Educating Generation Alpha

By Sanjiv Goyal Featuring Prith Banerjee

In this article you will learn about:

• Problems With the Current Educational Structure
• The Education System of Our Future
• How Simulation and 3D Design Software Will Shape Learning
• Online Learning
• Global Tech Challenges

Computer Science Since Day One

The CTO of Ansys, a future-focused engineering simulation and 3D design software company, has been working in computer science since 1971.

Prith Banerjee has worked with computing infrastructures that started on mainframes, moved to client/server, transitioned to cloud computing, and are now on evolving again.

He has been front and center for tech innovation throughout his career. When he speaks about how far technology has come from the days of early computing you can feel his passion.

“At Ansys now we are working on simulations of ten billion or a hundred billion transistors on one chip.”

With a wealth of knowledge to impart about the technology of the future, his perspective on the biggest challenge we are facing may surprise you.

With all the innovations that cross his desk and the cutting-edge technological advances he is privy to, his greatest challenge to engineers is to improve the education system.

The Biggest Challenge for Future Generations

Prior to his successful career in the private sector, he was a professor for 20 years. He worked at the University of Illinois, Northwestern, and was the Dean of Engineering at the University of Chicago.

When asked what problem he would most like to see solved, his answer was: Educating one billion people on the planet.

Education is the primary factor that determines socioeconomic status. Studies show that if women are educated it transforms the household and the entire community. Education is linked to upward mobility across the board.

The Problems With The Academic Status Quo

Our current education system is built around a time-based curriculum. Students go to school for a set number of hours a day over a set number of years and can complete the time required without sufficiently building a solid foundation of knowledge.

Prith pointed out, “Right now if you get a C minus in a class, you can move up, and yet you lack the proper understanding to move on to the next level.”

In architecture, you don’t start building a structure without first building a proper foundation. Each step is sequential and builds on the next. The way our school system is designed misses the mark of this common-sense principle.

This neither serves the student nor the teacher. One teacher is responsible for a class of students who are at different levels and thus is forced to teach to the average.

Banarjee experienced this first hand during his twenty years in academia, “The weaker student is struggling and the strongest student is getting bored.”

He believes that through machine learning, Ai and simulations, we can create, and are headed toward, an education system that is truly personalized on an as-needed basis.

Why have students sat in a classroom for eight hours a day learning things they can Google or things that don’t interest them?

If you have teenagers who are being homeschooled via zoom right now then you know the most common complaint: “I’m never going to use any of this. I don’t need to know it. It’s a waste of time.”

Banerjee agrees. He believes the education of the future will be built around only the information people need to perform tasks or achieve goals rather than a broad spectrum.

Students naturally prefer to learn that which excites them and are more eager to participate in learning things they know will have practical application in their lives. This is in part why platforms like YouTube and Coursera have taken off.

The Online Learning Boon

We are teaching with old methods. One could argue that a thousand years ago we had a better education system because things were based on mentorship and experiential learning.

The benefit of pre-recorded online learning is that students are able to go at their own pace. “Online learning takes the shame out of asking a question 23 times.” One student can fast forward if they get it and another can slow the pace down for themselves.

If the current online learning platforms partner with companies like Ansys and provide lectures and sophisticated simulations that live on the cloud, there is no reason why anyone from around the world can’t do a lab at Stanford from the comfort of their own couch.

Banarjee predicts that the future of education will be composed of online lectures/ modules and open discussion that interfaces with an Ai simulated educator avatar that responds just like a real person.

Creating a global education infrastructure is a complex and difficult problem to solve from a tech standpoint, but Prith believes it would have the highest social ROI.

The question is, how can we scale this so everyone around the world has access to these resources? Having a global online education system would level the playing field.

“The world would be such a better place,” Banarjee notes.

Calling all engineers. Get to it. There’s a lot of work to do to move us forward and create a better life for Generation Alpha and Beta and beyond.