A strategy to face the impact of Covid-19 and technology disruption on higher education in the 2020-2025 lustrum

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented global public health and socio-economic crisis. Universities have been forced to rapidly adapt their teaching delivery to match the new reality of maintaining social distancing and offering online and/or blended learning. A successful response demands Higher Education professionals to demonstrate resilience, adaptability, and creativity in addition to the technical skills required across the sector. Higher education is a key first step in developing a successful career; key to rebuilding the world economy after Covid-19. Student engagement and motivation in online learning is a challenge that needs to be tackled through continuous monitoring and assessment. In this paper, a series of thoughts and strategies are discussed to help the delivery of courses in Civil Engineering and for any technical career in higher education. We arrived at the conclusion that the Covid-19 pandemic is not the main problem for education but the technological disruption that push us to redesign the education system producing professionals with resilience, flexibility and skills for learning.