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People without opinions, and diverse perspectives have been made public
via webinars, online conferences, and variations of these
the ability to formats. People previously unable to interact have done so,
and people without the ability to travel to such one-off live
travel to such events have been granted unprecedented access.
While online or otherwise remotely delivered education
one-off live may have previously been considered watered-down or sec-
events have ond-rate by many employers, after this year, that cannot any
longer be the case. High-quality education in just about any
been granted field is available at the click of a mouse today, more interac-
tive and dynamic than ever before, and often at an astonish-
unprecedented ingly low cost compared to more traditional formats. A
media company recently launched a coffee-specific platform
access. where students can learn skills in different coffee-related
areas. Among these is my course, Introduction to The Green
Coffee Supply Chain, which offers students a top-to-bottom
analysis of the actors, activities, and unseen power dynamics
that control the coffee trade.
This is one example of the alternative points of view
that can, for the first time, be delivered efficiently to geo-
graphically dispersed groups of students at a very low cost
compared to traditional seminars. Just imagine if there are 5
people in each country that want to take a course. It would
be cost-prohibitive to set up and offer a 3-month course to
Communication While we have had communication
only 5 people. On the other hand, if it were offered in one
tools like email for decades and online video-calls for some
location, most people probably couldn’t afford to fly to that
time as well, it has been easy to avoid their use aside from
Photo / Austin Park
location and live for 3 months while taking the course far
certain scenarios due to the relative ease and comfort of
from home. But if you can bring all the students together
in-person communication. When you must schedule a video
online, no one has to travel. And with hundreds of students
call to speak with someone one kilometer away or across an
to share the expense, the individual cost can be quite reason-
ocean, they become one in the same. I’ve spent many hours
able. This format allows for vital subjects like this one to be
speaking with people all over the world this year that I oth-
made widely available for the first time. Any reduction in the
erwise probably wouldn’t have met until I arrived to their
cost of knowledge makes it available to people that were
home countries, if I ever had the opportunity. The change in
previously shut out. If knowledge is power, this is an import-
culture around the use of communication tools, and the
ant process toward greater equality.
improvement of the tools themselves, has allowed this change
to happen. This probably won’t be reversed as soon as people
in the same location can safely meet again. While a Zoom
call with a new contact is naturally not as enjoyable as a
leisurely cupping and lunch, many more people have access
to internet than to international travel. As an added benefit,
the carbon footprint is infinitely smaller.
Knowledge We have been flooded with information
for decades since every human connected to the internet
learned they could share their opinions and versions of re-
ality freely. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, the key
As COVID-19-inspired
is filtering and qualifying the information and finding what
cancellations and lockdown
you need, and what you didn’t realize you needed, among a
orders slowed down the
massive ocean of irrelevance and distortion. For this reason,
industry, coffee businesses that
many have stuck to more traditional sources of trustworthy
rely on education to keep the
knowledge, such as in-person universities, sometimes at great
lights on are increasingly forced
expense and inefficiency. Since travel became restricted,
toward the dull blue glow of
massive amounts of content and live sharing of information,
their computer screens.
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