By Devin Cook
Most of us are aware that as we enter the new Industrial Revolution, automation and digital devices are upending jobs, from cashiers to automotive assembly-line workers. Globally, career taxi drivers now compete for passengers with Lyft and Uber drivers, and new industries, like solar energy, employ more people than the coal industry. Yet there is an upside, which we don’t hear as much about. While technology can jettison many existing jobs, it’s also constantly creating new jobs and new conveniences.
The grand challenge we face is how to accelerate the pace of job-creating innovation and the reinvention of work, while easing the transition for those whose jobs are lost in the process. That’s the goal of the Inclusive Innovation Challenge –to show that technology can create a future that works for more people — and that this is already underway.
We can encourage and support new mechanisms for job creation, skills development, technology access, and financial inclusion that will provide safety nets and paths for workers to adjust to the new realities ahead.
Read the full blog, originally appearing on Forbes.com, on our Medium publication.
Also read the latest blog by Devin Cook about the IIC featured on Forum for the Future here.