Satish Gokhale, a Pune-based alumnus of National Institute of Design, at the recent What’s Next event by Pearl Academy, talked about how the kind of qualities that the future learner would need to inculcate to create value for themselves in the industry. He talked about the precision and discipline that learners would need to adapt to, for creating a niche for themselves in the changing industry scenario.

Leading thinkers of today’s generation such as- Madhav Raman- Architect and Urbanist, Jogi Panghaal-Design Professional, Rahul Mishra-Fashion Designer, Vikas Satwalekar- Design Academician, Deepankar Bhattacharya- Strategic Design Consultant and many more, gathered in groups to talk about a Learner as a Social Citizen, Open Source Institutions, New inspirations and challenges for the new age learner, the Professional of tomorrow and hoe multiple careers can become a trend.

The leaders talked about how the learner has to be honed as a social citizen, where they learn how to conceptualize ideas which may be beneficial for the industry and serve a larger cause and create an impact. The learners of tomorrow have very new inspirations, which lead to new challenges, for which they would need to find new solutions in collaboration with numerous fields. Educators would need to train learners to work against resistance and challenges that students would face.

With education moving away from just being about employability, it would be essential to create an eco-system rather than just in-house learning systems. Open-source institutions would become a solution for this and education would be structured in a manner which caters to students’ multiple intelligences.

Speaking about the What’s Next initiative, Satish Gokhale said, “I think there is a lot that can be done. This is something that is serious and educators have to look at what the students are thinking right now. I think that the What’s Next event is a great initiative in that direction, it is enlightening to hear the new thoughts that are being adapted to by the current generation.”

Key issues in design education are in constant change and these need to be mapped and monitored into current and ongoing courses for the curriculum to stay relevant and stimulating for both students and faculty. The two day confluence organized by Pearl Academy aimed at a collaborative sharing of insights which will help transform design education going forward.