Have courage and just do it

Christoph Igel

People. Education. Technology. For Christoph Igel, these are the topics of his life. No matter when. And no matter where. These questions have taken him halfway around the world. And a year ago to Chemnitz, where, as Director and Managing Director of TUCed, the affiliated institute for continuing education at Chemnitz University of Technology, he is dedicated to lifelong learning and technology-supported qualification and education. To put it very simply. But this is a talent of the native Saarlander, who talks fast and, it is clear after a few minutes, thinks even faster: making complex relationships simple - he can do that. Perhaps because in computer science everything has to be zero or one in the end? In our everyday lives, says Christoph Igel, there are two tendencies: complex things always end up being binary at some point - i.e. zero and one. Or the questions are so complex that there are no longer any simple answers. A broad field for technology and philosophy.

I recently heard a lecture from you. It was about how technologies will continue to develop. How they will shape our lives. And how all our devices will be networked to fulfil our needs even more precisely. It won't be long now. The audience was divided: One half was fascinated, the other shocked. Do you think that's good?
Christoph Igel : It doesn't really matter, although the reaction is not unusual. Technologies already determine our lives today. That will only increase. Anyone who says I'll stay away from computers and then gets into their car, in which numerous computers and technical systems work together, may not have this in mind. We are becoming less and less aware of technologies, but they are an integral part of our lives. The exciting question is: What does this do to us? And the next: How can we use them effectively? Especially when it comes to learning, education and qualifications. It's always about what happens to people when we use technology and think about the methods that can combine the two.

How did you come up with this topic?
Since my studies, I have been inspired by one question: How do people learn? In essence, I have been working on this for 17 years now and looking for answers. I first came into contact with technology during my time as a doctoral student: the question was how top athletes learn new, highly complicated movements. Back then, this was done with video analysis, analogue, in the classic way. The technologies and possibilities of the internet came into focus for me - parallel to the internet boom of the 90s and the dot.com bubble. And no matter what I did later, it was always about this one question - just from different perspectives. Today, it's much more about education at the interface between people, organisation and technology. That's why I came here to Chemnitz, to raise the profile of the Institute for Continuing Education. Here, I have found excellent conditions for shaping my focus areas, which deal with the qualification and education of people and the use of innovative technologies and the Internet, and for contributing to the location, Chemnitz and Saxony.

TUCed is dedicated to extra-occupational academic further education, which, thanks to its close links with Chemnitz University of Technology and numerous partner institutions from business, the public sector and science, is fed directly from research and various fields of application and use. Participants in the degree programmes come from Germany, Europe and all over the world.

Lifelong learning - for most people this sounds rather daunting.
Unfortunately, for many people, learning rarely has a positive connotation due to their own experiences at school or university. It is perceived as exhausting, you often don't know what you can use what you have learnt for, and the teaching methods are often traditional and outdated. That's why many people don't want to do it. However, stockpiling learning, as used to be taught at school and university, is no longer an option; knowledge today is fast-moving and has ever shorter half-lives. What is learnt at school and university is the basis. After a few years, you have to update your knowledge and keep on learning - for life. It's about finding motivating variants, different framework conditions, a new approach. Technology as a method of imparting knowledge can be one way of doing this. However, the desire to discover and learn new things is always fundamental.

Can learning be learnt? And what is the ideal environment for this?
Just a few years ago, I would have had a complete vision for innovative education and qualification scenarios, but today I am more cautious. Ideal learning spaces should have something to do with real life, be close to reality and create benefits for the individual. In research and innovation, we focus on precisely these aspects in order to develop tools and teaching methods that help people. This can be technology and the internet - but they alone will not replace a good teacher in the foreseeable future. Only a person can convey a fascination for content in all its facets. And, of course, the content itself must also be exciting and fascinating. In continuing professional development, there are further arguments, such as the benefits of education and qualification for one's own career and personal development.

Christoph Igel has been honoured several times. For his civic commitment. In 2009, he was honoured as "Chief Learning Officer" in Germany for his research and innovation achievements in digital education at the interface between business and science. He was involved in working groups of the Industry-Science Research Alliance to support the implementation and further development of the high-tech strategy in Germany. A very practical example on the ground: his institute is currently supporting a pilot project of the Saxon Ministry of Education on the use of tablets and innovative educational technologies in Saxon schools.

As an expert on the subject: Are you still learning? And how do you do it?
Always. Every day. My networks of people and institutions are very important to me. I learn through dialogue and experience. That must account for 80 to 90 per cent. And I read. As much as possible. Especially topics that I don't know yet and that are new to me.

