Trends Identified
Transparently immersive experiences
Technology, such as that seen in smart workspaces, is increasingly human-centric, blurring the lines between people, businesses and things, and extending and enabling a smarter living, work and life experience. In a smart workspace, electronic whiteboards can better capture meeting notes, sensors will help deliver personalized information depending on employee location, and office supplies can interact directly with IT platforms. On the home front, connected homes will interlink devices, sensors, tools and platforms that learn from how humans use their house. Increasingly intelligent systems allow for contextualized and personalized experiences.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Transport: 'There will be more automated cars'
It's not difficult to predict how our transport infrastructure will look in 25 years' time – it can take decades to construct a high-speed rail line or a motorway, so we know now what's in store. But there will be radical changes in how we think about transport. The technology of information and communication networks is changing rapidly and internet and mobile developments are helping make our journeys more seamless. Queues at St Pancras station or Heathrow airport when the infrastructure can't cope for whatever reason should become a thing of the past, but these challenges, while they might appear trivial, are significant because it's not easy to organise large-scale information systems. The instinct to travel is innate within us, but we will have to do it in a more carbonefficient way. It's hard to be precise, but I think we'll be cycling and walking more; in crowded urban areas we may see travelators – which we see in airports already – and more scooters. There will be more automated cars, like the ones Google has recently been testing. These driverless cars will be safer, but when accidents do happen, they may be on the scale of airline disasters. Personal jetpacks will, I think, remain a niche choice.
2011
20 predictions for the next 25 years
The Guardian
Transportation could be very different in the future than it is today.
Transportation could be very different in the future than it is today. Autonomous vehicles, electric cars, high-speed trains, drones and even space travel have the potential to revolutionize the movement of people and products. Understanding these shifts is critical to choosing investments tied to the transportation sector.
2018
Eight long-term trends for growth investors
Morgan Stanley
Trends in ageing
As fertility declines and life expectancy rises, the proportion of the population aged 60 or over increases. In 2015, there were 901 million people aged 60 or over, comprising 12 percent of the global population. While the Asia-Pacific region has the world’s largest number of people aged 60 or over (7 percent, or 508 million), Europe has the largest percentage of its population of this age (24 percent, or 177 million). In the coming years, rapid ageing will occur in many parts of the world, with older persons expected to account for more than 25 percent of the population in Europe and Northern America, 20 percent in Oceania and 17 percent in Asia and in Latin America and the Caribbean, as opposed to only 6 percent in Africa by 2030.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Trends in income inequality
Evidence shows that income inequality globally has been falling over recent decades. This decline in global inequality has been attributed to a convergence of income between countries that was mainly spurred by the rapid growth and rising incomes in populous developing countries such as China and India, as well as good economic performance in Latin America and Africa in the past 15 years.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Trends in income poverty
Income poverty has fallen sharply in some regions of the world in the past 20 years, although considerable challenges remain, with recent economic shocks and escalating conflicts leading to a resurgence of poverty across different regions and countries.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Trends in migration
The world is living in an era of unprecedented human mobility, in which international migration has reached record levels. The 2030 Agenda sees international migration as a multidimensional reality that is of major relevance for the development of countries of origin, transit and destination, and recognizes the positive contribution of migrants for inclusive growth and sustainable development. While today it has become easier, faster and more affordable for people to move, factors such as poverty, inequality, lack of decent jobs, conflicts and natural hazards compel people to leave their homes in search of better lives for themselves and their families.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Trends in population growth
Compared with the recent past, the world population growth rate has slowed down. While 10 years ago the global population was growing by 1.24 percent per year, today it is growing by 1.18 percent per year, or approximately an additional 83 million people annually (Ibid.). With this population growth rate, the world population is projected to increase by more than 1 billion people within the next 15 years, reaching 8.5 billion in 2030.
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Trends in urbanization
Along with international migration, internal migration is also growing, driving much of the rise of megacities17 and the rapid increase in urbanization (Figure 12). The number of megacities, for instance, nearly tripled to 28 today from 10 in 1990; they have 453 million inhabitants, accounting for 12 percent of the world’s urban dwellers (IOM 2015). While large cities are in certain ways the leading edge of urbanization due to their economic importance, the fastest growing urban centres are in fact small and medium cities with fewer than 1 million inhabitants, which account for 59 percent of the world’s urban population (UN-Habitat 2016). Due to demographic shifts, slow and uneven economic growth within and among nations, and environmental degradation, increased large-scale migration to urban centres is expected to continue (IOM 2015).
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Trump administration
25% of the respondents view this as a negative trend
2017
Adoption of intelligent automation does not equal success. 4Q 2017 KPMG Global Insights Pulse Survey Report.
KPMG