Driven by advances in technology and automation, work and jobs are changing rapidly, and the pace of change has supercharged in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis (McKinsey, 2021). As more and more repeatable tasks are relegated to machines, millions of existing jobs may be displaced by machines, while millions of new ones, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), may emerge where people together with machines are the engine to innovation leadership (World Economic Forum, 2020). For new STEM jobs to offset the losses, an adaptable workforce with a new and evolving set of skills is crucial now and in the future. Preparing the workforce for the STEM jobs of the future, however, requires massive upskilling, and close collaboration between industry-academia and government service systems to prepare the workforce for new and future STEM jobs.It is in this context that, in 2019, the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP), with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), embarked on (what turned out to be) a two-phase research project to inform higher education leaders in the US about industry perspectives on how STEM undergraduate educational institutions might best meet industry’s expected demands for new and future skills. The first phase of the research culminated in “A Proposed Roadmap to Close the Gap Between Undergraduate Education and STEM Employment Across Industry Sectors” (Moghaddam, Kwan, Freund, Russell, 2021) where a framework for “Specialized” and “Foundational” skills required by industry for future entry-level STEM jobs was laid out. During the course of this initial phase a few ensuing research questions emerged: 1) How has the industry perspective on skills demand changed as a result of the COVID-19 crisis? (The crisis hit the US toward the tail end of the first phase.) 2) How are industry recruiters and hiring managers screening STEM graduates for both “specialized” and “foundational skills?” 3) From an industry perspective, which colleges/universities' curricula/pedagogies better align with industry demand? 4) Can a set of desirable curriculum/pedagogy attributes be developed from the findings? And, 5) How are industry recruiters using badging and certification to assess job readiness for college graduates? In this paper, the authors present mainly the findings from the second phase of their research.

The world of work as a service system 1 -a system in which people and/or machines perform work using information, technology, and other resources to produce products and services for internal or external customers -evolves and then undergoes occasional revolutions.Organizations are at the heart of these changes both in terms of the technologies they design and in the technologies they deploy.The most recent information and communication technology changes to work and organizations radically affect both work and personal life.But not all of the changes are positive, and the relationships are complex.Some call the current wave of transformation "digital transformation."We call it "service transformation enabled by digital technologies."Our advanced technical capabilities are revolutionizing business activities, processes, and business models.When we review some of the most successful digital transformations, we see that "service" -the ability to co-create value -is at the core of the transformation.The overall goal of any transformation, including service transformation, is to increase the productivity and creativity (decision making, connectivity, innovation, and augmentation) of individuals and organizations.Scholarly work on the science of information technologies (e.g., mobile, IoT, cloud computing, big data, analytics, cognitive computing, artificial intelligence, intelligence augmentation, disruptive technologies, social media) supports organizations as they find new ways to increase efficiency and effectiveness of their offerings while avoiding possible societal downsides.In many cases, however, these practitioners' innovations are ahead of academic research contributions.Practitioner research serves to offer more directly applicable results and to focus academic attention where it is needed most.By bringing together practitioner and academic researchers, there are opportunities to create on-ramps to increase the pace of discovery and application overall.

Digitalization offers enormous opportunities not only to optimize operational processes, but also to redefine creative processes, e.g., in the area of innovation. This is becoming increasingly important in light of the fact that innovation is increasingly taking place in ecosystems, which means that an enormous amount of collaboration must be enabled in distributed and interdisciplinary teams. To be successful in this, innovation teams need easy access to the multitude of methods and assistance in selecting the appropriate method for the specific task. To this end, we propose a classification framework that structures methods from innovation management and service design based on higher-level task areas. The framework was developed and evaluated together with several companies. Results were implemented in the form of a playbook that won the red dot design award.

Automation, powered by advances in machine learning and data science, is super-charging innovation and disrupting industries and jobs. Work in America looks very different from a couple of decades ago, and it will look even more different going into the future decades. For new jobs to offset the losses, particularly in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), America will require an adaptable workforce [1] with a new set of skills [2]. To gain an industry perspective on how STEM undergraduate educational institutions might best meet the expected demands for new skills, the International Society of Service Innovation Professionals (ISSIP) was awarded a contract by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The goal of this project was to seek the perspectives of industry leaders using a survey and a workshop focusing on workforce re-skilling and educational trends that industry views as important and necessary for a thriving future workforce. These perspectives were summarized and provided to leaders in higher education. In this paper, the authors present the outcomes of the workshop, the stakeholder feedback, a roadmap for the future of STEM education, and a set of recommendations to the leaders of higher education institutions.

This paper examines emerging digital frontiers for service innovation that a panel discussed at a workshop on this topic held at the 48th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). The speakers and participants agreed that that service systems are fundamental for service innovation and value creation. In this context, service systems are related to cognitive systems, smart service systems, and cyber-physical systems and depend on the interconnectedness among system components. The speakers and participants regarded humans as the central entity in all service systems. In addition, data, they saw personal data in particular as key to service systems. They also identified several challenges in the areas of cognitive systems, smart service systems, cyber-physical systems, and human-centered service systems. We hope this workshop report helps in some small way to cultivate the emerging service science discipline and to nurture fruitful discussions on service innovation.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a rapidly expanding space for researchers, students, and professionals. Development of IoT applications is hindered by the lack of available design tools, methodologies, and interoperability. The creation of a standards-based, open source hardware and software platform paired with full documentation and educational materials greatly aids in the accelerated development of IoT applications and provides a fertile ground for Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) educational opportunities.

Service innovations, enabled by the confluence of big data, mobile solutions, cloud, social, and cognitive computing, and the Internet of Things, have gained a lot of attention among many enterprises in the past few years because they represent promising ways for companies to effectively and rapidly deliver new services. But one of today's most pervasive and bedeviling challenges is how to start this journey and stay on course. In this paper, we review some of the important developments in this area and reports the views voiced by five industry leaders from IBM, Cisco, HP, and ISSIP at a panel session at the 24th Annual Compete through Service Symposium in 2013. Panelists provided an extensive list of recommendations to academicians and professionals. The biggest conclusion is that all of the information and communications technology (ICT)-enabled service innovations need to be human-centered and focused on co-creating value.

This paper describes an “exponentially innovative” educational approach opening a gate to so called Massive on Line Open Service (MOOS) as the next phase of Massive on Line Open Laboratories (MOOL), in which students can study and conduct cost efficient experimentations in the privacy of their homes 24/7/365. The T-shaped educational platform is based on service science and the Internet of Things (IoT). The approach is illustrated by a pilot curriculum developed at the University of New Hampshire and being introduced to different parts of the World. Because of its accessibility, affordability, scalability and commercial merits, the methodology is a viable candidate to address The Grand Challenge in education.