Trends Identified
Information Automation
From automating “what I need to do” to automating “what I need to know” Information technology has grown up in a processdominated era where automation has focused on the question “What do I need to do?” and the “I” of IT has been something of an afterthought. We believe we have now decisively entered a new era, where automation can help answer a bigger question: “What do I need to know?” In this era, the ability to expose, associate, analyze, and present volumes of structured and unstructured content is one of the untapped sources of competitive advantage.
2010
Depth perception A dozen technology trends shaping business and IT in 2010
Deloitte
Information Management Finally Goes Enterprise
Leaders expect confident answers to fundamental business questions. Step one is the right foundation. Information is the heart of the business of IT. It’s right there in the name. But the CIO doesn’t own the information – the business does. IT is the caretaker – responsible for enablement, compliance, governance, protection, and optimization.
2010
Depth perception A dozen technology trends shaping business and IT in 2010
Deloitte
Infrastructural Deficit
In terms of access to infrastructure services, Africa lags well behind other developing regions. Weak physical infrastructure is a key factor that has prevented African countries from successful integration into the global trading system. Poor infrastructure is behind the higher trade cost that Africa, especially its landlocked countries, face compared with other regions. Poor infrastructure accounts for 40 per cent of transport costs for coastal countries and 60 per cent for landlocked countries. Africa seems to have failed to sustain the gains that were made during the three decades up to 2000. In this respect a number of countries are failing to expand services fast enough to keep up with rapid demographic growth and urbanisation. If the present trends prevail, Africa is likely to fall even further behind other developing regions, delaying universal access for a half century or more in many countries.
2011
Africa in 50 Years’ Time
African Development Bank
Infrastructure in transition
Infrastructure comes in many forms: transportation, buildings, services and communications technology, among others. There is a high probability that infrastructure of every kind will be influenced by the technologies explored in this foresight study.
2013
Metascan 3 emerging technologies
Canada, Policy Horizons Canada
Innovating communities
Is there a big future in small cities? The majority of humanity will live in cities by 2050. But, in what kind of cities? The conventional urbanization narrative holds that big cities will only get bigger and economic benefits will continue to accrue disproportionately to hotbed regions, such as the San Francisco Bay Area or Shenzhen in China. However, as we highlight in our “Remapping urbanization” megatrend, the future of cities is not more of the same. A counter-narrative to this urbanization story is arising as global megacities and hotbeds begin to experience the limits to growth, and the forces of disruption continue to drive change that creates new opportunities for legacy cities and smaller cities. The result will be a more distributed, inclusive and resilient global cityscape.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Innovation
Innovation will create new opportunities and generate value, by successfully exploiting new and improved technologies, techniques and services, overcoming cultural and process barriers. It will occur when invention reduces costs to a point where an explosive growth cycle is realised or where a new market is created.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Innovation in the cloud is prolific
Innovation in cloud product offerings has been prolific as cloud providers compete to gain market share. Two significant advances over the past year are the integration of time series databases and the introduction of parallel streaming in milliseconds, giving companies a comprehensive view of activity like never before. Specifically, Apache Spark is a fast, in-memory data processing engine with development APIs to allow data workers to efficiently execute streaming, machine learning or SQL workloads that require fast, iterative access to datasets. Apache Kafka is a community distributed streaming platform capable of handling trillions of events per day. Both technologies are available in the cloud, and will be foundational for next generation surveillance, risk management and generally keeping up with the high-speed information on trading and clearing systems. It is notable that the cloud providers are embracing and supporting open source alternatives in addition to the enterprise software and proprietary solutions that are available currently. Importantly, customers are benefitting in terms of better availability and cost effectiveness of product. Some cloud providers have conceived of products that extend their offering to the customer’s premises. Other offerings allow large customers with many accounts the ability to give their employees autonomy while still maintaining control. Regulatory compliance is a key consideration for companies, and concerns about data residency are driving some global players toward a true multi-cloud offering. One implication of GDPR, for example, is that companies may not be willing to cross borders with their products and data if a cloud provider has not built out in Europe and in the company’s region. In many firms, the multi-cloud strategy is still taking shape, and the fear of traditional vendor lock-in is ever present. That said, open source foundational technologies as well as emerging ones such as Apache Kafka may be adopted across all major cloud providers. For now, firms appear to be adopting the leading cloud provider in their region plus a second one, but the right cloud strategy is a matter of perspective. For technology providers, having a multi-cloud strategy is important for product distribution and customer reach. Many financial firms, however, are still operating in a hybrid cloud mode, focusing on connecting to one cloud provider as well as their own data centers. Nasdaq will continue to monitor progress in this area.
2019
NASDAQ DECODES: TECH TRENDS 2019 -The technology trends that are driving the world of markets forward
Nasdaq
Innovation through hyper-connectivity
A megatrend derived from following underlying trends: Digital Network Society, Hyper-connectivity Technology, Network-driven Transition of Power, Acceleration of E-democracy
2016
The 5th Science and Technology Foresight (2016-2040) Discovering Future Technologies to Solve Major Issues of Future Society
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Innovative food
Innovative smart food products and processes will be developed that will better respond to consumer preferences, health issues and environmental concerns. Policy bodies, industry and the public should be prepared to foster this transition that will open new job opportunities and bring benefit to society. Innovative food products are already on the market and more will come. Is the regulation ready to face this challenge?
2015
Preparing the Commission for future opportunities - Foresight network fiches 2030
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Insects
Inexpensive, nutritious and plentiful — insects fulfil many criteria that meat cannot. Food manufacturer Exo recently launched a set of bars made from cricket flour: cricket flour contains 60% protein, more calcium than milk and all essential amino acids, but is gluten- and dairy-free. It takes 100 gallons of water to produce 72g of crickets as opposed to only 6g of beef. Grasshoppers too are on the menu, along with fruit fly larvae. Over one-third of the world’s population already eats insects, such as caterpillars and termites — but questions remain as to how they can be presented to appeal to a more widespread consumer base.
2017
How we eat now: five disruptive food trends
EY