I participated in several meetings at the Oxford-UIDP summit held at the Oxford University, UK, July 30 – August 2, 2019. There were two workshops prior to the summit on the themes of the Future of Work and the Future of University-Industry Consortia. I gave a presentation on the Future of Work and Jobs. There is tremendous interest in this topic throughout the world. With advances in automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence, it is becoming increasingly clear that some jobs will disappear, some new job categories will be created, and a large swath of jobs will be transformed. Some tasks will be taken over by machines and algorithms allowing human beings to focus on higher level tasks that require dealing with human-human interactions, uncertainty, and creativity.
Summit focused much of the discussion on issues of connecting university research to societal needs to benefit people. This is an increasingly important concern. Presentations by Sir Mark Walport and Dr. Walt Copan both emphasized this topic from their government roles. UIDP is at the center of this issue in as much as such societal benefits can be realized by connecting universities with for-profit as well as non-profit private sector organizations.