Community, Work, Love, Empathy, Edtech in the Coronavirus Era
Thoughts, articles and mental models
We are in the middle of the biggest crisis of our generation. Our decisions today will shape the world for years to come. They will define not only our healthcare systems but also our work, leisure, travel, empathy and learning.
Since we don’t have a medical cure for Coronavirus yet, social distancing is our only hope of keeping healthy by staying apart. While it is a vital strategy for slowing contagion, it pushes against our instinct for togetherness, and can worsen our well-being and mental health.
If we let physical distancing lead to social disconnection, it can intensify our loneliness which may further lead to sleeplessness, depression and cardiovascular problems.
Now more than ever we need to leverage the power of communities. Check out Utkarsh’s INK talk on how communities scale trust and create change.
The Network Capital COVID subgroup has been working night and day to support those in need. You can check their work out here.
Network Capital Premium conducted a masterclass on “Empathy in the Coronavirus Era” to explore how empathy works, how it differs from compassion and how we can collectively transform personal isolation into community-driven bonding. Check it out here
Our empathy is like a muscle: left unused, it atrophies, put to work, it grows. Check out the masterclass here.
To ensure that our community members have continual support, we schedule masterclasses and personalized 1:1 mentoring time on NC Premium. Our office hours go on for anywhere between 2 to 6 hours every day.
These are the upcoming NC Premium masterclasses in the next few days
2. Understanding the economic impact of Coronavirus, the Black Swan of 2020
3. Virtual Happy Hour: A Conversational Dance
If you wish to join them, click here
We recommend three fascinating articles that you should consider checking out.
1. EdTech in the Coronavirus Era: “UCL Institute of Education professor and machine learning expert Rose Luckin believes that one day we might see an AI-enabled “Fitbit for the mind” that would allow us to perceive in real-time what an individual knows, and how fast they are learning. The device would use sensors to gather data that forms a precise and ever-evolving map of a person’s abilities, which could be cross-referenced with insights into their motivational and nutritional state, say. This information would then be relayed to our minds, in real time, via a computer-brain interface.” Read more here
2. Love in the Coronavirus Era: “It has paradoxically broken down barriers: everyone is stuck in the same situation, living the same emotions, having the same thoughts, asking the same questions.” Read more here
3. Diary of a Milanese Girl Under Coronavirus Lockdown: “I have always considered myself an independent Milan-based freelancer with Indian origins. I have family and friends all around the globe, my daily life is digital. Yet what I really deeply desire, in this moment, is the privilege of a random, hyperlocal human touch. This, and a bar’s espresso.” Read more here
Quote we are thinking about
“Time spent arguing is, oddly enough, almost never wasted.”
― Christopher Hitchens
from Letters to a Young Contrarian (yes, that is what we are reading right now)