Trends Identified
Industry redefined
Is every industry now your industry? Industry — the concept and the reality — is being rede ned and reinvented. In the pre-internet era, the competencies, assets and knowledge necessary to participate in any given industry sector were unique and varied significantly from industry to industry. Hard and fast industry boundaries (and high barriers to entry) arose as a result. With digital innovation and other forces acting as solvents, industry boundaries are melting and disappearing.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Inequalities in labour market outcomes persist
Underlying these aggregate labour market and social trends are disparities across a number of demographic groups. Gender disparities are of particular concern. On average, women are less likely to participate in the labour market, facing a global gender gap in participation of over 26 percentage points, and are less likely to find a job when they do participate. These gaps are particularly wide in Northern Africa and the Arab States, where women are twice as likely to be unemployed as men. Once in employment, women face segregation in terms of the sector, occupation and type of employment relationship, resulting in restricted access to quality employment. For instance, 82 per cent of women in developing countries are in vulnerable forms of employment in 2017, compared to 72 per cent of men.
2018
World Employment and Social Outlook
International Labour Organization (ILO)
Inequality
Economic growth in at least 40 countries has helped to lift many hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It is important not to allow rising GDP per capita in middle-income countries mask remaining underlying challenges – including rising inequality, weak social protection, poor infrastructures (particularly in urban areas), environmental degradation, and rising citizen expectations. Already, according to an Oxfam report, 85 billionaires have the same wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population. In 2012, 71% of the world’s population was reported to live in nations where income inequality is increasing. As well as stifling economic growth, inequality has a significant negative impact upon health and educational outcomes as well as security.
2015
Tomorrow’s world: seven development megatrends challenging NGOs
The Guardian
Inequality
Rising inequality could threaten growth. Demographic shifts combined with the next phase of automation will increase income inequality from already high levels. Middle- and low-income families are likely to be hit hardest, putting downward pressure on consumer spending and growth.
2018
Labor 2030: The Collision of Demographics, Automation and Inequality
Bain and Company
Inequality Ingested
Bioengineering and cognition-enhancing drugs widen the gulf between haves and have-nots
2018
The Global Risks Report 2018
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Inequity rises, while the global economy flattens
Despite the heady pace of technological development, income inequality has been on the rise over the last few decades in Australia as well as in other OECD countries22. A recent OECD113 report on the economic impact of aging, skill- biased technological change, globalisation, and rising environmental pressures suggests that global economic growth could slow from 3.6% in 2010-2020 to 2.4% in 2050-2060. The same report asserted that technological progress will heighten demand for high skilled labour, which over the next few decades, could push average income inequality across the OECD to levels experienced by the US today113.
2017
Surfing the digital tsunami
Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
Inevitable architecture - Complexity gives way to simplicity and flexibility
Organizations are overhauling their IT landscapes combining open source, open standards, virtualization, and containerization. Moreover, they are leveraging automation aggressively, taking steps to couple existing and new platforms more loosely, and often embracing a “cloud first” mind-set. These steps, taken individually or as part of larger transformation initiatives, are part of an emerging trend that some see as inevitable: the standardization of a flexible architecture model that drives efficiency, reduces hardware and labor costs, and foundationally supports speed, flexibility, and rapid outcomes.
2017
Tech trends 2017 - the kinetic enterprise
Deloitte
Infectious Disease Pathogen Detection Robot System
As it is expected that the outbreak risk and frequency of new infectious diseases will increase, quick diagnosis and response strategy is critical. Therefore, revolutionary technology that can reduce the side effects of current contact method is necessary. As a result, the importance of unmanned diagnostic technology will increase, which involves a series of processing (from clinical specimen processing to pathogenic organism detection) using a non-contact method.
2011
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2011
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Informatics for adding value to information
The quantity of information now available to individuals and organizations is unprecedented in human history, and the rate of information generation continues to grow exponentially. Yet, the sheer volume of information is in danger of creating more noise than value, and as a result limiting its effective use. Innovations in how information is organized, mined and processed hold the key to filtering out the noise and using the growing wealth of global information to address emerging challenges.
2012
The top 10 emerging technologies for 2012
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Information and Communications Technology
By 2040 it is likely that the majority of the global population will find it difficult to ‘turn the outside world off’. ICT is likely to be so pervasive that people could be permanently connected to local or global networks, with inherent challenges to civil liberties. Even amongst those who make an explicit life-style choice to remain detached, choosing to be disconnected may be considered suspicious behaviour. There are a number of socio-economic trends that will lead to pervasive ICT including: a widening global economy, greater cultural assimilation and awareness of technology, and a steady reduction in the unit cost of ICT associated goods. The pervasiveness of ICT will be enhanced by the advent of more common functionality, supported by global service provision and developments in infrastructure, such as cloud computing.235 The related trend of convergence will be driven by manufacturers trying to find a competitive advantage over their rivals by merging more functions into a limited range of smaller devices. ICT investment will also be driven by new business models that help sustain the insertion of new technologies. Significant changes are likely to be observed in applications, mobile devices, and tailored information and interaction modes rather than in infrastructure. Constrained investment in infrastructure will be perceived as a factor that stifles innovation in the developed world, but arguably less so in the developing world, which has the potential to ‘leap-frog’ a generation of fixed infrastructure technologies. In addition, there will be far-reaching improvements in processing power and data storage236 resulting from innovations such as spintronics237 in silicon. Improved architectures enabled by advances in grid computing, photonics and possibly quantum computing (which may increase processing capabilities by 100 billion times), are also likely to lead to more intensive, diverse and perverse applications. Wearable and implanted wireless ICT is likely to become available to all that can afford it.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence