Why the arts and humanities are critical to the future of tech

The top ten skills of tomorrow identified by the World Economic Forum last year were dominated by skills perhaps best honed in the arts and humanities fields. [File, Standard]

Something seemed quite strange when the results came in for the 2022 edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for arts and humanities subjects. Topping the list of the best universities in the world for a group of subjects including history, philosophy, performing arts, language, literature, theology and architecture, were two institutions world-renowned for science, technology and engineering.

Stanford University, the institution at the heart of America’s Silicon Valley whose students have spawned Google, Cisco, Hewlett Packard, Yahoo and Netflix, took first place in the world. It was closely followed by its east coast counterpart, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).