There are approximately 35 million digital nomads - workers who work online from various places around a country or around the world - and the number is poised to grow rapidly. As tools that enable remote work improve and travel infrastructure grows, the idea of taking a family with children still in school on a digital nomad journey is becoming much more appealing to many parents.
Annika Paradise is one of the co-authors of the book “Wonder Year” - a guide to long-term family travel and worldschooling - in which she chronicles the twelve-month around the world adventure she, her husband, and their three young children took. In this conversation, Annika discusses the challenges faced and benefits gained from her family’s wonder year. She dispels the myth that this is something only the wealthy can do and she goes on to talk about what she learned about herself, what their children learned about her and her husband, and she provides advice for anyone who wants to do something as audacious as packing up their lives and living them on the road for a year or longer. Annika makes the case for why their wonder year was the best learning her children have ever had, the best learning she has ever had, and why taking a wonder year will become a growing trend.
Annika Paradise and her husband, Will, worldschooled their three children across three continents and twelve countries including Nepal, Laos, China, Cambodia, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Italy and Greece. With a cello. Annika is co-author of the book “Wonder Year” and is an adjunct instructor of English at Front Range Community College in Longmont, Colorado.
In this interview, Dr. Block discusses the benefits to companies willing to work in the planet’s most challenged places, the difficulties they will face, the moral responsibility leaders have in creating thriving business environments in these places, and the results she has seen when companies commit and collaborate with local communities. She goes on to talk about how the principles she has honed working in these “frontline regions” can be applied in disadvantaged communities in countries that are otherwise flourishing.
Dr. Emily Block is an Associate Professor of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management and the George Cormie Chair in Management at the Alberta School of Business. Her research program explores how values pluralism impacts the processes of legitimacy and change, the nature of social evaluations and how organizational theory can be used to understand and address grand challenges. Emily’s research has been published in journals such as AMJ, SMJ, JBV, JOM, MISQ and JMS. Her book, “Business to the Edge,” (Basic Books, July 2024) explores how business can both thrive and improve lives in post-conflict environments. She serves on the ASQ editorial board and is a Visiting Professor at Strathmore University in Nairobi, Kenya. She received her BBA in Management from the University of Notre Dame and her PhD in Organizational Behavior from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign.
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