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By Gustavo Orjuela, Head of Venture Partnerships Colombia & México
During 2020, the dynamics of society changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic , mobility restrictions, the limited number of people who can live together in a single space, and security protocols have transformed the world we live in. We had to learn to create different routines remotely and from home, these challenges opened new opportunities to drive an evolution and transformation where the digital world predominates.
Among the main sectors that had a 180-degree change and accelerated digitization, is education, which went from being mainly face-to-face to a totally virtual one. The infrastructure of educational institutions has been reduced to a screen and the room of each of the students , where technology must be at the service of learning.
Digital education platforms have gained ground year after year, in addition to being a global trend, it is an increasingly affordable reality for Latin Americans. It is not a utopia that the student can have control of his training process and attend classes with students from anywhere in the world. While the old educational structures become unviable, solutions emerge that build the future of education, facing inequality and the educational gap, opening options for more and more people to benefit from the opportunities offered by the digital world.
Labor markets are being rapidly transformed by the digital transition, according to the document “Pacto Digital” prepared by Telefónica Movistar, 85% of the jobs that will exist in 2030 have not yet been created and more than 50% of the workers will require a requalification and improve their skills and competences, therefore, vocational training has to play a fundamental role in adapting the educational model to the digital society.
EdTech, startups that unite education and technology, according to the Association for Private Equity Investment in Latin America (LAVCA) in 2019 represented 4% of investment agreements made by equity funds of risk to Latin American startups, a relevant figure that allows the emergence of solutions to provide quality education thanks to technology, bring professionals and entrepreneurs closer to training and constant updating of hard and soft knowledge that today are required by the market.
The following startups, invested by Wayra Hispam, open up a range of possibilities in training digital skills that are required in today’s world of work; and that can be an option to start with the learning and acquisition of new knowledge:
It is a technology academy, with high-impact training programs, created in collaboration with leading companies in the market, that allow people to learn to program without prior knowledge, make decisions through data and design digital experiences focused on needs of people, innovative careers such as: web development, fulll stack, UX / UI design, data science and front end web development can be explored.
Educational platform for creative professionals, achieving 70% more effective learning with practice, has more than 500 online courses and specializations that people can consult at their own pace in 12 categories: Digital Marketing, Video, Design, Photography, Business, Web, Animation and 3D, digital architecture, among others.
The first and largest language community in Latin America, with a methodology focused on communication and interaction, in which you can learn and practice languages: English, French, German, Portuguese and Italian with people from all over the world with a social method.
ToMi Inc. is a company that innovates in tools to teach and learn from any device, in the classroom, remotely or without the need for internet.
We are experiencing a revolution in education that will be the starting point for a new way of conceptualizing the way in which we access knowledge, paradigms of the roles of the university, teachers and students are being formed, therefore it is necessary to seek more educational processes inclusive, aligned with global labor demands and above all more humane and based on values. The only skill that will keep us competitive in the future is our ability to learn throughout life.