In America 2.0, we must address the changing work force and figure out a new way to formulate what an employee actually is, as the economy continues to change quickly. It begins by acknowledging after the crisis that our essential workers are, in fact, essential and not fungible.

The same goes for education. While it is no secret that the system to educate our children is broken in many places, the virus has shown us how quickly it can break for everyone and how badly tech solutions work as a replacement. I know of no parents, including those living in what are considered good school districts, who are happy with their children’s online classes.

While tech has long held itself out as the promise for universal education — for all from anywhere — the industry’s ability to provide an experience that is close to the analog has been an embarrassment. It’s a mishmash — including the security and privacy minefield of Zoom, the relentless lack of creativity of Google docs and a lot of confusion with basic scheduling online. This is true for those in lower grades up to college.

And it is worse still for those without adequate internet connections or proper devices to do their schoolwork, the very children most at risk in these lost months. Tech-driven online schools do not work for the mass of people in any way that inspires learning. There is a real opportunity to come up with truly creative solutions to allow more students to thrive.

Interestingly, the work-from-home technologies have been more adaptable. While the same security and privacy issues exist for adults using work-from-home tools, the use of video conferencing, combined with productivity technologies from companies like Slack, has made WFH a pretty good experience for many.

I think a lot of employers will find that productivity has risen in the past month or so. Of course, this works only for “knowledge workers,” not for those who must be physically present at jobs, which points to the imperative to further fund an economy that can flexibly shift its work force to meet whatever needs come up. Work has been changing quickly and usually to the detriment of those who are in the jobs that will ultimately — and now much sooner — be sidelined by automation and robotics advances, which will now get even more attention to protect us in the next crisis.

And if one thing is certain for America 2.0, there will be a next crisis — and one after that. While many of us like to think that this pandemic is a “black swan” event that no one could have prepared for, there were many smart people who sketched out this crisis many years ago.

In his now famous and prescient speech at TED in 2015, the Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates drew an imaginary picture that might as well be a photo of right now. After outlining what could happen, he noted that “we’re not ready for the next epidemic,” and he clearly mapped out a way to make a new kind of world, one that could have been created right away:

We can build a really good response system. We have the benefits of all the science and technology that we talk about here. We’ve got cellphones to get information from the public and get information out to them. We have satellite maps where we can see where people are and where they’re moving. We have advances in biology that should dramatically change the turnaround time to look at a pathogen and be able to make drugs and vaccines that fit for that pathogen. So we can have tools, but those tools need to be put into an overall global health system.

Sadly, his plans were not put into place. But that does not mean we can’t make new ones for the next phase of our lives. Whatever you want call it, America 2.0 or a pivot or the new future, it’s time to start.

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