Independent Directors Association member Kaha Baindurashvili presented an online master class for 1,500 Georgian students. 

Kakha Baindurashvili introduced the students to the current process of global transformation, when employers shift their focus from professions to soft and hard skills. This process started with the advent of Industry 4.0 and has been developing dynamically in recent years in parallel with the emergence of the digital age, but Covid has led to an extreme acceleration of this process. Acceleration of the introduction of digital technologies around the world due to Covid also accelerated the rapid change of skills and therefore the need for their rapid acquisition, which is a serious challenge for the world education system today and even more significant for Georgia. So for example, according to recent studies, by 2022, 42% of jobs will require different skill sets; Already now more than half of the employers are no longer satisfied with the students trained by the universities, so there is a great demand for additional skills and so great is the speed of their change. Good example is a blockchain related skill, in 2019 blockchain knowledge was not included in the list of 5 main skills, in 2020 it is already the main required skill and its knowledge is already required by non-IT specialties, e.g. Graduates of Master of Business Administration.

Kakha’s masterclass was given through the ICIDC’s (Institutional and Capacity Development Center) Masterclass Program funded by the USAID Economic Security Program and was attended by primarily Business Administration, Economy & Finance and Marketing Bachelor programs involved 1,500 students from top 15 Georgian universities.