Paul Tom
IBM Lev: Your Most- Knowledgeable Other
Personalized learning for youth providing an engaging and fulfilling education powered by the user’s own passion and curiosity.
This project uses foresight and strategic thinking to illustrate a personalized learning platform for youth, as the influence of a strong educational foundation is most significant if developed at a young age. The platform will provide a fulfilling and engaging experience for every user through the use of AGI, mixed reality, and deep personal profiles. The resultant impact on society is also explored, proposing new behaviours and modes of living. The project uses IBM as the platform partner for their leadership in integrated solutions and global recognition in diverse sectors.
Insight
Kids are naturally curious. There’s no better motivator than personal interest that can get them learning things in great detail and into topics you would think were beyond them. Education needs to help nurture this growth; to encourage and harness their curiosity so that they not only want to know, but need to know. This not only applies to subjects, but also to personal abilities such as critical thinking, empathy, and problem-solving among other skills that provide a strong foundation for a fulfilling life. Every child has incredible potential, they just need the right platform to help them flourish.
Idea
Based on IBM’s strong history in technology, IBM Lev is the AGI-successor to Watson and Your Most-Knowledgeable Other. The Lev platform educates users with a broad-concept approach to topics that are fuelled by their own passion and curiosity for the world, based on the approaches to education taken by Finland’s education system and the Democratic school style. Lev functions as a more knowledgeable other (a concept developed by psychologist Lev Vygotsky along with his “zone of proximal development”), who is the apparent expert on any topic and helps teach and guide its user through new knowledge and discoveries of everyday life.
Impact
IBM Lev will change the way we experience education. The possibilities are endless when you get to learn whatever you want. Highly specialized individuals will push their respective fields to new heights or open up new possibilities in completely new fields. Being an always-with-you device, Lev will take learning as far as the user can go, causing a shift in society to support a nomadic youth culture. School buildings will find new life with new purposes, accessibility to enable learners wherever they choose to roam, along with a host of other services to support life on the move.
Biography
Paul Tom is a designer of many interests and has set his sights on a career in design strategy and research. Beyond his professional interests is a fascination with creative packaging, and he is constantly thinking about small do-it-yourself quality-of-life projects. Paul is no stranger to the “making the world a better place” cliché but is still strongly committed to that goal. He brings positivity and enthusiasm to all that he does, and can always be found with a smile or a laugh. Hobbies include photography, camping and hiking, going to the gym, is an avid card, video, and board gamer, and anything to exercise his background in computer engineering, but might be engaged in any variety of interest-piquing activities.