Abstract:

Digital platforms have significantly changed the face of education. This is true of all spheres: online learning, offline learning, and blended learning. Digital platforms have also accelerated business developers and success of SMEs, where they are now in the position to gain the extra market, customer relations channels and to build their different additional value proposition for the customers. However, a lot of business owners are still afraid of the possibilities and outcomes that digital platforms could generate because they are missing digital literacy about these platforms and the changes in their business models the platforms are generating. Findings of the survey we conducted at our institute reveal that many students believe that digital platform literacy should become a priority in modern curricula.

In this paper, we would like to propose and discuss comprehensive education from all of the aspects of digital platform education – the psychology aspect, managerial aspect, technical aspect, digital pedagogical aspect, and financial aspect. With this in mind, we will be able to design some of the future jobs like Digital Product Managers and Internal Digital Trainers for SMEs to boost the competitiveness of digital products and SMEs where they are developed, but also to educate current business owners who would need help in adopting the digital concepts and adapting to business platforms.

By enabling digital platform literacy it will also be possible to overcome gender inequality. According to WEF Global Gender Gap Report for 2020, women have greater representation in roles that are being automated; but still not enough women are entering professions where wage growth is the most pronounced (most obviously, STEM professions), and globally women face the perennial problem of insufficient access to the new technologies. Developing and deploying women who present one-half of the world’s available talent has a huge bearing on the growth, competitiveness, and future-readiness of economies and businesses in our region. Digital transformation requires a major consolidation of existing systems and applications invoking retire/replace strategies and very demanding complex integration based on specific digital skills; acquiring the knowledge and experience needed here is the focus of our proposal and we will boost it through our regional business laboratory that will simulate and monitor the artificially created effect of digitally encouraged leadership and entrepreneurial characteristics of leadership with the best praxis. In this paper we will describe how the knowledge, technical and pedagogical skills of HEI (Higher Education Institution) lecturers could be improved; how transversal, generic, and subject-specific skills of learners are enhanced. The economic consequences of COVID19 are huge and there is an existential need for resurrecting the entrepreneurial spirit of HEI graduates with the inclusion of digital platform education as a key competence.

Keywords:

STEM, digital platforms, learning experience, Higher Education Institution.