Work-Life-Balance, Industrial Metaverse & Gamification in the Learning Industry

Gaming for greater learning results??

Higher motivation, more fun, and better learning results at the same time - in the world of e-learning, one trend in particular has become increasingly popular in the last few years that holds promising potential for these objectives: gamification can make corporate training more appealing to employees and thus increase learning success.??

In the learning world, gamification refers to the integration of game-based elements into the learning process. Game mechanisms, such as collecting reward points or badges, rankings and leaderboards, or engaging storytelling, are designed to make the learning process more interactive and entertaining. This can not only increase learning engagement, but even help learners to better memorize the content.?

The fact that gamification has great potential to appeal to learners of all ages is also demonstrated through?a recent Bitkom study?on gaming trends. Video and computer games have become an integral part of many people's everyday lives: More than half of Germans play digitally - women as well as men. Contrary to many assumptions, it is not only young people who are increasingly enthusiastic about gaming. One in two people between the ages of 50 and 64 plays video and computer games; among people aged 65 and over, the rate is almost one in five. Many of those surveyed see more than just entertainment value in it: According to 46% of gaming enthusiasts, digital games also teach them important skills for real life, such as teamwork or strategic thinking. In addition, games provide a gamified introduction and access to the digital world, according to many.??

In our DigiKompetenz podcast, we asked gamification pioneer Roman Rackwitz what the learning and training industry can learn from the gaming industry. "How important storytelling is," he explains. "Games are the most native, the most perfect learning toolkit. There's no game where you don't have to learn - or rather, as soon as you don't have to learn, you'll throw it in the corner because it's boring. And yet we love to get into it. In fact, we look forward to knowing: I've solved this problem - only to have the next problem be even harder."

With gamification, we can therefore make use of our innate human play instinct for corporate training as well: To increase learning success, to train relevant skills and to make learning more fun.?Monotonous trainings are a thing of the past!

Industrial Metaverse: A next stage of digitalization in industry?

"Metaverse" is one of the current buzzwords in the world of technology- a virtual world in which users can interact with each other and the environment. However, there are different metaverse that use similar technologies but have different objectives. Thus, the metaverse is also becoming increasingly interesting for the industrial sector: In the so-called "Industrial Metaverse", virtual and augmented realities are used for industrial production and maintenance. Here, the focus is not on avatar interaction or entertainment, but on industrial value creation. This metaverse can be used to make production more efficient, to optimize processes or to support remote work.?

The Industrial Metaverse represents a next step in the digitization of industry. It is based on the intelligent connected machines and processes in the industry. This networked factory and its digital twins can now be virtually experienced by users in the Industrial Metaverse: For example, they can use an avatar to control real production facilities from a remote location. Or, with the help of immersive technologies, users can interact with products on a screen as if they were actually in front of them. In this way, users can experience complex technology in a concrete way. This focus on users when using digital twins is one of the main differences between the Industrial Metaverse and the previous Industrie 4.0.?

What is the relevance of the metaverse for industry, business models, technologies and employees, and what are the chances and risks? Experts from the Industrie 4.0 platform have addressed these questions in a recently published impulse paper, thus making one of the first contributions to the discussion on the topic of the Industrial Metaverse.??

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Read more about the thesis paper "Industrial Metaverse" of Plattform Industrie 4.0.

How to successfully balance family and career

Family and career - how can I combine both? Many working moms and dads ask themselves this question. At the same time, leaders and top managers are faced with the challenge of creating good conditions in the company to meet the increasing need for a work-life balance. The understanding of work and career is changing, and "New Work" is one of the buzzwords of our time. But how is it possible in everyday life to fulfill the role of a caring parent and a responsible manager at the same time??

Roman Gaida, manager and father of twins, has recorded his personal experiences and tips on these questions in the book "Working Dad: Living the Compatibility of an Active Father Role and a Career". His work was highly popular in the top floors of many companies, as well as among working parents.?

