In a short span of fifteen thousand years (that's a short span if we compare it to the age of

the universe, just by the way), humans went from hunting and gathering, to building things like the 3D printing machine, aeroplanes, and the internet. It has been an extraordinary journey for humans to struggle through the tough times and create something sustainable for themselves.

If we go fifteen thousand years in the past, our ancestors gathered fruits, meat, and natural resources that would be edible. Later, when the agrarian era came, people started farming and rotating crops, out of which they used to earn a livelihood. It's interesting to see that as of this day, a majority of the Indian population (more than 75%), depends on agriculture for livelihood. Can you guess which professions were booming those days? Tradespeople, farmers, land-owners, wage-labourers or hired help etcetera. Then came what Alvin Toffler (he was an American writer and a futurist, he would study and predict things of the future) calls, the second wave – the industrial revolution. If you can drive a car, have electricity at home, or can read this blog, you must give credits to the industrial revolution. The most proximate impact this revolution made was in the industries like coal and textile. People were required to work in industries, handle machinery, work in coal mines; women were involved more in domestic help. Since this was purely a mechanical task where laptops or technology wasn’t involved, physical strength played a crucial role.

That being said, when we compare this with the current situation, things are very different. Kids these days, grow up surrounded by technology. Even schools and educational institutes are trying to adapt this by introducing technology in the academic curriculum. This could be a smart-class, app-based learning, or giving tablets instead of books. This goes on to justify how drastically have things changed. With Tesla planning to set up a human colony on Mars and Google impacting millions of lives every day, we have progressed exponentially over these fifteen hundred years.

Today, in order to survive more than to succeed in our respective domains, we require skills that weren't required in the agrarian or industrial era. With the advent of technology, we are living in a world of abundance and choices; should you consider it a blessing, think again. The world has become one global community, making communication and collaboration easier and more necessary than ever. The skills that are required in the 21st -century and called the 21st -century skills. As discussed, they include communication, collaboration, information literacy, problem solving and critical thinking skills, to name a few.

We graduate our formal education and look for jobs (most of us). In order to succeed or prove yourself at your workplace, there are a set of skills and capabilities that you have to display in order to meet the organisation's expectations. There is a gap between what the corporates expect out of fresh graduates and the skills that the youth has, in recent times. A study suggests that around 45% of employers globally and 56% of them in India report that they cannot find the candidate they look for, with the right skills. In order to fill this gap, corporates and multi-national companies provide you with training programs ranging from a few months to a year. In fact, it is said that around 65% of employers will have to train students and potential candidates in order to train them for the 21st -century. In order to bridge this gap, necessary skills will have to be inculcated in learners at an early stage.

There are organisations that provide you with special and customized programs wherein you get an opportunity to polish the above-mentioned skills. Brainwiz, as an organization, has been a pioneer in this sphere by training the student fraternity in India, of the 21st- century skills through different programs, workshops, and events.

You can be a part of their events or read more about them at www.brainwiz.in.