(25a) Building a Continuous Learning and Innovation Network

We live at time when globalization and technology are changing the world in profound ways: economic competitiveness, national security, and personal prosperity are being redefined. At the level of business, hiring companies cannot find people with the necessary skills for today’s economy, from truck driving to data mining. Apart from the talent crisis, corporations must reduce new product cycle times and then deliver improved innovations to market, faster. Workers in every industry, meanwhile, find it more and more difficult to climb a career ladder, or even to get onto the bottom rung. For learners of all ages, the rapid evolution in technology and business practices accelerates and intensifies the need for new approaches to career awareness, preparation, and retraining. To help address both human capital development and the need for new knowledge universities and businesses must innovate and think "outside the box" to create new integrated models that lower cost; create customer value; provide a hands-on educational experience and build a foundation for continuous learning. Building a shared / local model that enables transition to the future state is an opportunity for professional societies. This presentation will cover work to date and how we can build globally shared practices – (1) career discovery, (2) integrated learning and (3) market to discovery to enable a new learning and innovation network