When, for the first report, I was asked to compare my entrepreneurial undertaking to a literary work, I wasn’t expecting that I’d have had yet another literary comparison for the second report that would have proven to be so apropos to the current worldwide circumstances. I’m talking about The Plague, Camus. Also, when, in my first report, I was detailing the disruptive impact that Brexit was causing to pan-european entrepreneurial initiatives, I didn’t expect that my second report would have taken place at a time when the looming crisis triggered by a global pandemic would have put things into perspective in such a powerful way that the past grievances on the unpredictable and chaotic impact of Brexit on start-ups and businesses are now nothing but trifles.
In moments of crisis, the ability to adapt and innovate are not just virtues to occasionally pursue, but a necessity. At the HE’s company – a coding bootcamp where I am one of the mentors-, we’ve swiftly moved most of the on-site daily lessons to an online environment and what was until a few weeks ago a mostly on-site edtech business that used online tools as a mere educational complement is now an almost fully virtual start-up. Familiarizing ourselves with a new set of tools in a short timeframe and efficiently structuring both the lessons with the students and also coordinating with the co-workers who are now working remotely was initially challenging, but now that we’ve consolidated a set of practice it has opened up an ecosystem of possibilities to do the same things in new (and more virtual) ways. And this appears to be a worldwide trend. People are working remotely more than ever before and they’re doing so by using online collaboration tools. Schools and universities that are now shut down have largely moved their educational offering and research activities to online platforms. The world is becoming more virtual.
Once this crisis will be over, the innovation and the infrastructures that have been built to deal with it will survive and will impact our post-pandemic world. It’ll not make the memories of the ongoing catastrophe any less tragic, but moments of crisis are also moments where we ought to take responsibility for our actions rather than just being a byproduct of the absurd circumstances. What can you build that would be a net positive? I’ve found inspiring that a great deal of innovation is now taking place in the edtech ecosystem, which will make it a lasting trend for the future, and I took it as a sign that my own edtech project is moving towards the right direction.
