Trends Identified
Renewable energy technologies
Following recent technological breakthroughs, a growing number of current and emerging technologies in the area of renewable energy generation have achieved a sufficient level of technical and economic maturity to render them ready for large-scale deployment.
2018
World Economic And Social Survey 2018: Frontier Technologies For Sustainable Development
United Nations
On-demand
Following a general trend for personalization through technology, food experiences can now be tailored to your specific tastes. Algorithms are used to track when supply of certain products outstrips demand, in order to push adjust pricing3. New apps get to know your tastes, similar to the way Spotify4 delivers music recommendations, and give you rewards for loyalty. Workplace vending machines are getting a significant makeover too — for example, Byte’s vending machines5 offer sushi instead of crisps and chocolate bars.
2017
How we eat now: five disruptive food trends
EY
Atmospheric water condensers
Fog collectors use atmospheric water condensing processes to extract water from the atmosphere – whether in the form of dew, fog or rain – and collect it for human use.
2016
Ten Frontier Technologies for International Development
Institute of Development Studies (IDS)
Fisheries/aquaculture
Fisheries and aquaculture are a vital source of nutritious food, economic opportunities and jobs. Large volumes of fish are traded in international markets and the European Union is by far the world’s biggest importer. Over fishing continues to be a problem worldwide, though in the EU the proportion of fish stocks advised as over fished has fallen from 94% in 2005 to 39% in 2013. In 2013, the EU adopted the objective of the maximum sustainable yield for the management of its fisheries. Global aquaculture has grown at an impressive rate over the past decades and could provide two-thirds of world fish production by 2030. An increase in world human population from 7 billion towards 9 billion by 2050, and the emergence of a middle class will significantly increase demand for fish. Given the limited potential for further growth in world capture fisheries production, future demand will mainly rely on a substantial increase in aquaculture production.
2015
Preparing the Commission for future opportunities - Foresight network fiches 2030
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Space odyssey
First, digital drove us to our screens. Then, physical fought back. Both dramatically changed our expectations of the physical world – first in retail, then in the workplace and soon in public spaces. Now, as digital and physical intertwine, organizations must find ways to seamlessly interconnect digital and physical experiences. This will require a fundamental rethink of the approaches and tools for designing spaces in order to meet users’ expectations of greater flexibility and personalization.
2019
Fjord trends 2019
Fjord
Outside-in Architecture
Finding the sweet spot between ‘need to share’ and ‘need to own’ For decades, businesses have typically been rewarded for consolidation around standard processes and stockpiling assets through people, technology and goods. Operations were assumed to be confined within organisational boundaries, with transactions viewed as short-lived events following well-defined steps. Systems were built primarily to enhance execution within their own self-contained scope of control. Conventional wisdom about these principles is changing, and it’s changing fast. Flexibility in operating and business models today is emerging to be a key differentiator. Markets and business conditions are shifting rapidly, necessitating new capabilities that can adapt to changing players, rules and desired outcomes. Sustaining innovation, both inside the organisation and within broader ecosystems, is emerging as a top priority. Many companies are discovering they need a new kind of leverage – capability leverage – to mobilise third parties that can add value. As a result, the traditional need to own is colliding with the emerging need to share, shifting solution architectures away from a siloed, enterprise-out design pattern. These new architectures are designed to anticipate service and people dependencies from the outside – and to require that data and systems be encapsulated for external consumption. Outside-in, not inside-out, is becoming the standard.
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte
UI/UX and VR/AR are improving productivity and the customer experience
Financial firms, as well as companies in other industries, are allocating significant resources to improve the online presentation of, and interaction with, their products. To this end, they are investing in User Interface (UI) Design technology to improve the look of their site and User Experience (UX) Design technology to improve how the site works. There have been major advancements in UI and UX over the last 10 to 15 years. Several frontend frameworks compete with each other nowadays, although JavaScript is among the most popular ones. Many products that were initially developed for commercial use are now open source, and this has accelerated adoption. React, Vue.Js and AngularJs are examples of this trend. They make applications faster, more attractive and userfriendly, and designers have to write less code. The UI/UX design process has been taken to the middle tier instead of full-stack development where the front end would be connected to the back end, and debugging was a challenge. Designers are using Single Page Applications (SPAs), which load a single HTML page and dynamically update that page as the user interacts with the web app. There is no need for constant page reloads, it is mobile responsive, and multiple teams can work on it simultaneously. With componentization in the JavaScript framework, multiple teams can work on different components of an application at the same time, and a common component can be reused by different applications. The JavaScript frameworks were initially created for the web development, but now they are extended to support building native mobile applications. Many companies have built their entire mobile applications using a JavaScript framework to further reduce the cost and accelerate the development. Further, these component-based frameworks support serverless application development running in the edge. These advancements in UI/UX have improved performance and enabled more consistency, resulting in higher employee productivity and a better customer experience. Yet this comes with some challenges. Transforming legacy products into the new way of doing development involves a multi-disciplinary team and a different mindset. Moreover, the toolsets change constantly, so firms need to be very adaptable and create a flexible, evolutionary architecture – thus the shift toward microservices. The emergence of Web Component standards is making it possible to simplify composing applications from microservices and enabling User Interface as a Service architectural models, which can help further facilitate reuse. Companies are also experimenting with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) solutions to develop marketing applications that bring experiences to life. Inexpensive solutions such as Google Cardboard can be used to create 360-degree videos, which bring a whole company into the emotional IPO Listing experience, for example. Microsoft HoloLens and Unity could enable users to more deeply and efficiently explore datasets. In 3D, users can experience another dimension of complex datasets and explore them in new ways to drive new insight. UI/UX and VR/AR offer huge opportunities for innovation, and it will be an exciting space to watch over the next few years.
2019
NASDAQ DECODES: TECH TRENDS 2019 -The technology trends that are driving the world of markets forward
Nasdaq
Few companies can maintain pricing power these days.
Few companies can maintain pricing power these days. Technology has allowed for easy comparison shopping, increasingly efficient production and shifts in certain business models that can erode pricing power. However, companies that can maintain pricing power through technological barriers, unique products and brand recognition should be able to maintain an advantage.
2018
Eight long-term trends for growth investors
Morgan Stanley
Companies Listen In for Lucre
Fears over tech companies eavesdropping on consumer conversations have been inflamed with the rising adoption of Smart Home devices and AI Personal Assistants. This will be a hot button topic as capabilities and past incidents signal the high likelihood of conversations being illegally tapped. Gear up for intensified media scrutiny along with consumer and regulatory pushback in 2018.
2018
Top 10 Tech Trends For 2018
Forbes
Fragile globalisation in a multipolar world
Fears about weakening enthusiasm for globalisation have, seemingly, been realised in the past few years. However, there are numerous variables that will shape whether the purported anti- trade environment of 2016 lasts to 2035. In the most likely scenario, globalisation patterns will be shaped less by politics and more by structural factors. Global trade is steady as a percentage of global growth, likely due to China’s reorientation towards domestic consumption and the maturing of trade in goods. A more services-oriented economy will have different requirements for global trade governance, but Beijing, Brussels, and Washington will remain the key decision points for global economic affairs.
2017
Global trends to 2035
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)