Book or mobile?
Paper tends to be the exception, if I think about it, not really at all any more. On the one hand, this has something to do with the possibility of permanent access when I'm in Chemnitz or travelling and can still access everything. And it has something to do with the variety of media that the digitalisation of content offers us: Videos can depict processes much more vividly. And pictures can simply say more than a thousand words.

On the road is a good keyword. You are Director and Managing Director of the Institute for Continuing Education in Chemnitz and Director of Educational Technologies and Knowledge Services at the German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence in Berlin. You teach at Chemnitz University of Technology, are an associate researcher at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China and have already been responsible for research projects in the USA and China. You are involved in the German government's National IT Summit and the German Academy of Science and Engineering. The list of national and international research projects is long. How do you manage that?
I just do it. And I write and read at five o'clock in the morning, because otherwise I don't have enough time.

Christoph Igel is organised. He had announced that he would be late for the Academic Quarter meeting - but of course that didn't happen. He was even the first to arrive. "What drives me is my enthusiasm for my topics and questions. And, admittedly: I love technology and the internet with all its possibilities. As someone who comes from the human sciences, I am still very enthusiastic about what technology already makes possible today. I also deal with people in my environment who are open, willing to initiate and shape change. And this is particularly true here in Chemnitz and in Saxony. After a year here, I've really arrived, I feel very much at home and now want to work here, shape things and simply do my job in the best possible way."

How so?
I wanted to get closer to the topic of education again, I wanted to deal with qualification and vocational training at the interface of business, science and the public sector - and then the unique opportunity to come here presented itself. Chemnitz University of Technology, the location and the region have been excellently positioned in this area for years and play a pioneering role in Germany. This appealed to me, and now I'm here and will be happy to stay. It's quite unique here.

And what did you find?
Optimal conditions for scientific entrepreneurship. The people here are enthusiastic, open and welcoming. And there is an economic and industrial environment that is capable of making a difference. What I think is great is the great willingness to change things. Elsewhere, people often see what doesn't work first. Or how long a lot of things take. So the barriers, the obstacles. Here, people think and do things. I have a great passion for interfaces between topics, between institutions, between people; they create friction and drive innovation. You come across questions that you simply wouldn't think of if you were just sitting in an office. Incidentally, this is also an advantage of a supposedly small city like Chemnitz: the distances to partners and decision-makers in politics, business and science are short. People who want to do something meet almost automatically. Chemnitz is really quite big.

Do we Chemnitz residents see that too?
People who have grown up in Chemnitz certainly have a completely different image of their city than I do after just one year here. I have the impression that the people of Chemnitz really like their city, they are very down-to-earth, honest and grounded. I like that very much.

So our obligatory question: do you have to encourage the people of Chemnitz?
I don't want to presume to give advice here. The people of Chemnitz can be proud of themselves and their city, their region. I realise that the people here are at peace with themselves and have the serenity to simply do things. I would like to encourage the people of Chemnitz in this: Have courage and do it, the rest comes naturally and can be shaped. Be curious. And be allowed to fail sometimes. What else strikes me: The city has an incredible joie de vivre in parts, when people turn a fountain into an outdoor pool or play football on the grass in the city centre. Another thing I really appreciate: When I go to a café here on a Sunday morning, there are families of two or three generations sitting at the table. You see children everywhere, as a matter of course. I know that differently from my previous locations. But these are values that I value.

Values in a technological, virtual world - how does that fit together?
We are a global village and the internet has suddenly made things possible that we would never have thought possible in the past. But we must not forget one thing: People make and use technologies. And technologies shape people and change them. We certainly need a much more pronounced discussion of values around this interrelationship, we need to learn to assess the consequences better and understand them more comprehensively. And not just because the data protection debate or the NSA affair is currently being discussed in all the media. We need to better understand and decide which things we want and which we don't. If everything is becoming faster and faster, both perceived and actual, the question of values is all the more important. And this is also culture- and location-specific. Not so much the technologies, which are very similar in Chemnitz and Berlin, China or the USA.

Honestly, do you still go offline from time to time?
No, not even when I'm asleep. Okay, that was a joke. But seriously: I don't perceive the internet as a burden. It's not the technology itself that matters, but how we use it and what we make of it.

That's right. During the conversation, his mobile phone is on the table, you can see that new messages are coming in, but he doesn't even look at it.