In December 2019, Elements of AI – an online AI course created by the government of Finland – was made available for anyone to take. The course comprises 6 sections, each taking between 5-10 hours to complete, and covers topics from the technical to philosophical aspects of AI. The course was first created to help educate Finnish citizens on the basics of AI. It is now available in English, Swedish, Estonian and German, and the Finnish government aims to roll it out in every EU language starting from spring 2020. The aim is to educate 1% of all EU citizens in the basics of AI by 2021.
You get a free AI course! You get a free AI course! You get a free AI course! On top of that, you also get two takeaways. Let’s dive in.
Skills to Pay the Bills. This innovation points to two major consumer undercurrents that are going strong in 2020. On one hand, fear of an uncertain future means many are seeking new knowledge and skills to keep themselves relevant. Meanwhile, in a connected world learning a new skill is often as simple as typing ‘how to…’ into Google. By giving away their AI course to everyone, Finland is addressing the resulting consumer expectation at the intersection of these two shifts: for instantly accessible, high-quality, free education and training. Your organization contains expertize and skills that many others would love to access. So ask yourself, how can you open up that knowledge to those outside your organization, and serve them with content and experiences that empower them in an uncertain world?
Open Source Decade. This innovation also highlights one prevalent theme for the new decade. The biggest challenges we face cannot be solved by any single business or nation. Instead, solving them will require collaboration, and the most inspiring businesses will create innovative solutions and then give them away, inviting others to join in the collective fight for the good of humanity. Lyft published its autonomous driving dataset, AT&T open-sourced its climate-resilient infrastructure plan, while Starbucks shared its racial bias training program. What could you give away in 2020 that will make the world a better, safer, cleaner, and happier place in 2050? Read our trend OPEN-SOURCE SOLUTIONS for more inspiration!
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