Gamified Education

Breaking down the journey that led me to study at Quantic, a truly innovative MBA experience

In 2015 I wrote a short article on Edtech*; advocating that I thought it wise to take an adaptive and resilient approach to education and learning throughout your career. The 3 main reasons for writing this was to celebrate Edtech companies such as EdX and Coursera, to evaluate the importance of continuous learning in a world where ‘change’ is accelerating and to address the high degree of professional flexibility that will be required in the future (i.e. now).

The more you learn, the less you know

Little did I know that terms like Growth Hacking, T-shaped professionals and Growth Mindset had already started morphing into what these mean for today’s and the future world of work. Neither did I have any clue about the corporate culture that Reed Hastings instilled in the ‘self-learning organisation’ that is Netflix. Knowing all this now makes me passionate about becoming a truly T-shaped professional creating a proper knowledge framework for my ever evolving growth mindset. So with edtech being a topic of passion and, considering the state of the world, it becoming a main staple topic in the public debate, I wanted to elaborate on my journey to Quantic.

At the heart of this journey? Innovation.

‘Innovate or die’

Elon Musk (yep, that meme guy) once said that the problem with corporate America is that ‘too many MBAs are running companies’, I believe what he actually meant is that many companies have an innovation problem. Like Elon, many business leaders know that in order to build sustainable organisations that thrive ongoing, constant innovation of products and processes is crucial. Yet to implement a strategy that delivers on this is a whole new ballgame!

Besides, the significant moral importance of continuously striving for and working towards ever more equal societies being crystal clear, so too is the evidence that diverse teams deliver better business performance not least because these are more innovative. ’Innovate or die’ takes on a whole new meaning if you consider that only in truly inclusive and diverse environments innovation thrives.

So the first reason for choosing the Exec MBA at Quantic is because I believe it will allow for the most diverse networking and collaborative experience I could get out of any high quality MBA, while also being able to afford it (the Quantic tuition fee is highly competitive).

Why lead with innovation and diversity? Well, I believe innovation is at the core of the sustainable evolvement of both private and public sectors leading to bettering the world for all (think ‘Mission Economy’). At the core of any amazing innovative journey are professionals that are adaptive to complex environments and who can thrive in multicultural dimensions.

Secondly, given my journey in life, I like to view any given concept from many angles using an innovation lens. Which in turn makes me passionate about the future world of work and how it will work for all of us.

How do we achieve a world where many, not few, can attain and retain the required emotional resilience to become adapt to constant change?

The answer that follows is my opinion and I am always open to iteration: to be able to work towards an inclusive, diverse and equal world, the onus is on all of us, who have the cognitive capacity and means, to make this world a better place through building business with purpose (see this 2 min Grow the Pie summary video for context on purposeful business).

In particular I believe the onus is on those in leadership positions, with job creation abilities, to adapt a growth mindset and encourage others to do so as well (4 min video on creating ‘self-learning organisations’). Finding peers on this journey is one crucial aspect I believe I will get from my experience at Quantic.

Finally, I hope I will be provided with a proper framework to connect all that I am interested in (a lot!) and I believe Quantic’s future proof curricula will deliver on this. So coming across Quantic, it simply made sense to apply! Funnily enough it was just as I was finalising the book ‘Competing against Luck’, and after connecting some dots I feel Jobs to be Done was at the core of the founding of the Quantic MBA (and it’s mother company Pedago — a question I still like to ask the co-founders)

Would I ever be negative about non digitally native MBAs? Definitely not! I don’t think it’s an ‘either/or’ discussion, we need our education to adapt to todays world, regardless of how it is delivered. I just think the Quantic experience is best suited to my needs and fits perfectly in my professional journey, go check it out to find out more about why I used gamified in the title!

If you are interested in the digital vs conventional education debate I definitely recommend listening to this episode of the Financial Times Tech Tonic podcast: ‘The Digital Graduate’ (20 min listen).

*= Education technology — use of truly digital solutions to deliver education.