Although the Academy is not officially launched yet, this website prepares you for what is coming. You will find some useful information on the what and why, the Vision and Mission, focus, methods of delivery and architecture. Only current learning opportunities are listed, and some relevant resources and news will be kept up to date. Expect much more in coming months!
What is Digital Academy
The rapid pace of technological change and our increasing reliance on technology have created a "digital dexterity gap" in the workforce. To address this, North-West University (NWU) proposes the establishment of a Digital Academy aimed at empowering staff with the digital skills and knowledge necessary to lead in an increasingly technology-driven world.
Why a Digital Academy
The learn-unlearn-relearn cycle encourages you to use your critical thinking skills to analyze and challenge knowledge to ascertain its current relevance. It begins with the learning phase, which involves acquiring new knowledge, skills, and strategies. This can happen through formal education, job training, or self-teaching. Once the new knowledge is acquired, it is important to practice and integrate it into our daily lives.
The capacity of the human being for learning, unlearning and relearning is essential to cope with our fast changing technology-driven world and underlines the fact that change will be the only certainty: What worked for me yesterday may not work for me today and we don’t have the luxury to get complacent.
According to Harvard Business Review “By focusing on how to use technology in the context of the organization and its digital vision, they help create and reinforce a specific culture around tech and innovation in a way that more generalized online trainings simply can’t. These have been built at companies such as DuPont, Gestamp, and Deloitte as a central initiative of their digital transformation efforts, resulting in increased capability of using data and adapting to technological advancements.”
The pace of technological change, and our reliance on technology, are both accelerating with each ensuing computer era. Yet the workforce’s ability to keep up with that pace of change is not at the same growth rate, creating what we call a “digital dexterity gap” (see Figure 1). Closing that gap is critical for executive leaders guiding the next-generation workforce. It is therefore important for executive leaders to engage employees in a conversation about the rationale, merits and execution of digital dexterity initiatives.
This initiative aligns with the NWU Digital Business Strategy (DBS) goals of IT literacy and capacity building and supports the recommendations outlined in the NWU-CHE Institutional Audit Improvement Plan.
Gartner advises that executive leaders invested in the next-generation workforce should explore the following drivers to see what resonates and what does not within their own teams and with peers:
Business-led IT: Business units are increasingly making IT investments with little or no IT support. This creates an obvious need for a digitally dexterous workforce that is capable of recognizing the need for, and leading, technology change in all business units.
SaaS applications: Cloud-supplied software as a service (SaaS) applications are constantly adding features and functions, in contrast to IT-hosted on-premise applications that change only every few years. A digitally dexterous workforce is needed to continuously exploit this constant stream of add-in technologies such as AI, analytics, integration and collaboration services. Once-off change management initiatives are obsolete in the SaaS era.
New work hub: Most organizations are deploying a cloud-supplied collection of personal and team productivity applications from vendors such as Microsoft (Office 365) and Google (G Suite) to all employees. Using these tools, a digitally dexterous workforce can interact with peers more effectively, reach new levels of personal productivity and create process efficiencies.
Content and data analytics: The astounding growth of enterprise content and data offers digitally dexterous employees an unprecedented opportunity to derive business insight and value from structured and unstructured data and content. There is also a growing volume of personal and team analytics that digitally dexterous workers can exploit.
AI: A huge variety of AI tools and services will have a significant impact on how work gets done and how commerce evolves. A digitally dexterous workforce is in the best position to embrace and apply AI services in the course of day-to-day work. Organizations able to best exploit AI services will gain significant competitive advantage.
Digital business models: Platform-centric commerce, the sharing economy, automated ordering, continuous delivery and omnichannel marketing are examples of digitally mediated trends that are having a tremendous impact on business models. A digitally dexterous workforce is needed to realize these digital business goals.
Emerging technology: Blockchain, 3D printing, advanced analytics, the IoT and augmented reality are just a few examples of emerging technologies that will have an enormous impact on work models. A digitally dexterous workforce is needed to exploit these emerging technologies.