Speaker 1: Wait, so this was taken when he was 12 months old. He had just started to walk, he could barely speak a few words, but then he knew exactly how to unlock my iPad and pull up his favorite video on YouTube. He had that all figured out in his small little head. At 12 months old, so much into these gadgets and devices that when I would show him a physical book, an actual book with some animal pictures on it, he would try and swipe on it to move on to the next page. So that tells us something. We live in a technology saturated world, a world in which all of us, people from all ages, all walks of life, encounter technology in some way or the other during our daily lives. Technology is everywhere, entwined into almost every part of our culture. So it affects how we live, work, play, and most importantly, how we learn. So the next generation, like my son, is born into this world, into the digital world, a world that is lightning fast, with instant access to information on their fingertips. So a world of internet, virtual reality, augmented reality, video games, smartphones, and whatnot. So they are clearly citizens of the digital world. They are what we call the digital natives. So the last couple of years, my team and I have been closely studying the learning habits of these digital natives. And no surprises here. So digital natives consume and process information very differently. Basically they have developed a unique style of learning, different problem solving strategies. Basically they think, work, and process information in a very different way from the rest of us. So first of all, they have a very short attention span, the attention span for that, six to eight minutes. It's very natural for a youngster, a digital native, to keep switching between apps and screens every few seconds. That's very common. So they prefer short, bite-sized content, content that is crisp, short, to the point. So content very similar to what we see on social media, short, crisp, and precise, to the point. That doesn't beat around the bush. They look up and access content very differently. Quick accesses, quick lookups on the internet, buzzing friends on social media. Now, we all do that, we all look up information on the internet today, but they do it more often than anyone else, and they're very good at it. They're very quick, they've mastered the art of multitasking. So they prefer rich, engaging multimedia content. They have an unwavering preference for rich content, content like videos, animation, podcasts. They're very popular amongst youngsters. And most importantly, they love to learn on the go, anytime, anywhere, traveling on the bus, waiting at the doctor's clinic, and most often, on the toilet seats in the morning. So you are one of them. You are a digital native, someone whose world is inundated with devices, technology, and gadgets. And you walk into a classroom that looks like this, right? So a crowded classroom, a tight atmosphere, closely packed desks, fingers on lips, all eyes on the blackboard, with an instructor standing next to it, delivering what would most probably be a monologue of some sort. You're not allowed to carry your devices into the classroom. You're cut out from the internet. Essentially, you are walking into an environment that is not natural to you, an environment that limits your natural instincts and behavior, a whole new world that feels so ancient. So let's pause here for a moment. It's very important for us to understand this and accept this, open our minds to adopt more and more technology into our education systems. We have to work towards creating an environment that best suits the current generation and next generation learners, that resonates with the next generation learners. The best part is it's already happening. So let's start with the classrooms. The classrooms of today and the next generation should no longer be just a location or a room that students would dread to walk into or yearn to walk out of. It should be an experience, an experience that is rich, interactive, engaging, and most importantly, fun, that students would love to be part of. Classrooms around the world are seeing some dramatic changes. These are pictures from a smart classroom that I recently visited. You can see the traditional blackboards are being complemented with touch screen smart boards that instructors and students can interact with. More and more multimedia is making its way into the classroom. The classroom layouts are changing, promoting interpersonal skills amongst students. Most schools and colleges are adopting Wi-Fi, providing Wi-Fi facilities across their campuses. Above a certain age, students are allowed to carry their personal devices into the class. All these fancy technologies like 3D printers, virtual reality headsets, virtual science experiences are making their way to mainstream schooling systems. When I was a kid, we could not have imagined anything like this being part of our classroom or our school. It's happening. It's becoming reality today. Learning does not just happen inside the classroom. A lot of learning happens outside the classroom, mostly online, watching videos, playing video games, reading articles, interacting with friends on social media. We all do that. We all watch videos online. We probably even take courses online. We have been doing that for quite some time now. So what's new? Over the past three to five years, something very interesting has happened. This magic device called the smartphone. A quick show of hands in the room, how many of us here do not carry a smartphone of any sort? None. So if I were to ask the same question, say, three to five years back, I would probably flip it. I would have asked, how many of us here do carry a smartphone with an active internet connection? And the results would have been similar. Maybe one or two rich kids would have lifted their hands. The smartphone here has created a huge