Trends Identified
The Role of Think Tanks
Think tanks play a fundamental role in shaping policy agendas. They mobilise expertise and put forward evidence. They push for innovative change and they build networks and communities through which they nurture and spread ideas and catalyse action. The current environment of fast-paced transformations and increasingly complex and intertwined challenges at local, national and global levels would seem to create a perfect backdrop for think tanks to engage in dynamically, offering creative, pragmatic and actionable policy solutions on tangible issues.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)
These related technologies have been hitting the mainstream in some respects for a number of years. For a well-known example, Pokemon Go is a game that uses the camera of a smartphone to interpose fictional objects in real-world surroundings. Gaming is clearly a driver of these technologies, with other consumer devices becoming affordable and commonplace. VR and AR technologies are also useful for education, engineering, and other fields. However, there has been a Catch-22 in that there is a lack of applications resulting from the high cost of entry, yet the cost has stayed high due to a lack of applications. With advertisements for VR headsets appearing during prime-time television programs, we may have finally reached a tipping point.
2018
IEEE Computer Society Predicts the Future of Tech: Top 10 Technology Trends for 2019
IEEE Computer Society
Chatbots
These artificial intelligence (AI) programs simulate interactive human conversation using key pre-calculated user phrases and auditory or text-based signals. Chatbots have recently started to use self-created sentences in lieu of pre-calculated user phrases, providing better results. Chatbots are frequently used for basic customer service on social networking hubs and are often included in operating systems as intelligent virtual assistants. We have recently witnessed the use of chatbots as personal assistants capable of machine-to-machine communications as well. In fact, chatbots mimic humans so well that some countries are considering requiring chatbots to disclose that they are not human. Industry is looking to expand chatbot applications to interaction with cognitive-impaired children as a way to provide therapeutic support.
2018
IEEE Computer Society Predicts the Future of Tech: Top 10 Technology Trends for 2019
IEEE Computer Society
Social credit algorithms
These algorithms use facial recognition and other advanced biometrics to identify a person and retrieve data about that person from social media and other digital profiles for the purpose of approval or denial of access to consumer products or social services. In our increasingly networked world, the combination of biometrics and blended social data streams can turn a brief observation into a judgment of whether a person is a good or bad risk or worthy of public social sanction. Some countries are reportedly already using social credit algorithms to assess loyalty to the state.
2018
IEEE Computer Society Predicts the Future of Tech: Top 10 Technology Trends for 2019
IEEE Computer Society
Cloud Computing Will Create More Value Higher up the Stack
There’s no denying the momentum of cloud computing. Accenture’s research shows that enterprises are already moving applications into the cloud. 1,2 The demand is anything but an IT fad; it is coming from a host of business functions. And it is truly a global phenomenon; companies everywhere from Brazil to China are moving ahead rapidly with adoption. It’s clear that IT and business executives should expect cloud computing to become ever more pervasive– to the point that the term “cloud computing” itself becomes superfluous. But what’s needed now is a shift in thinking from obvious but nondifferentiating benefits such as cost reduction through cloud infrastructure to where the cloud will have its real impact. When we look at the different facets of cloud computing – Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platformas- a-Service (PaaS), and so on – it is easier to see that most of the current emphasis on cloud is focused on the lower levels of the technology stack. For many large enterprises, the logical next step after virtualizing their data centers has been to leverage IaaS to augment those centers.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
Synthetic realities
There’s a new kind of reality on the block. Generated and mixed realities are blurring the boundaries of “truth” and challenging how we value it. As synthetic realities become more normalized in 2019, organizations should look past the drama and fear associated with them. Instead, they should hone new strategies to capitalize on their creative potential and manage the risk of unwittingly being featured in a synthetic reality created by someone else.
2019
Fjord trends 2019
Fjord
AI For The Back Office
There’s a lot of hype around the potential of AI, but one area that is often overlooked is the power of AI to revolutionize workflows. In 2019, we’ll see the start of AI making a noticeable impact on the back office, from increasing electronic operations to streamlining identification and credentialing. These developments have the ability to transform labor-intense processes across industries.
2018
2019 Tech Forecast: 11 Experts Predict The Next Wave Of Breakout Technologies
Forbes
The U.S. unauthorized immigrant population is at its lowest level in more than a decade.
There were 10.7 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. in 2016, the lowest total since 2004, according to the most recent Pew Research Center estimates. The decrease is due mainly to fewer Mexicans entering the U.S. without authorization. The only birth region with an increase in unauthorized immigrants since 2007 was Central America – mainly El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Only three of the nation’s 20 largest metropolitan areas had larger unauthorized immigrant populationsin 2016 than in 2007. State populations of unauthorized immigrants vary widely. In some states, unauthorized immigrants represented one-third or more of all immigrants in 2016; in others, they accounted for less than one-in-ten. Nationally, unauthorized immigrants are one-quarter of all U.S. immigrants. The Mexican share of unauthorized immigrants also ranges widely, making up more than two-thirds of the total in the four states that border Mexico but far less in East Coast states. Nationally, Mexicans are about half of unauthorized immigrants. As with the total population, births to unauthorized immigrants have declined since 2007. About 250,000 babies were born to unauthorized immigrant parents in 2016, a decline of 36% from 390,000 in 2007, when the nation’s unauthorized immigrant population peaked.
2019
6 demographic trends shaping the U.S. and the world in 2019
Pew Research Center
The triumph of globalism
There is recognition that the socio-economic challenges do not recognize national boundaries and are best addressed cooperatively. Global governance has received new lifeblood with the full support of the traditional world powers and the newly industrialized countries. While states have taken the lead in establishing this new global order, the emergence of an active global citizenry, together with a newly invigorated UN system, has played an important role in the formation of new issue-focused networks that tackle a range of pressing grand challenges around energy, food, environment, health and poverty.
2011
ICSU Foresight Analysis
International Council for Science (ICSU)
IT Security Will Respond Rapidly, Progressively—and in Proportion
There is no such thing as watertight IT security. Yet for years, business and technology leaders have acted as if the only alternative to a “fully secure” state is an unacceptable “fully breached” state. This “fortress mentality” is outdated— and no longer realistic or practical. Leading security specialists are devising reflex-like systems whose responses step up with the severity of the breach. In extreme cases, counterattacks may even become part of an organization’s repertoire of responses. We believe that new security solutions and architectures will, like human reflexes, respond instinctively to the growing speed, scale, and variety of attacks. This implies that for the first line of defense, people will not be part of the decision loops; the speed and frequency of attacks dictate that human responses must make way for automated capabilities that detect, assess, and respond immediately. And the increasing “attack surface” – across more devices, more systems, more people, more business partners, and broader physical infrastructure— supports the case for automated capabilities that detect, assess, and respond to external threats immediately.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture