Industry 4.0 and telecollaboration to promote cooperation networks: a pilot survey in the portuguese region of Castelo Branco

Abstract

According to the World Economic Forum, the Fourth Industrial Revolution – also known as Industry 4.0 – is expected to take place before 2020, fostering significant changes in the way people think, live and work. Impending changes will have great impact on people and businesses. Growing digital interconnectivity will promote new business contexts, fostering communication beyond geographical borders and preventing physical constraints. Technological developments will also cause social and economic concerns, since they can create mass unemployment, inequality or talent shortages. In response to these foreseen working modifications, workers must be prepared to communicate digitally in a common language, known as lingua franca, usually English for global digital communications. In such context, local, regional and global communication is normally conducted through digital environments. Thus, as telecollaboration relates to the engagement of geographically dispersed learners in online intercultural exchanges using ICT (information and communications technologies), the potential of such collaborative methodology appears to be particularly promising for the forthcoming Industry 4.0 context, in which over one-third of skills that are considered important in today’s workforce will have changed. In order to assess the potential of such collaborative ICT-based learning methodologies to promote digital cooperation networks amongst companies and enterprises, a pilot survey focused on telecollaboration was carried-out in the Portuguese region of Castelo Branco. Preliminary results allowed discussing the advantages of combining such learning methodologies with the digital interconnectivity related to the Industry 4.0 context to develop new strategic avenues of cooperation between regional, national and international actors.