Dubai: For anyone who had to learn and deploy new technologies related to working in the last 20 months, here’s a thought – there are more coming.
Apart from changing the way employees work, the pandemic also accelerated the adoption of emerging technologies and that means workers will require a whole new set of skills to stay relevant in the market.
“The one thing I keep telling my HR team is that as a tech company, you are in an extremely volatile environment,” said Suhas Gopinath, founder and CEO of IT firm Globals inc. “We have a joke in Bengaluru – by the time a candidate reaches office for an interview, his skills would have gotten obsolete. Technology is changing and the skills that you have today will be irrelevant.”
A vast majority of India’s IT and non-IT professionals may be underequipped to deal with this change, but Gopinath is optimistic that the New Education Policy (NEP) will go a long way in fixing the problem. “With the NEP, we will have industries promoting universities and better access to open learning platforms,” said Gopinath, who was speaking at a startup event organised by Consulate-General of India in Dubai Thursday (December 9) evening. “IT skills is going to be one of the one of the major issues for fintech companies.”
Gopinath, 35, founded Globals at the age of 14 and was recognized as the world’s youngest CEO. Globals, which was featured by the Economist as one of the globe’s fastest growing tech companies, builds web, mobile and cloud apps for clients across industries like education, government, media and online services, financial services and independent software vendors.
Gopinath was also the co-founder of HappyEMI, a fintech startup, which uses AI to assess credit risk of customers at point-of-sale.
Hybrid’s role
Other changes too from the pandemic phase are being felt now. The growing popularity of the ‘hybrid’ working system – where an employee spends time working in office and remotely – may have contributed to UAE’s announcement of a 4.5 day work-week for government staff, according to Shivagami Gugan, Group Chief Technology Officer at IDC Technologies.
The pandemic has led to a “big reset” in the lives of people and in the way they work as well, said Gugan. “There has been an impact across the board and this is going to stay,” said Gugan. “That particular courage has come because people have understood that we can still have a hybrid way of working.”