paradigm shift in the way we communicate with each other and the way we consume digital content. So this here is a very personal device. It lives in my pocket for the most part of my day. I literally eat, breathe, and sleep with my smartphone. Trust me, I do. It's an integral part of me. You can't just separate my smartphone from me. If you take it out from me, I'll be disconnected from the world. Today, if I have a question in mind, if I want to learn about something, I don't run to the nearby library looking for a book for answers. I don't run to my desk to find my computer. All I do is just reach out to my pocket, pull out my smartphone, and start swiping. I don't even have to type the question. I can just use my voice to get answers. The best part is I can do it anywhere, anytime, on the go, at my convenience. This is a very powerful digital channel that connects each and every one of us to the world of internet. Today, this channel is only used for fun and entertainment. This channel needs to be used for education and learning. We are already seeing this happen. Imagine you want to teach your kids or your students a concept. Imagine if you break it down into a series of smaller chunks and make it accessible on their smartphone in the form of rich multimedia, short, crisp, three-minute videos, podcasts that kids today love to listen to, animations that you can interact with using your fingers. The best part of the smartphone is you use your fingers to interact with content, which is very natural. As against a computer, you're using a mouse, here you're actually using your fingers to interact with content. That's the most natural way of interacting with digital content. Rich narratives with infographics and pictures and quizzes, most of them, to keep users engaged. A monotonous learning experience is always boring. If you keep pushing quizzes, infographics, and keep users engaged, they would love it. Students would love this. We're already seeing a lot of innovation happening in this area. More and more smartphone-based education products are making their way into the market. The Byjuice and the Woods for kids, all these companies are exclusively focused on smartphone-based education for the world. This is only going to grow. We're going to only see more and more innovation happen in this area. The biggest drawback of conventional education, the traditional education, is the lack of personalization. Imagine a class of 60 students. Every single student in the class is different. Every individual is unique. Students come with different backgrounds. They come with different abilities. Some are quick in understanding a concept. Some are slow and need additional help, additional time, additional resources to understand the same concept. Basically, students come with all different strengths and weaknesses. In the traditional education system, it is almost impractical for an instructor to give personal attention to each and every student on a daily basis. What do we do? Simple. We treat all the students the same. The same set of lectures, homeworks, assignments are forced down the throat of every single student, irrespective of their needs, irrespective of their progress or performance. This is how the conventional education system works. There is one fixed, rigid learning path. Same set of chapters, the same set of tests, homeworks and assignments. Every student is forced to navigate through the same path. That's a big problem. Technology can help us solve this problem. Technology can bring in the flexibility needed to carve out personalized learning paths for each and every student. Learning platforms today are growing more and more smart to capture details about each and every student, each and every learner, and craft personalized learning paths accordingly. If I am struggling with a concept, the platform knows that. It can push additional videos to me onto my device. It can push practice exercises to me onto my device. Basically, it's creating a personalized learning path that I am comfortable with. Likewise, every single student in the class would navigate through their own personalized learning path. How powerful is that? So we see personalization everywhere in the digital world. When we browse through the internet, we get personalized ads. When we get onto social media, we get personalized news feeds. We get personalized recommendations on what to shop, what not to shop online. Why not learning? So eventually, personalization is going to make its way into mainstream learning and technology is going to play a very important role in making that happen. Finally, we have spoken a lot about technology and the role. Typically, when I speak about bringing in technology into the classroom, when I am in a college or in an education setting, I get a bad stare from all the teachers and educators. They think I am going to get them fired because I am reducing their job. That's not the case. Technology is only a means to an end. It's an enabler. The real magic still lies in the hands of educators and instructors. It is very important for us to understand this. As educators and instructors, it is very important for us to work towards creating an environment that suits the learner and not me. Most of the educators, most of the instructors today are not digital natives. We have adopted technology. We were not born into a technology-rich world and we have gone through the conventional education system. So we are comfortable with the conventional education system. Naturally, we try to push the conventional education system on the next generation as well. So that's wrong. It's never going to work. It's important for us to create an environment that works for them and not an environment that we are comfortable with. Finally, the goal here is to enable the learner in all of us to remember to remember and to forget to forget. How well we do it is completely in our hands. Thank you.