People Lab Panelist: Andy Forest
Meet Andy Forest! He’ll be a panelist on June 6th at our People Lab Panel! Andy is the co-founder and Executive Director of steamlabs.ca, developing kids’ identities as creators, coders, scientists and makers in the 21st century. Andy consults with science centers and educators around the world and has inspired thousands of social innovators.
When you think about Resiliency & Adaptability, what would you tell someone who was considering working in your industry?
I work in education, and there is a fundamental shift happening. Getting an education is no longer about learning facts about the world in order to play a fixed role in it. It’s now about developing skills to be able to continuously learn and adapt to play a role in an ever changing world. To impart these skills, educators need to be continuously adapting ourselves. Seeking out new best practices, and adapting to the ever changing needs of our students.
How has building Resiliency & Adaptability in your own life / career benefited you personally?
I’ve made some weird and wonderful things happen in my life because I’ve been willing to continuously look at the future with new eyes. I’ve switched my focus many times, following new things that were important to me and the world. I look at my existing skills as something to grow on, not as something that must be taken advantage of to maximum effect. For example, I did a lot of coding in my early career, and got quite good at it. I rarely code at all myself now, but now use that skill to build engaging coding education activities for kids. I could get paid a lot more to just code things, or to manage teams of coders, but I’m much more fulfilled teaching others.
