Software is eating the world but we are not worried for our jobs

At some level, it is a huge irony. The world around us is changing rapidly with technology reseting almost every aspect of our lives. Yet we are not spending time thinking about how technology and the disruption it is wreaking all around will change what is arguably at the core of our well-being: our jobs.
It is perhaps the biggest irony of our times: software is eating the world, but we are not worried for our jobs. Much of the nonchalance comes because no one knows for sure what the workplace a decade or two from now will be. Findings out there have been directional. US education researchers predict two out of three kids going to Class I today will work in jobs that don’t exist at present. McKinsey consultants have said that though tasks that occupy 45% of employee time today can be automated, they expect just 5% of jobs to be actually automated.

Still, questions abound. What will the plum jobs of the future be? How will today’s jobs get tweaked? What skills will need to be learnt? How easy (or difficult) will it be to switch careers?
The Future of Jobs in India Summit (FoJ Summit) is the beginning of a journey seeking answers to these questions and more. The FoJ Summit series is being organised by FactorDaily, in association with CareerNet group — a leading recruitment process outsourcing, talent acquisition and human resource consultant. Yes, it is a series — a second summit is planned for May in Mumbai — that aims to curate conversations among the best brains in the business as we seek answers around job disruption and job creation. At the end five hours of discussions, we hope to have a better picture of the landscape both for job creators and job-seekers.

The invite-only event discussions are as follows:

We will start with a scene-setting conversation with Nandan Nilekani, founder of EkStep and former chairman of the Unique Identification Authority of India, and Abhijit Bhaduri, author of ‘The Digital Tsunami’, about how tech is disrupting jobs in India today, and tomorrow. The idea is to broadly capture an action agenda, a playbook if you will, for individuals and organisations looking to make sense of technology disruption.

Ravi Venkatesan, former head of Microsoft India, who is now the chairman of Bank of Baroda and a board member of Infosys, will then share his ideas about the jobs that will get destroyed and the new ones that companies and organisations need to prepare for.
This will be followed by a session about future of jobs in retail and logistics; two sectors where a new breed of technology startups have been dominating the headlines. Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal, Mohit Tandon of Delhivery and FreshMenu founder Rashmi Daga will each share their ideas on the jobs’ future.
One of the biggest disruptions unfolding in India is in the area of healthcare. Shashank ND of Practo will talk about the new jobs in healthcare.
Amid all the disruptions shaping future of jobs and workplaces in India, the role of human resource (HR) leaders is undergoing a massive shift. Hema Ravichandar, former head of HR at Infosys, and a board member at several companies, will share her ideas on the future of HR itself.

This will be followed by a session about future of jobs in india’ IT sector, which currently employs over four million people directly. Wipro vice-chairman T K Kurien, 24/7 founder Shanmugam (Nags) Nagarajan and Ashwini Asokan, cofounder of AI startup MadStreetDen, will each share their playbooks for companies and individuals in the sector.
Finally, we will attempt to make sense of the country’s startup economy from jobs point of view. Angel investor and founder of ispirt Sharad Sharma, along with Careernet founders Rishi and Anshuman Das will talk about whether startups are actually creating jobs that matter.
Now, there’s absolutely no way we can answer all the questions about the future of jobs in india in just an event. And we aren’t even trying to do that on Monday (November 21). The idea is to gather people and companies shaping the future of jobs in india in one room, and start a long term dialogue that starts answering the burning questions in the weeks, months and years to come.
You can catch the FoJ Summit live at The Leela Palace, Bangalore, 3.45pm onwards on November 21. Questions directed to any of the above speakers can be directed using the #futureofjobs hashtag on Twitter or simply commenting in the live stream box. We will soon bring you the coverage of the FoJ Summit. Stay tuned.