Ashok Thiyagarajan, Vice President (L&D), Intellect Design Arena, emphasizes on the need to keep pace with the change, because the skills one will need in the future would be their agility and adaptability to change.
I work for Intellect Design Arena, a company that specialises in BFSI: Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance. It’s a global player that started in India. We are in the business of moving money. Money creates value only when it moves from one account to another. We build technologies that increase the velocity of money, thereby increasing the value it can create. We have 300 customers across the globe, in over 40 countries. I take care of learning and development. I nurture, coach, and mentor a lot of early talent in my company.
I would like to touch upon three things: the role of technology, essential soft skills, and the importance of continuous learning. We live in a time where for anything you want, you don’t have to step out of your house. You just order on one of the apps and it gets delivered—be it food, mobile phones, or daily needs.
From Electromagnetic Waves
If we have to discuss the future skills we need, we must understand what has created this future for us. 160 years ago, way back in 1864, James Clerk Maxwell presented the idea of electromagnetic waves. That was the starting point. In 1888, Heinrich Hertz conducted a laboratory experiment to prove the existence of radio waves. The first transmission probably happened over a distance of one and a half miles, proving that the technology worked. Using radio waves, the signal was transmitted and captured. At the turn of the 20th century, Marconi invented the radio, and this invention transformed everything.
All along, entertainment took place in small theatres where people gathered, and in colosseums. When radio came in, people liked it. It created new jobs. Broadcast companies were set up and entertainment programs were created. It created jobs like news readers, radio jockeys, program anchors, etc. We moved forward. Radio waves enabled long-distance communication. Space technology happened. We were able to talk to the space station or extend it further. We could operate the rover on Mars from Earth. That’s the kind of revolution it created.
When TV emerged, many things changed. Then regional broadcast centres came up, and that revolution led to the next change—satellite TVs bridging the last mile. Entertainment and news became available 24/7. The reach and the impact it created led to many new jobs like video editors, program managers, program designers, executive producers, content creators, and so on. Radio waves are behind the success of the World Wide Web or the internet, which has revolutionised many things.
Two Sides to Innovation
When you look at innovation, there are two sides to it. One is bringing in something very new. The other side of innovation is called the applied innovation space, where we build solutions with technology. Amazon, which started as an online bookstore, is now into everything. They are into payments and anything you want to buy.
I look at Gen AI as a tool, like a pencil or a pen. See how you can leverage it. It has put the world in your pocket. Make it a friend and use it to your advantage. Not that it knows everything. It has the ability to give you answers, but how to extract them is in your hands. You must be able to ask the right kind of questions. It has created a new job role called prompt engineers, who specialise in creating prompts to get the desired outcome from Gen AI. From code, we have moved to creating IPs for prompts.
Future Skills
What kinds of skills do we need for the future? We know that change is constant, but we’ll have to always look for the speed of change. Are we aligned and geared up for it? The skills you need in the future would be your agility and adaptability to change, which could be the most differentiating factor. The second important skill is your flexibility and agility to learn. Even as we speak, things get outdated. We don’t have the luxury of time to sit back and master something. Instead, can you instantly acquire something, assimilate the knowledge, and apply it to create value? Then you can create differentiation.
Communication is an evergreen skill. Another important skill that I recommend is critical thinking and problem-solving. Enterprises hire people to solve problems. In our domain, we solve problems for the financial world. Even a small error can create a huge impact. For us, critical thinking and problem-solving are indispensable skills.
The last aspect is the need for continuous learning. In 1994, I graduated from college with a major in mathematics. I took up a sales job but had a huge aversion to computers and couldn’t understand programming and languages. After being in two or three sales jobs, I felt I wasn’t doing the right thing. I decided to go back to college to conquer my fears. I enrolled in a postgraduate diploma in computer science, where I conquered my fear and understood what programming is all about and what it can do. The capstone project I did as part of my course, way back in 1997, was in the area of AI. Counselling for drug addicts was the topic I worked on using a language called Prolog for artificial intelligence.
Need for Continuous Learning
I have come a long way since 1997. I moved to Chennai and wanted to specialise in the area of databases. I landed a job as a lab coordinator, which was my first formal job in IT. It was a 24/7 job with many people working in various technologies. Some were working on C, some on Unix, some on C++, some on Oracle or D2K or VB. As a lab coordinator, my job was to help all my customers. Whenever they were stuck, I had to assist them. That’s when I realised the power of knowledge and the need for a deep understanding of technology. There has been no looking back since then.
I moved out of my lab coordinator job to take up the role of a Technology faculty, where I trained many people on various technologies. In 2000, I joined Polaris as a developer, building financial products. While working on these products, I acquired domain knowledge, which helped me move into higher roles, such as an analyst. I then became an SME for a financial product, went on to become an architect, and eventually headed the R&D at my company.
After 25 years as a technocrat, I decided it was time to give back. I moved to L&D to share my experiences, helping, grooming, coaching, and mentoring early talent in my company. All this happened because I was continuously watching for change. Technology has shifted through generations since I started working in the field, but what led to my success was keeping pace with the change. Every time something new happened, I was curious to understand what it could do and the value it could create for business. That’s how I keep myself refreshed and relevant in the space I operate. Continuous learning, agility, and flexibility are what will help you stay relevant for the future.
