Retire or (and) rewire?

Now this really is an interesting development. The Encore Career Institute, which launches today and will offer courses through UCLA Extension, the continuing and professional education division of the University of California at Los Angeles.

I quote from the press article:

Silicon Valley, Hollywood and the University of California are icons of innovation, and now their power players have combined forces to boost job prospects for America's powerhouse demographic group - the Baby Boomers.

The for-profit venture will offer customized curriculum, job-retraining classes and certificate programs in an online program intended to help America's estimated 77 million Baby Boomers pursue jobs in diverse fields such as finance, education, health care and environmental sustainability.

When you think how much educational stuff is sitting around that could be enable using Web 2.0 technologies and techniques then you can see why this is such an interesting proposition.

The demand is there – lots of older people either wanting new qualifications to ensure a decent retirement or for the intellectual fun of doing it.

The education content – the UK’s Open University should take note.

The delivery channels – all the tech goodies that we now have available.

This will be an interesting development to watch. Dick Stroud