Don't be comfortable with anything but winning

When I started out in my career when I was 17. My vision was not nearly what it is today. I did not have the guidance and the skills that are acquired over time. This may have been true in my case but not in all. At school we are all taught about Maths and Science but seldom are we taught the skills and art of survival in the real world. I believe that we should be exposing young people to the opportunity beyond university, beyond their test, beyond their field of vision.

Unfortunately what has been instilled over the past 100 years in education is an industrialised approach toward the way education is administered. What has not been taken into account is the fact that we are no longer living in an industrial age. The generation which we are present in the information era. Everything is about how much high quality information can be presented in the shortest space of time.

The fact that the way in which young people are being educated at the moment is an approach of 100 years ago is concerning. Let me put this into perspective. In the business world information technology has been embraced even further with the rise of Big Data. Big Data by the way is where usually large corporate companies compile every bit of information they have into one place and then try and process the information to view a trend or statistics. The point being there is a unified acknowledgment that for business to be successful it needs to change with the trends and have the ability to have some foresight.

A huge gap between technology itself, and the information within that technology

Within our current education system whether it is in private, public or rural has not caught up with this methodology. What is happening at the moment is there is a huge gap in the technology and the information within that technology. Simply put the focus is around what is the latest and greatest hardware and little attention paid to the content within the system.

There is another disruption which is going to have a tsunami effect within education. The faster technology moves and changes the more aligned an organisation needs to be to accommodate for the change. What I see happening within the next 3 to 5 years is that the world will have build billions of apps for education many of which will have no relevance to what is relevant in the schools environment. What is more concerning is that the challenge we are currently faced with of showcasing to youth the importance of being industry savvy when choosing a profession will still not have been addressed.

Exposing young people to real world challenges, opportunities

My belief is that the way in which we learn and teach and most importantly what we are being taught is so critical for the success of South Africa but also for the success of the next generation of leaders.

That is why we have created one of the most advanced education platforms built in South Africa for South African's. B Smart changes the way education is administered. By combining the power of mobile technology and delivering high value content anywhere at anytime a new age of learning is discovered. There is another critical component to the system and that is being able to showcase real world challenges and opportunities to young people anywhere in the country. That is why we have incorporated the latest trends including entrepreneurial activities into our platform. 3D printing, gamification and virtual currency are just some of the technologies we are bringing to the forefront.

With this blended approach of filtering highly relevant information to youth we are able to produce a new benchmark in modern education. And this will open more opportunities in the technology space as well as redefine the modern South African economy to be better aligned with world wide movements.

Personally I feel an overwhelming sense of optimism about the future of the greatest country on earth - South Africa. We are making a very real difference within education which will lead to new industries and markets being created not only here but also world wide.

If you feel the way we do about change then welcome to the new age of winning.

B Smart is a platform that Courtney Bentley and his team have created leading the mobile e-learning market. For more information email moc.troppusaz@yentruoC or visit Courtney on LinkedIn.