Note: Feel free to use this text as inspiration for the essay or video in your application. However, we place great importance on your own creative thoughts regarding this year's call. Don't hesitate to incorporate your own ideas and perspectives.
The greeting video by Prof. Müller, Director of the TUM: Junge Akademie can be found here.
Perhaps Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French writer and pilot) today would extend his famous quote about the future: "The future is not something you want to foresee, but you want to make possible." with "and make it sustainable". Technological innovations, new methods of observing the world, and powerful models provide us with unprecedented opportunities to shape the future, addressing challenges related to health and climate while preserving European values such as democracy and respect for the individual. Our landscape offers new opportunities and presents new tasks, requiring new skills and bringing dynamics in various dimensions that vary depending on life realities and cultural backgrounds.
- Technological dynamics: Technological advances open up new options: from artificial intelligence and robotics to renewable energies and digitization. These innovations can improve the quality of life for everyone and directly contribute to solving global problems.
- Socioeconomic Dynamics: Our ways of living and working are rapidly evolving. Societies are changing due to new technologies, economic ecosystems, and companies are facing new competitive conditions, individuals are adapting flexibly to new conditions, and political actors of various orientations are using the situation for new positioning. These dynamics have a huge impact on addressing global challenges from health crises, political conflicts, and climate change.
- Dynamics in Skills Demand and Professional Identity Development: With new options, the demands on skills and knowledge increase. The working world of tomorrow requires not only technical skills, but more than ever digital competence, creativity, critical thinking, and the ability to collaborate in multidisciplinary and multicultural teams. Our handling of our values, beliefs, and viewpoints will be crucial. Education systems must adapt to impart these skills and promote lifelong learning. Equally important is fostering self-awareness and relational and role competence in the development of a reflective professional identity.
The future of societies will be shaped by these dynamics, with questions such as:
- Which new options will most influence our lives?
- What skills are essential in a digital world?
- Can and do we want to use new socioeconomic dynamics to create fairer and more sustainable societies?
- What challenges and opportunities exist in various cultural and economic contexts?
We invite you to formulate an essay as part of your application for a scholarship place in the #class25 of the TUM: Junge Akademie that elaborates on a topic od your choice that fits the call "Future Societies - new options, new competencies, new dynamics". Explore how you can contribute to shaping our future societies and think about the global dimensions and challenges that affect us all.
We look forward to hearing your thoughts on the society of the future as part of the TUMJA #class25 application process.
Yours sincerely
| Prof. Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Müller TUM Vice President Study and Teaching Managing Director of the TUM: Junge Akademie | Prof. Dr. med. Pascal Berberat TUM Vice Dean Academic and Student Affairs Representative for the Advisory Board of the TUM: Junge Akademie |