Online Education

The rapid advancement of technology since the 1990's has propelled humanity to new heights and altered the way: businesses function, social behavior, event planning, heatlh care, education, finance and so much more. Focusing on education, technology is an equalizer that has the ability to transform the access to quality educational content internationally, even for the most marganialized, and with the rise of satelite internet - this attestment will be even more clear.

Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world. - Nelson Mandela

Education as a Barometer of Quality of Life

Education can be summed up as the acquisition of knowledge and skills that can be applied to the daily life of a person, and is a metric that has been shown to indicate the quality of life of a population.

As noted in Quality of Education, “Increases to the quantity of education – as measured for example by mean years of schooling – has, for a long time, been the central focus of policymakers and academic debate. While increasing the access to education is important, the actual goal of providing schooling is to teach skills and transfer knowledge to students in the classroom. This entry focuses on the outcomes of schooling – the quality of education.”

Progress made in the last twenty has seen a proliferation of internet usage, and the internet has ushered in a new era of empowering humanities ability to provide and track the progress of an individuals academic career and continuing education.

Online Education

One of my favorite educational platforms for primary education is Khan Academy. Khan Academy has well-structured content created for students from pre-k all the way to the collegiate level, and many important entrance testing exams. I generally suggest it as a complimentary resource for classroom education, but it’s effective as a primary education tool in it’s own right.

The set back in a classroom environment is the amount of students, and the attention that might be required for any one student to better understand the material. When learning material online, if a pupil doesn’t understand something it’s as simple as rewinding a video and watching the material again until they fully understand it. This greatly effects retention and maximizes the quality of education.

Another issue I’ve personally experienced in classroom education is language barrier. The professor had an accent that I could barely understand and the subject was an advanced topic. With online training this can be avoided. There is the possibility to transcribe the content to any language and then text to voice to learn the material in your native language. This means that any professor from any country can teach in any language and the content can be consumed by any student located anywhere in the world.

Lastly, throughout the many topics that are available for in-person and online training, exams and certifications are rewarded for successful completion. This training is a great way to keep our skills sharp, which segways into how we see the future of education and the possibilities’ technology can unlock for humanities potential.

Satellite Internet

With high speeds and latency as low as 20ms in most locations, Starlink enables video calls, online gaming, streaming, and other high data rate activities that historically have not been possible with satellite internet. - Starlink

Not everyone has internet access. The capital costs for putting in the infrastructure across developing nations is cost prohibitive. Not only do some developing nations have large land masses, but they may also have limited economic production - therefore, making that expense difficult to substantiate.

Satellite internet changes this dynamic. Satellite will open up economic and educational opportunities for those in the hardest to reach places, banking the unbanked and delivering educational experiences to everyone willing to put in the time and effort.

Perhaps the rise of satellite internet will be the first step for creating economic and social guidelines that all of humanity will agree to.

Greater connectivity has the power to radically improve the way business is done in the hardest to reach places, and to change lives at scale. - One Web

DIDs

There are a number of new disruptive technologies being developed that can be utilized in a Universal Basic Income scenario to create a more equitable society.

Decentralized Identifiers, or DIDs, are one of them. They can be used to store personal identity credentials, conduct financial transactions, track your educational progress, and more. In the event artificial intelligence and robotics reduce the amount of people required to perform different job functions in the global economy, DIDs may be one of the most important technologies to match the work force with employment opportunities.

A hypothetical UBI would guarantee a baseline income for all people. Through-out our work career, we would save up retirement savings and still receive the UBI. When we are not working, sharpening our skills in any one area is a way we could receive additional compensation. Storing metadata for the time we spent on the subject and maintaining a record of our progress with DIDs would enable a project to find a person with the skills and experience to work on a project, or a person to find a project that matches their skills and experience.

The same is true for both technical oriented or trade jobs.

In conclusion

The world is changing and the way we learn is changing. The internet is already a phenomenal resource to increase our knowledge and skills, and satellite internet will bypass a lot of infrastructure development that was previously necessary to access it. With DIDs, tracking each person’s progress and aptitude will enable both micro and the macroeconomy to thrive.