This week on The Digital Life, we chat with Ben Nelson, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Minerva, a groundbreaking university program, and an editor of the book “Building the Intentional University”.

We discuss some of the key problems with higher education, how Minerva is rethinking the university system to support how people actually learn, and the ways in which the tech-enabled learning experience for Minerva students and professors is vastly different from those of a more traditional college or university.

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Minerva Schools

This week on The Digital Life, our guest is Pam Pedersen, Principal of Innovations Early College High School in Salt Lake City, Utah. There’s perhaps no better way to invest in the future than in preparing students for their life and careers ahead. How that may be best achieved, however, is subject to debate. It’s clear that the US educational system is ripe for change. But what teaching philosophies or methodologies are best? Innovations Early College High School is designed to facilitate blended learning and to allow for flexibility in order to best meet the academic goals of each individual student. It’s an approach far different from the typical high school. Join us as we discuss.

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Innovations Early College High School

This week on The Digital Life, we chat about automation and reinventing yourself in the job market. Yuval Noah Harari, bestselling author of books like Sapiens and Homo Deus had this to say about automation and the difficulties of reinventing your career on the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast:

“It’s questionable how many times a human being can reinvent himself or herself during your lifetime—and your lifetime is likely to be longer, and your working years are also likely to be longer. So would you be able to reinvent yourself four, five, six times during your life? The psychological stress is immense. So I would like to see a science fiction movie that explores the rather mundane issue of somebody having to reinvent themselves, then at the end of the movie—just as they settle down into this new job, after a difficult transition period—somebody comes and announces, ‘Oh sorry, your new job has just been automated, you have to start from square one and reinvent yourself again.’”

Have you ever had to reinvent yourself during your career, maybe due to automation? Personal characteristics like flexibility and creativity play a role as well as external factors like work availability and the market. Join us as we discuss.

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Why Science Fiction is the Most Important Genre

On The Digital Life this week we chat about human / machine hybrids — the combination of AI and people — into advanced teams that produce amazing creative output. From chess to photography, art to science, these so-called “Centaurs” may represent the future of work for many fields. Join us as we discuss.

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Art by algorithm