The 2018 edition of the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI) report, brings a special focus on the importance of diversity. They highlighted how collaboration between social partners in society is vital to confront the immense challenges that we face in a world that is increasingly dependent on talent. So, the ability of a country to attract talent will ultimately pave the way for a more innovative society capable of solving its problems. The study is rich in insights and in-depth analysis. I would like to highlight just a few that supports two vital points for both the future of work and education and to make our societies more sustainable - Education and Social Equity. Timely discussion, as teachers strike across the US for better working conditions and fair compensation, and that barely scratches the surface of our education widening deficit. We can learn from the GTCI report, from which I am drawing directly few excerpts, what we need to do regarding creating social policies to prepare our students to compete globally and enable our families to support them.
 
GLOBAL TALENT COMPETITIVENESS INDEX 2018 AND SOCIAL EQUITY
 
 The top GTCI scores continue to be dominated by developed, high-income countries and there is a high correlation between GDP per capita and GTCI scores. Those are precisely the countries with the resources and will to create more social equity. In those countries, we can see a virtuous cycle, where public policies to build more social capital creates better living conditions, which attracts and retain more local and global talent to prosper.  That is what the graphic below indicates. It makes clear that reducing social inequality is vital for global competitiveness in the long run and social stability. When teachers must go on strike to fight for minimum conditions, that is a clear indication we are not doing enough to create social equity with a quality education. 

​Education and Diversity: Challenges and Opportunities
 
Education is the focus of today's social equity agenda of societies aiming to be competitive in the 21st century. And it could not be different. Educate diverse students in the current globalized and unequal world is not a simple task. We need to create the right conditions for every student to thrive in the information economy of the future, and not only a few.
 
From an educational perspective, increasing diversity raises the question: what is the best way to ensure that all students can succeed in school and beyond? Traditional educational systems have focused on uniformity and standardization: uniform aims, identical content, standardized learning progression, undifferentiated amount of time assigned for learning, and common criteria for success—regardless of the diversity of talents in the student population. The emphasis has been on the homogeneity of learners (and outcomes). This paradigm of homogeneity required that learners were seen as similar in many ways and that differences were deliberately not acknowledged. This approach might have been appropriate in a time of massification and expansion of education, but it is simply not tenable in a modern world. It is no longer uncommon for teachers to have a class with a diverse range of backgrounds, cultures, learning preferences, and abilities. There is ample evidence from the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) test that diversity matters, but perhaps not always in the way we would hope it would: students with immigrant backgrounds perform less well on average on the PISA assessment than their native peers; those from wealthier families outperform the less wealthy; and there are long-standing gender differences in performance that, on average, favor boys (in mathematics) and girls (in reading). And while these performance gaps are critical, the significant variation in their magnitude across countries indicates that these differences can be largely mitigated, if not overcome. Providing all students with the skills and competencies required to thrive in school and beyond means being able to meet their diverse sets of needs.
 
WHAT STUDENTS LEARN: FROM CURRICULUM TO COMPETENCY
 
Uniformity and standardization have shaped not only the how of teaching and learning environments in schools but also what students are supposed to learn and teachers to teach. Many educational systems struggle to move away from a curriculum framework where uniform learning objectives and content are prescribed in a centralized way to be taught in all schools of the nation.
 
CALL FOR INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION
 
Teachers need to be able to adapt learning activities to the different abilities, competencies, and motivations of their students as well as to their linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds. That must be complemented with a sensitive assessment that allows learner strengths and weaknesses to be identified. Technology plays a crucial role in permitting the individualization of information, communication, and materials. Investments must be made to equip and train the education ecosystem.
 
LEARNING MATRICES
 
Homogeneous learning environments—which tune the pedagogical encounter to the ‘average’ learner—risk providing an overload of learning challenges to some students while not offering enough stimulation to others. In both cases, the learning outcomes will be suboptimal. Managing cognitive load and learning challenges in such a way that all learners can take equal benefit requires well-designed pedagogies and appropriate assessment systems.
 
HOW TO SUPPORT TEACHERS: COMPETENCES FOR DIVERSITY
 
Diverse classrooms, new pedagogies, and curriculum frameworks focusing on new competencies will require different skills sets and behaviors from teachers. The question thus becomes: are teachers ready for this? Or are teachers themselves educated for professional roles that put uniformity and conformity first?
 
