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2025 brings in its wake a series of opportunities despite multiple challenges analysed last year. The first step is to envision a rich future for hospitality education. The next step, garner and redeploy resources, largely intellectual, to make it a distinct reality. Since change begins in the mind, a practical re-imagination of how hospitality talents and prospects could learn this year on is on the anvil. The top five trends that are on my mind: unbounded learning, multidisciplinary empowerment, hybrid models, innovative applications and leveraging AI. Learners will adopt open content sources to gain knowledge access as employment markets demand talented multi-valent associates to meet the exacting demands of a changing workforce. While business imperatives demand innovative approaches, they will need to be backed up by empowered teams. And to that end, dogmatic constraints will give way to potential possibilities to challenge the hospitality education status-quo.Envision high-school students being able to access best practices shared on smart phones to increase levels of aspiration to engage with industry. Building stickiness with industry norms whether culinary concepts, gourmet dining, grooming standards, tech-enabled business practice or even simply inspiring interiors, this digital moment of truth is where decisions will be made. For those who choose the profession or pathway of studies, an open environment dip-stick will interest them if vocational experience opens in real worlds. Laboratory practical will be dovetailed with day-to-day exposure in the geography%u2019s accessible business provisions. And theory will be learned in a self-paced mode, with the option to drop and seek alternate credits. Building future professionals will be, not by coercion, edict or fear, but by motivation and open choices, early-on in their qualification journey to initiate incubation. Leveraging education policy to practice NEP and NCrF formats will be leader responsibility.1. Unbounded Learning: To address ubiquitous unstructured access to content, academic leaders will focus on creative assessment strategies to build credit accrual processes. Reviewing social media content currency, stitching in industry practice and finally assessing learning outcomes suited to industry requirements will get overhauled in the entire value chain. Early co-creation with industry will ensure positive results in the qualification journey.2. Multi-disciplinary Empowerment: The synergy between vocational skilling and business management will actively metamorphose. The weightage of each one in the light of learner aspiration and industry requirements will get sharpened. This means that healthcare professionals will benefit from nutritional/culinary knowledge while technology professionals will leverage domain knowledge to enhance app-experiences like food delivery. Domain learning including varied multidisciplinary add-ons, will empower future hospitality leaders.3. Hybrid Models: Practices such as technological and social digitization of knowledge alongside immersive real-world immersion outside controlled environments, will enhance the notion of choice. Imagine a virtual tour through VR/AR to experience a restaurant kitchen or contemporary dining experience to decide if this is what you want the rest of your life to be! Or imagine a 360-degree walk-through inside multiple brand interior experiences or current service provisions, to fathom if you can find meaning in live situations that are on your visor!4. Innovative Applications: Circles of innovation will ultimately lead to the end of dead practices. This is the only way innovation can enter the hospitality learning environment not just incrementally but in a transformational way. APLs and re-certifications will bring in talented yet unqualified workforce elements to enhance future teams. Intrapreneurial risk taking and early start-up incubations supported in institutions will change the way the industry shapes. Focus will shift to co-creating guest experiences rather than competing with such preferences.5. Leveraging AI: The growth of this parallel intelligence in all aspects of human life will gain acceptance in hospitality business and education. The key question to answer will remain the degree to which it is incorporated into curriculum, in-company certifications as well as hands-on application. Will the industry let-go of a highpotential solution to resolve everything from recipe standardization to guest preferences? It is an initiative that will gain active interest. And high profile starred establishments will depend on AI for the much-needed consistency!While people, culture and talent will remain the single largest variable to deliver business results, the adoption of technology for the purpose of optimization, enhancement and empowerment will define future results. Above all, the integration of people, technology and sustainability will drive business policy as markets evolve and customer preferences change. The real secret to ride into the 2025 journey will be the opening of minds to possibilities that have not been a part of everyday living until now. The pressures to deliver must be matched by the pragmatism to innovate and change, to ensure that the next year does not become a review of constraints but that of achievements. The first barrier to overcome will be that which restricts the fertile human mind in achieving its unbounded potential. And hospitality education will lead the way, co-creating with industry and a high potential business environment. 2025 represents the choice, the challenge will remain our agility to adopt to this change. nThe views expressed within this column are the opinion of the author, and may not necessarily be endorsed by the publication.Top Trends 2025| Enriching Hospitality EducationBy Prof. Satish Jayaram, PhD %u2013 Ideator | Innovator | IncubatorHOSPITALITY BIZ n JANUARY, 2025WWW.HOSPITALITYBIZINDIA.COMEXPERT SPEAK 5