts who had worked with senior leaders at Fortune 500 companies such as IBM, General Electric, Pfizer, Starbucks and had been involved in a Reinvention Revolution conference at the White House.
"Creative Leaps International is a company of learning specialists, performing artists and scientists who use the performing arts to create a novel, highly-creative learning environment which aims to catapult thinking and problem solving along a creative path," Professor Little said.
Creative Leaps International is sending eight principal performing, teaching and consulting artists to Australia including the company's president, baritone John Cimino, a former scientist from Rensselear Polytechnic Institute, fellow scientist and percussionist Richard Albagli, tenor Paul Spencer Adkins, soprano Dianne Legro, flautist Donna Wissinger and pianist Jon Klibonoff.
The team will run professional development workshops for leaders at QUT 's Gardens Point campus as well as workshops with Year 7 and 8 school students at Caboolture.
School principals and other education leaders will take part in a day-long workshop on July 22.
On Thursday July 24, the group will travel to Longreach where the next day they will run workshops with primary and high school students from Longreach, Barcaldine and Ilfracombe.
A free community concert sponsored by the Tim Fairfax Family Foundation will be held at the QANTAS Museum during the evening of Friday July 25.
The group will travel to Canberra to run a workshop with participants of QUT's corporate education programs including the Executive Masters in Complex Project Management.
Professor Little said the tour would inspire workshop attendees, opening creative channels of thought.
He said it was crucial that the creative industries were recognised for the pivotal role creative thought needed to play in the lives of people from all walks of life to help with everyday problem solving from the highest levels of government to the family domain.
"While most people crave certainty, uncertainty will be a hallmark of the future," Professor Little said.
"The nature of many jobs will continue to change throughout the course of a person's career and they will need to be adaptable so they can embrace those changes."
He said recent research by Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael A Osborne at the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford found that 47 per cent of current jobs in the US were at risk from future computerisation over the next 20 years.
"We're not talking about routine manufacturing jobs here," Professor Little said. "We're talking about transport and logistics, office and administrative jobs and even service industries among many others.
"What we're really talking about is the need to change the way we teach people to think."
Download research here: http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf
Media contact: Rose Trapnell, QUT media team leader, 07 3138 2361 or 0407 585 901 rose.trapnell@qut.edu.au
