The priorities of learning are rapidly changing, and we’ve arrived at a time when having a law or business degree is no longer sufficient.
Today’s digital age means that coding classes are becoming increasingly attractive and there is an emphasis on the need for SMEs to embrace digitisation and boost productivity, a.k.a. the SMEs Go Digital Programme.
Last week, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) announced that they were releasing the micro:bit to cultivate an interest in coding amongst primary and secondary school students.
Squared Online For SMEs
Today, Channel NewsAsia announced a new four-way partnership with Google, AVADO, SPRING Singapore and the IMDA – Squared Online for SMEs.
Squared Online is Google’s established digital marketing and leadership course, and the new programme target at empowering 1,000 SME business leaders with “knowledge and skills to boost their in-house marketing capabilities”. The goal is also to better enable them to reach global audiences.
Square Online’s programme for large enterprises has already attracted 1,000 students across 18 countries, including Singapore’s Mediacorp and Prudential.
As shared by Google, the SME programme is on track to take in 120 students for each cohort, with the eventual goal of 1,000 by 2019.
According to Ghislain Le Chatelier, regional director for Google’s global marketing solutions, “we hope to help [these leaders] export using the web, grow their customer base and thrive in an increasingly mobile-first world.”
Experienced Partners
One name that stood out for us from the announcement was AVADO.
Aside from knowing that it was a “digital transformation and leadership training company” from UK, the name was unfamiliar, so we decided to do a little more research.
The training company has delivered programmes to over 200,000 individuals and businesses globally, and among them we see familiar names such as MediaCorp and HSBC.
Having been in Singapore for over half a year now, AVADO’s arrival was also in line with the Squared Online programme, and they have been working with Google’s Digital Academy for a while now. And the success of the partnership is apparent, with the academy’s Director Shuvo Saha calling the training “outstanding” and that it has allowed “thousands to follow the course while keeping it immersive, experiential, social and practical.”
As shared by their General Manager Sandy Tsang, their team sees Singapore as a “great base in this region to lead the digital transformation and talent cause”, something she attributes to the open-mindedness to learning amongst the people in Singapore.
She admits that digitally-savvy talent in Singapore are “few and far in between“ so it’s all about tackling the need to up-skill the workforce.
Featured Image Credit: hardwarezone