WHERE DECISIONS ARE TAKEN: THE POLICY CHALLENGES
 
Educational systems that take diversity seriously can no longer rely on governance models of command and control. The policy equivalent of uniformization and standardization is a heavily centralized governance system in which all schools are treated in the same way through central steering and accountability arrangements that force schools into compliance with decisions taken in the center. In increasingly diverse societies, local conditions tend to vary enormously, and schools cannot realize their social mission without adjusting themselves to those conditions. Diversity thus induces flexibility and deregulation, with schools assuming ownership of pedagogy and curricula. Based on PISA 2015 data, shows that students’ learning outcomes are positively influenced when responsibilities over curriculum or assessment are located at the level of the school management and teachers and removed from that of national education authorities such as ministries.

ENGAGE
 
Past performance is no guarantee of future success. With so much to do, it is vital for all of us to understand the current scenarios, the future of work and education and foster necessary changes by casting our votes responsibly to enable modern and effective social policies.   We cannot wait for any longer to revitalize our public education system and create more social equity, so every family can support their kids to be winners in the very competitive global job market. 

​In my last article, I have explained the reasons Artificial Intelligence brains fed by the Big Data will make us all penny wise, pounds wiser. I described a hypothetical situation when the manager of a small neighborhood restaurant, in the near future, would be able to optimize and grow its business, using natural language, and by adopting services built on AI and Big Data. Technology will make every business, every person, and every institution more efficient and profitable. An unbelievable amount of wealth will be generated globally.
 
The critical question following is how we should use all this wealth soon to be generated? A puzzle that opens up economic, social, moral and ethical considerations. Top global institutions lean over the potential implications of a new industrial revolution and build models how those technologies will unfold in the next two decades. A common threat to those futuristic exercises is the risk imposed on today's jobs. A potential massive job displacement might come and bring a broad social upheaval with it. 
 
THE ECONOMIC CONUNDRUM
 
The current paradigm created by the full employment of the information era's new technologies defies capitalism itself. An economy where the standard input is information, cannot be managed as an economy moved by a market based on commodities and scarce resources. The primary product of the new economy is information. Information is not a limited resource, and that changes the foundations of capitalism in three ways, (as seen...)  defends Paul Mason in his book "Post-Capitalism." First, it will reduce the need for work, and so eliminate jobs at scale. Second, it is eroding companies' ability to form price correctly and creating information symmetry where it was not possible before. Third, it has opened new avenues enabling collaborative work that defies monopolies and economic power. The latter two effects are very favorable for a more equitable economy, but the first one will require us to have timely answers. If jobs are eliminated at scale and faster than new jobs are created, we might not have enough consumers and users to fuel the new economy. 
 
And that is an unpleasant conundrum to solve - how can we create a period of unparalleled wealth and massively eliminate jobs supporting capitalism at the same time?
 
If we look back and analyze past disruptive economic cycles triggered by technology, we can find models to apply and find viable answers. Those periods were called industrial revolutions. In each of those cycles, we see a similar pattern. They generated both more wealth and jobs in the long run, but social distress during the transitions. Technology has been the single most significant driver of long-term human and social improvement, but it comes with a price tag that has to be picked by the generation living the transition. But, has it?
 
Automation has generated wealth and progress so far. Today we live longer and way more comfortable than 200 years ago when the first industrial revolution started. But if we have asked workers their expectations and views during those transitions periods, they would not be favorable or even catastrophic. Industrial Revolutions may be cruel for workers in the years they are taking place and would be awkward and meaningless to explain the benefits and positive forecasts to the displaced workers. We have a moral obligation to learn with the past to create a better future and avoid unnecessary pain and distress. Economically, we have discovered how to do that. A good example is the counter-cycle President Obama has created to get us out of the 2008 depression. It was inspired by the learnings of the 1929 crash and other recessions. We need to do the same with this 4th industrial revolution and create social equity to make a better transition for all of us and not just a few. We can avoid suffering if we invest in education and the creation of social nets to the displaced ones and the new generations of students.
 
