Keeping It Real—The Value of Human-Centered Skills

• La Toile, a digital qualification program at emlyon business school, combines technical expertise with soft skills such as collaboration and ethics.
• La Toile participants address real-world challenges through experiential learning tied to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
• The program’s primary objective is to prepare leaders to be adaptable, ethical, and socially conscious as they use new technologies in the digital economy.

 
As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes more prevalent, business schools bear a heavy responsibility. It is their obligation to arm leaders with not only the technical skills to use emerging technologies effectively, but also the critical thinking skills, ethical frameworks, and knowledge of sustainability to apply it responsibly.

In fact, a 2023 report from the World Economic Forum stresses that workers will need both technical skills and human skills to ensure their lifelong employability. Similarly, the Digital Talents Survey on generative AI skills points to the ethical dimension of AI as a fundamental aspect of digital literacy.

It’s clear that the responsible use of AI will depend on human reflection and oversight. That presents business faculty with a conundrum: How can we deliver a learning experience that seamlessly and simultaneously develops our students’ technical and human skills? How will we teach them to engage in the human reflection that AI’s responsible use will demand?

To answer these questions, emlyon business school in France has created La Toile, a program that emphasizes a human-centered approach to business in a tech-savvy world.

An ‘Innovation Sandbox’

Created in 2021, La Toile is an intensive 17-week 450-hour digital skills qualification program, which is offered at the school’s three campuses located in Lyon, Paris, and Saint-Étienne. Delivered in French and encompassing 15 courses in total, the program enrolls 25 learners per campus and is offered twice each year. La Toile is specifically tailored to the needs of NEET populations (those “not in education, employment, or training”).

Each La Toile cohort has a sponsoring company for each campus—so far, these companies have included Microsoft, Alteca, Inetum, CGI, and SAP. In total, the school works with 63 partner companies to deliver the program. The partners participate in different ways, from proposing themes for projects and hosting workshops on their premises to holding simulated job interviews and participating as jurors in the school’s hackathon. Some also send representatives to serve on the program’s board to contribute ideas for improving the program.

La Toile does not aim to produce domain-specific experts. Instead, its goal is to help learners become aware of their potential and give them the tools to understand, adapt to, and shape a sustainable future. The program provides participants and faculty alike with a place for pedagogical and technical experimentation. That is, it serves as a kind of “innovation sandbox.”

La Toile dedicates more than a third of its content to the development of soft skills, so that learners learn to overcome the challenges they might face as they continually adapt to ongoing change.

From its inception, La Toile was built around three core educational pillars: technical (digital) skills, human skills, and professional skills. This essential combination allows the school to train learners who meet the needs of the job market and are adaptable to change, while also enabling us to create a virtuous learning cycle between humans and machines.

That said, La Toile dedicates more than a third of its content to the development of soft skills, so that learners learn to overcome the challenges they might face as they continually acquire new technical skills and adapt to ongoing change. In addition, throughout the program, participants work on expanding their communication, empathy, and creativity skills through tools such as emage-me, which enables them to give and receive continuous 360-degree feedback to foster reflective learning and anchor new practices.

As part of this reflective process, students conduct an initial self-assessment of their soft skills at the beginning of the program, followed by feedback from their professors. Participants then review this feedback with course leaders and career coaches who propose exercises to help students engage in further self-development.

By focusing on intrinsically human skills such as teamwork, time management, a global mindset, the ability to influence others, and the desire to act ethically, the program enables future graduates to adapt to a rapidly evolving business environment.

A More Human Use of AI

The beginning of the program features a workshop called La Fresque du Numérique, or “The Digital Collage.” This workshop lays the foundation for understanding the risks and challenges that technology presents. At this stage, participants are asked to explore the value of new technologies, consider the social and economic impact of new digital tools, and even question if they are using technology responsibly themselves.

For instance, for one project, they study website ergonomics as a means to create inclusive and environmentally friendly websites. They evaluate all elements of a website’s design, right down to the impact of certain font choices. These elements are reinforced in their web development project—a centerpiece of the program—in which students are introduced to the ethical and legal responsibilities of web designers and asked to question the rationale behind using specific tools.

