I was born in Sri Lanka, educated in Sri Lanka, India, and the U.K. and now live in West Yorkshire, with my family.
I started my working life as a teacher and joined the IT industry as a trainer in the mid-1980s. Over the past 35 years, I have been helping public and private sector organizations in the UK to design, develop, and implement technology solutions to improve service efficiency and customer experience. As a technology buyer/advisor for several organizations, I have spent decades scanning technology horizons and monitoring trends.
Technology for me has been a career, hobby, and lifelong passion. People like me are called ‘Digital Evangelists’, in the US!
After playing a key role within the ‘Connecting for Health’ the largest IT project in the world, I left the NHS in 2016. Since then I have been on a mission:
- To dig deep into what is known as the 4th Industrial Revolution (IR4), and demystify the role played within that by the internet and social media, and their impact on the society today, and
- Explain it in layman’s language for the benefit of the masses so that more people – individuals as well as businesses could understand its implications, thereby:
- See the opportunities and take action to benefit from them, as well as
- Understand the threats and take steps to guard against them.
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World we live in
We live in a connected world where ‘information travels at the speed of thought’ as Bill Gates described it, and a knowledge economy where knowledge is power where people who have the right information at the right time and know-how to make use of them have a massive advantage over others.
The world of work, commerce, and industry has been and continues to change at a rapid and accelerating rate.
More and more low skilled and semi-skilled jobs are being done by the robots in the developed world or outsourced to be done manually in the low-waged economies.
As a result, ‘jobs for life’ as we knew it, have begun to disappear from the world of work. It was estimated that the average worker would change their career 5 times during their working life.
There would be greater labour mobility, and highly skilled knowledge workers would command premium wages whilst blue and white-collar workers in traditional jobs with limited skills would face job insecurity and the risk of redundancy.
Fewer young people in the future will leave colleges or universities trained for a specific career. Increasingly they will come out with key skills and evidence of possessing a mindset that has the capacity to learn on the job and adapt to meet the changing needs of the economy.
That’s how our ordered world was until Spring 2020 when corona pandemic struck and turned the world upside down – forcing a global paradigm shift.
Life under lockdown made people revaluate what is important in life. Following this massive pattern interrupt, so many things have changed, so many people have stopped doing what they have been doing for years – just because there was momentum in doing them. But in the new world, they have grown out of love for those things. As a result, life, work, and business are going to be vastly different in the new normal.
This really means that the whole landscape of business is going to change. Remote working is going to be here to stay. Humans will still want interaction, but it will be much less than it was before. Digital technology – immune to human viruses, showed its resilience, and proved its worth during the pandemic. It is going to play an increasing role in the recovery effort as well as in the new economy.
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The aim of this blog is to share my 3 decades of knowledge and experience with you and help you:
- Deepen your understanding of technology, develop your confidence in using IT and operating within cyberspace,
- Make better-informed choices in protecting yourself and your assets in the 21st century.
- Harness the power of digital technology for your personal growth and business success.
It is meant for:
- Professionals who wish to improve their career prospects and competitiveness in the new digital economy by changing direction and become entrepreneurs.
- Business owners and entrepreneurs who want to grow their business and increase their profits by finding new customers, engaging with them, and understanding and meeting their needs.
- Anyone who wants to be more productive and successful in their life by developing their personal, technology, and social media skills.
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Connect with me
To ensure that this blog develops, improves, and stays relevant to you, I’m keen to hear your views. I welcome your thoughts on what topics you would like me to cover, and of course, what improvements you would like to see. So please let me have your feedback using the contact form provided above through the “Contact me” section.
This blog is work in progress and will be continually improved upon, so please remember to check it out regularly to see how it is evolving. The intention is to make it a useful resource for all subscribers to the blog.
I really hope you enjoy reading my Technocoach blog and I look forward to hearing from you.