Now we are retelling Roman Gaida's story! In our new i40 Masterclass "Working Dad: How to balance family and career", we are addressing one of the most important topics in our working and leadership world today and tomorrow: With inspiring ideas as well as tools and tips from practice, we are showing together with Roman Gaida how mothers and fathers can succeed in balancing parenthood and career.?

The i40 Masterclass offers a relevant change of perspective for employees as well as for managers and explains how a sustainable advancement of family-friendly corporate culture can succeed: "Only when managers live and work by example with respect to having family and career, will a balanced relationship between work and family in companies and a healthy attitude towards it become reality in society", Roman Gaida reports. You can find out exactly how this process can be organized - and much more - in our Masterclass. Coming soon!

Read more information on our new i40 Masterclass: "Working Dad: How to balance family and career".

Solar Energy: Industrial Control Systems at Risk?

The Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a warning to users of certain products from solar energy company Enphase Energy in late June. CISA is a U.S. agency responsible for protecting critical infrastructure in the United States. With the advisory, the agency wants to inform customers of Enphase Energy about current security problems that can occur in context with used Industrial Control Systems (ICS). As a result, attackers could easily hack these ICS remotely. The warning refers to the following two products that may contain vulnerabilities:

One is the Enphase Envoy, an electronic network device that collects and provides information about the current performance of users' solar energy systems. Version D7.0.88 and earlier variants are vulnerable to a command injection exploit: this allows an attacker to execute so-called root commands. This means that the hacker can perform actions as if he had admin rights himself.?

Secondly, version 3.27.0 and older of the Enphase Installer Toolkit have vulnerabilities. They have hardcoded credentials embedded in the binary code in the Android application. Such credentials cannot be changed by the user. If the attacker possesses this information, he can gain access to sensitive data - a very dangerous vulnerability.?

To reduce the risk of attack, CISA recommends that users of these products minimize network exposure for all control system devices and ensure they are not accessible via the Internet. Control system networks and remote devices should be placed behind firewalls and isolated from corporate networks. If remote access is required, secure methods such as virtual private networks (VPNs) should be used. If users have questions, they should contact Enphase Energy Support.?

Read more detailed information on the CISA warning.

Ransomware attack on ABB?

The international technology company ABB, headquartered in Switzerland, became a victim of a ransomware attack in May. The IT security incident affected some of ABB's systems.?The company said?it was able to contain the attack. All key services, systems and factories are operational again, it said, and the company is able to continue serving its customers.?

ABB said it then launched investigations, notified law enforcement and data protection authorities, and drew on experts and measures to limit and investigate the damage. As things stand, these investigations are still ongoing; as soon as it is clear which information from which customers is affected, they will be notified, it said.?

The cyber gang BlackBasta is said to be behind the attack, according to IT security researcher Kevin Beaumont via the microblogging service Mastodon. Other media outlets are also reporting evidence of BlackBasta. Beaumont suspects that the company also paid the demanded ransom. The fact that there were no signs of the attack on BlackBasta's darknet site could also indicate that ABB was able to prevent publication of the stolen data by making payments. The company itself did not comment on a possible payment of ransom,?according to heise online.

Especially in Industry 4.0, technical security concepts are not enough to provide adequate protection against sophisticated cybercriminals. The human factor plays an essential role in cyber-attacks. It is therefore essential to create awareness of relevant threats throughout the company and to deepen knowledge in the area of cybersecurity as well as OT and IT security. For this purpose, we have developed the new Cybersecurity 4.0 - the online training for the practice with 26 learning videos and approx. 3 hours of learning time.???

Read more information.

New episodes of Digikompetenz Podcast coming in July 2023

We are looking forward to the new episodes in July with:?

• 107 CEO VONQ, Arno Sch?fer ,
• 108 Partner Digital Performance at Struktur Management Partner GmbH, Jan Rodig ,
• 109 Head of Content and COO i40.de, Benedikt Dirscherl ,
• 110?Global Head IT Infrastructure Mercedes Benz Mobility, Dr. Joerg Storm .

?A new episode of our Digikompetenz Podcast will be released weekly on Fridays.

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