In 2020, COVID-19 taught us many lessons in agility, patience, and resilience, but barely coming out of the pandemic, in 2021, the rise of machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) will be paving the way for the new normal. While machine learning can be used to help document baseline user behavior and AI systems will use predictive and pre-emptive knowledge to plan, but in the midst of this digital tsunami and the collective of four generations working together, what will be most critical will be to learn to embrace adversity and engage adversaries – we cannot undermine the importance of human learning (HL) and emotional intelligence (EI). As the volatilities and uncertainties that shroud our times grow exponentially, we will need to learn to understand each other better, collaborate more and learn to become less vindictive. We never know who will become a number in the statistical data the medical profession is trying to gather to understand trends – 14 professors who were collectively perhaps the core of intelligentsia at AMU passed away (RIP) and their knowledge and wisdom lost in a span of few days. Although loved and respected by most who knew them, there may have been some who considered them adversaries and instead of benefiting from their wisdom chose to disagree with them. The university will take a long time to overcome this adversity. Material loss and financial downturns can always be recovered but the wisdom and intelligentsia are hard to replace.
Fazle Siddiqui