Later, participants attend hands-on prompt mastery workshops, where they learn how to ask generative AI (GenAI) well-crafted questions. Through this experimental method, students become aware of the ethical risks and cognitive biases of AI, as well as the potential for misusing GenAI tools or incorrectly configuring data. They learn to question the reliability of AI’s sources and responses. They are thus encouraged to exercise their growing discernment and verify the accuracy of the answers that AI tools generate.

Participants build on what they learn in the prompt mastery workshop in Critical Thinking, which is delivered in collaboration with the Falret Foundation, a mental health advocacy organization. The foundation has partnered with the program not only because of La Toile’s focus on soft skills, but also because of its goal to reach the NEET audience, which includes individuals facing financial difficulties and those managing disabilities and social or mental challenges. Abraham Hamzawi, who directs Falret’s skills investment program, proposed and now teaches the critical thinking course.

In this course, students conduct research and engage in debate about ethical, social, and environmental issues. Next, they learn to use reliable sources to create social media content and deliver concise yet convincing messages via high-quality visuals, primarily using developer tools such as X’s Sandbox platform. In doing so, they explore concepts such as ethics and deontology, as well as gain an appreciation for the importance of thorough research and effective argumentation.

‘Doing to Learn, Learning to Do’

La Toile places a heavy emphasis on experiential learning to promote each student’s sense of discovery. Through emlyon’s active learning pedagogy, students work on real-world projects and have opportunities to make use of the school’s in-house makers’ lab to prototype their ideas or experiment with new technologies. In this way, students forge a constant link between reflection and action—or as we put it, “doing to learn, learning to do.”

Moreover, at emlyon, all projects are tied to one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to make students more aware that they are global citizens whose actions have an impact on society and the environment. This strategy is tied to emlyon’s “SDG Inside” approach, through which the school aims to integrate sustainability competencies across all syllabi and programs.

Participants learn design thinking, which enables them to develop skills that are uniquely human so they can provide value that technology can enhance but not replace.

For the 2024–25 academic year, for example, all projects focused on SDG 11, which focuses on “making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” The school chose SDG 11 to mark emlyon’s move to its new campus in Lyon’s city center.

For the web development project, students conduct research on the chosen theme and identify a specific problem for a given persona. Then, taking a user-centered design approach, they propose planet-friendly solutions to local or global challenges, testing and developing prototypes and promotional web pages. Recent project examples include Gourd’Eau, a solution to provide easy access to drinking water without plastic; Women Drive, a ride-share service dedicated to providing safe transportation to women; and Voy’Ici, an eco-friendly travel service.

Throughout La Toile, we strive to train students in design thinking. This ability enables them to develop skills that are uniquely human so that they can provide value that technology can enhance but not replace.

In the end, we want students to develop their civic spirit and grow more aware of their roles in building a sustainable future. We aim to stimulate their creativity, bolster their ability to innovate, and empower them to propose concrete solutions with real impact on social and environmental challenges.

Education for a Responsible Future

In just three years, 400 students have been trained through La Toile, which students have described as a transformational experience. Of these, 88 percent have gone on to find relevant employment, start businesses, or pursue further study. Eighty-seven percent of La Toile alumni now work in digital professions such as web development, digital marketing, web design, and system administration.

We believe that soft skills should be at the heart of every business school curriculum, so that students are not only trained to use new technologies, but also educated in AI ethics and critical thinking. With well-designed curricula, business schools can enhance students’ creativity, promote divergent thinking, and prepare students to use technology to solve the global challenges we know of today and those yet to come.

As the French visionary Gaston Berger pointed out, “To a world that constantly evolves must correspond an education that is constantly mindful of adapting.” In other words, business schools must design holistic learning experiences that reflect the momentous changes we see in the world.

This is the understanding that has shaped La Toile’s human-centered pedagogy. At a time when AI is changing the world, it’s no longer enough that business schools merely train “technicians.” They must shape citizens who can adapt quickly, think critically, act meaningfully, and understand their full potential to shape the world around them.