There is no reason to think the new cycle will not generate jobs and wealth in the more extended run. I do believe so. But it is scary to see its concentrated effect in the next two decades. This cycle will create more intense distress as its full impact will be felt in one-quarter of the time of the first two industrial revolutions, and about half of the third one - just 25 years. Not enough time to prepare an entire generation to adapt to new jobs' demands. We will have to re-skill and up-skill every worker and student for new categories of posts demanding more education and critical thinking.
 
Therefore, we need to build a bridge, one that will connect today with a brighter future for all of us. And it will require all of us to understand that and use democratic ways to push for changes.
 
THE UNIFYING BRIDGE
 
This bridge will bring liberals and conservatives, capitalists and socialists altogether.
 
It is the most significant concern of liberals, socialists, and humanitarians today, the rising social inequality. The social gap between the wealthier 1% of the population and the rest has been just enlarged in the last decades. That wave of new technologies should, but it is not soothing the problem. In the capital side, mergers and acquisitions of new companies are consolidating the leadership and propelling business concentration around fewer players. The top 3 tech companies are flirting with the trillion dollars cap as we speak, a level not seen before in history. And the problem tends to worsen out as we see more concentration and therefore less competition in key industries. Despite a shallow celebration by the government last month, we see stagnant wages even though the US is in full employment. Even worse, protectionism is back on the agenda, protecting profits for the largest businesses and creating higher living costs for the population.  The widening social gap erodes the foundation of society and poses a threat to democracy. Its consequences vary from the growth of the homeless population, a staggering 106,000 people in the West Coast to the growth of social costs as healthcare and social nets, to the rise of urban violence. Unnecessary social distress that we can avoid if we coordinate our efforts towards a balance economic agenda, one that enables economic growth and combat business concentration, stimulate competition to tame prices and reduces social inequality. 
 
Capitalists are very happy with the economic recovery of the last decade, and employees too as jobs are back. Businesses are boosted by the digital revolution and gaining more access to new users and markets. But as automation increases the elimination of jobs, and soon at a large scale, we will see businesses desirably being more profitable but more and more people having their jobs displaced. That is not a sustainable cycle. In the next years, we will hit a break-even point where we will need more users and consumers to be able to keep growing businesses, but the unemployed workers will be out of the market. The situation will be critical as new jobs will not be created at the same speed they have been eliminated. We will need a solution to protect both our economy and our people. That means the mechanisms to redistribute income and reincorporate people as consumers back in the economy will be a target of both capitalists and socialists, both businesses and workers, both conservatives and liberals. As I have explained in my previous article, if we do it timely, we need no tax increase to fund such mechanism as AI will amplify wealth generation. All we need is to redistribute it better to keep people in the formal economy during the transition, and invest in social equity, mainly quality up-to-date education to all, to create a new workforce capable of being productive in the 21st century. Jobs will come back. We need prepared workers to take them. Today we have gaps in tech jobs that we are not able to fulfill with our internal market only. We compete internationally for talent and companies are doing all possible to attract those talents. But they are in short supply. We can expect that will be the reality in most industries soon. We need to massively prepare our students and the current workforce to compete for those jobs. Education every time more define the employability line, and in the future, we will only have jobs for highly skilled workers with a clear sense of collaboration and affective skills. A bridge we need to build, altogether.
 
We will invest to create more social equity through programs that significantly improve education and guarantee a basic income to the population whose had their jobs displaced. Those programs may have different formats like baby bonds or UBI (Universal Basic Income), a program to guarantee a minimum income to the entire population. Many piloted programs in various countries across the globe, including cities in the US, are proving that providing the basic needs for individuals and families and help them to keep their heads above water is very effective to reintegrate them in the productive society. That way they develop the necessary conditions that allow them to go back to school and get re-skilled and trained for new jobs. It is a myth that people helped by those programs will stop fighting for better conditions and more dignifying ways of making a living. That is the morally correct thing to do.
 
MAY WE ALL WORK TOGETHER
 
Time to put aside our political differences and current understanding of social policies. AI is puzzling us with new moral questions and will require us to re-discuss what the ethical behaviors are we want to adopt moving forward. An unprecedented wealth will be created. We need to help each other to transition to a more humanitarian new future with dignity. UBI and Baby Bonds are only two possible solutions. We depend on favorable public policies to make those mechanisms real. Which representative are you going to give your vote? The Yea or Nay?