For the times they are a-changin’ (Bob Dylan)
There’s a revolution taking place – if you’ve got the knowledge, you can work from anywhere, serving companies in other parts of the world. I’ve worked for the past few months with some brilliant programmers from Viet-nam doing software projects for firms in California. I’ve heard of young people creating objects in Second Life, such as Guns & Magic Wands, & selling them for $5-$20 a piece.They didn’t have to immigrate from their poor economies, just get the knowledge & provide services for companies in wealthier countries. Amazon is enabling this , with the Mechanical Turk mechanism, but its used less for Knowledge workers. The problem with knowledge workers is that knowledge is something you normally acquire by experience. As Peter Norvig said, the only way to be an expert in some field, is to work in it for at least 10 years. However, you can’t start gaining experience without some initial knowledge, that enables you to be competent enough to start bringing value & be able to get a job. Enter the Free Web Academy: a new mechanism in which people would be able to get practical knowledge in highly demanded professions, that can be practiced from anywhere in the world. It’s a non-profit & completely free university, with courses, lessons & exams given over the Web. It’s still in beta, & the 1st pilot course is starting next week. Students are not required to have anything except for: will, english & Internet connection.
Read more about it in this mind-map roadmap, & feel free to join!
