BRIGHTON Chamber will be hosting the Big Debate on Wednesday, May 2.

This event is free, open to everyone and a great opportunity to hear from influencers on interesting and controversial topics.

The topic is Future of work: Are we doing enough about future skills?

The panel includes Nick Juba, chief executive at Greater Brighton Metropolitan College; Jacqueline O’Reilly, professor of comparative human resource management at the University of Sussex; Matt Parkinson, MD at Gene Commerce; Catherine Parkinson, director of Goldfinch and Associates; Steve Wells, operations director of Fast Future Publishing, and Noel Agyei, chief operating officer and co-founder at ContentCal.

The chairman will be Richard Freeman, who runs a business, education and creativity support company called Always Possible.

He is also a trustee of the national work experience charity Fair Train and has worked in education and skills development since he was 16.

Mr Freeman said: “For the past nine years I have been heavily involved in developing apprenticeships, study programmes and routes into higher education for disadvantaged young people – as well as helping businesses, networks and entrepreneurs prepare for a new sort of workforce.

“I think our very idea of work is changing.

“Automation and technology will lead to a bigger knowledge and ideas-based economy which will change the physical spaces in which we build teams.

“My children will make their work rather than wait for it to find them and we will expect more from a work/life blend (forget balance).

“My worry is that big parts of our economy, education system, ambition and cultural leadership are out of sync.

“We have an already unsustainable inequality compounded by access to genuinely useful information and guidance being very much in the hands of the few.

“I’m an optimist, but we’ve got a way to go before the future workplace has a role for everyone.

“And if we don’t have a role for everyone, we fall.”

Mr Freeman believes that in 20 years time key skills will be breaking things and putting them back together, stewardship and network building and creating shared languages.

The event is taking place at Brighton Metropolitan College.

Tickets can be booked at eventbrite.