AOD students soon to move to the Colombo Innovation Tower
Hashini Sirisena Daniel, Head of Marketing, Design Corp
The idea of education is about to take a radically new turn with AOD this year. Disrupting the norms of operation seen in traditional education in a big way, AOD has announced that it will be part of a business catalyst space; Not just any catalyst space, but South Asia’s latest business, design and tech tri-factor ecosystem—Colombo Innovation Tower (CIT). AOD was among the leading contributors of the space that were recently revealed by the CIT. Among the trailblazers of this ecosystem, AOD took a central significance as the space’s heart for design thinking, new ideas and creative talent, exposing its students to a world of new experiences, industry interactions, employment opportunities and powerful networks of investors and sponsors keen to fund good ideas and promising young minds. AOD will be moving into the Colombo Innovation Tower space in Colombo 4 this July, to be part of a hub that will also house partners like SLINTEC, the Dutch design economy experts of CIRCO, Fashion for Good and HNB wealth management. Speaking to Sunday Times Education, Hashini Sirisena Daniel, Head of Marketing, Design Corp, shared her take on how AOD’s move to the Colombo Innovation Tower is the first of its kind, and a groundbreaking move for Sri Lankan education.
Why would a design educator be operating right next to a tech startup engine, a global expert on circular economies and a local veteran in resource management, among many other unusual partners?
Because the types of professionals that are gaining increasing demand and are predicted to present the most important skill-mixes of the future, are interdisciplinary. They are no longer just clever degree holders with paper qualifications and the ambition to climb up the ladder along a single direction; the professionals that economic experts at the World Economic Forum are predicting to dominate the next fifty years are those who are creative, and have the ability to apply multi-prong approaches to problem solving. This means that tomorrow’s successful professionals not only need to be experienced in their specialty, but also have an awareness to navigate through the mandatory dynamics of our everyday work lives like technology, business and wellbeing.
This multidisciplinary understanding also means that the future professionals will approach problems in much more complex ways through various perspectives, allowing them to come up with much more sustainable and effective solutions, AOD has long been a promoter of an education system that would prepare the younger generation to respond to this kind of future.
