Trends Identified
Future smart cities
In the cities of the future, ICT will play a key role in the challenge of ensuring the wellbeing of large numbers of inhabitants. And cities will become smart. Smart cities will empower citizens by simplifying their daily life and providing them with more resources and opportunities, supporting new life styles, social inclusion and involvement in participatory governance. Policies, however, shall not understate the additional pressure on strategic sectors as logistics and transport and new risks and threats related to the large deployment of ICT (cybersecurity, data protection and privacy). 70% of the world population in 2050 will live in a city.
2015
Preparing the Commission for future opportunities - Foresight network fiches 2030
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Gaining from connectivity without losing trust
Twenty years ago, trust wasn’t as high on the business radar as it is today. In fact, we didn’t survey CEOs about it until 2002, when the business community was reeling from accounting fraud scandals, the bursting of the dotcom bubble and the collapse of the equity markets. With hindsight, it seems hard to believe that only 12% of CEOs thought public trust in companies in their country had greatly declined, and only 29% thought the fallout from corporate misdeeds was a serious threat. Since then, the financial crisis has catapulted trust into the limelight, and the after-effects of stagnant economic growth and spiralling debt levels continue to fuel a climate of mistrust. The impact on CEOs has been significant: in 2013, 37% worried that lack of trust in business would harm their company’s growth. This year, the number has jumped to 58%. The breakdown in public trust now poses a potent risk to political, economic and social systems the world over.
2017
20th Annual global CEO survey
PWC
Game Changers for Inclusive Innovation
The digital revolution has democratised innovation. On the one hand, users are much closer to producers and influence the way a product develops; they try out, evaluate and give feed-back. Also, the digital economy allows new – and smaller – players to enter the market and scale-up. In addition, the digital economy has created new markets, or new economic prospects. Think about bridging the gap between idle resources and potential users or customers. Uber or Airbnb are classic examples.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Gamification
Gaming gets serious Gamification is about taking the essence of games – fun, play and passion – and applying it to real-world, non-game situations. In a business setting, that means designing solutions using gaming principles in everything from back-office tasks and training to sales management and career counseling. Game mechanics lie at the heart of gamification. For example, achievement levels, pointtracking and bonuses are ways for desired activities to be recognised and rewarded. Leaderboards and progression indicators can steer individuals to reach the next tier of performance. Quests and countdowns can help shape behavior – the former as a way to structure long combinations of tasks for a larger goal; the latter to motivate a flurry of activity within a finite, specified timeframe.
2012
Tech Trends 2012-Elevate IT for digital business
Deloitte
Gamification Goes to Work
Moving beyond points, badges, and leaderboards. Leveling, point-tracking, and bonuses can recognize and reward desired activity. Leaderboards and progression indicators can steer individuals to the next tier of personal and business performance. Quests and countdowns can shape behavior. It’s all part of gamification – and it’s having a real impact on businesses worldwide. Gartner predicts that by 2015, 40% of Global 1000 organizations will use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations1. Unfortunately, many early efforts never moved beyond tactically layering on points, badges, and leaderboards to pockets of the business. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2014, 80% of current gamified applications will fail to meet business objectives primarily due to poor design2. Gamification’s potential is much bolder – systematic adoption within and across the business, tightly integrated with the core systems that drive front- and back-office functions.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
Deloitte
Gaming: 'We'll play games to solve problems'
In the last decade, in the US and Europe but particularly in south-east Asia, we have witnessed a flight into virtual worlds, with people playing games such as Second Life. But over the course of the next 25 years, that flight will be successfully reversed, not because we're going to spend less time playing games, but because games and virtual worlds are going to become more closely connected to reality.There will be games where the action is influenced by what happens in reality; and there will be games that use sensors so that we can play them out in the real world – a game in which your avatar is your dog, which wears a game collar that measures how fast it's running and whether or not it's wagging its tail, for example, where you play with your dog to advance the narrative, as opposed to playing with a virtual character. I can imagine more physical activity games, too, and these might be used to harness energy – peripherals like a dance pad that actually captures energy from your dancing on top of it. Then there will be problem-solving games: there are already a lot of games in which scientists try to teach gamers real science – how to build proteins to cure cancer, for example. One surprising trend in gaming is that gamers today prefer, on average, three to one to play co-operative games rather than competitive games. Now, this is really interesting; if you think about the history of games, there really weren't cooperative games until this latest generation of video games. In every game you can think of – card games, chess, sport – everybody plays to win. But now we'll see increasing collaboration, people playing games together to solve problems while they're enjoying themselves. There are also studies on how games work on our minds and our cognitive capabilities, and a lot of science suggests you can use games to treat depression, anxiety and attention-deficit disorder. Making games that are both fun and serve a social purpose isn't easy – a lot of innovation will be required – but gaming will become increasingly integrated into society.
2011
20 predictions for the next 25 years
The Guardian
Gas-hydrates
In Russia there are favourable conditions for the formation and conservation of significant gas-hydrate reserves. It should be noted that this build-up of natural methane hydrates has the greatest possible commercial prospects for industrial development, which is currently limited by the high cost of extraction and high technological risks. The development of industrial technology to extract gas-hydrates would contribute to unprecedented increases in gas reserves, capable of satisfying global demand for several centuries into the future. The extraction of methane from new major gas-hydrate deposits could radically change the configuration of the global gas market and the composition of its major players – both producers and buyers. This is due to the fact that large methane hydrate resources are held by countries which import natural gas (for example, Japan). In Russia, the continental resources of gas-hydrates which are the most promising for industrial development are estimated at approximately 400 trillion m3 and are concentrated in areas along permafrost formations in Eastern Siberia, the Timan-Pechora and Western Siberian oil and gas basins.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
GDPR Forces Brand Hands
As of August 2018, about 1/3 of companies were still not compliant with the Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which aims to provide huge layers of data protection for users. In fact, at this time, about 1,000 U.S. news sites still aren’t available in Europe, generally because they don’t care enough about data security to make the GDPR a priornewity. What does this mean in terms of 2019 digital transformation trends? It means informed customers will start to see which companies truly care about protecting their data, and which companies really don’t. I believe that GDPR is the start of a more global trend that will hold companies accountable for how they treat privacy and personal data. While brands do not necessarily want to have to comply, this movement will serve as a warning to companies to figure out better ways to genuinely build relationships with their audience as opposed to the often clear misuse and abuse of personal data in the name of marketing and selling.
2018
Top 10 Digital Transformation Trends For 2019
Forbes
Gender Equality
The significance of the divide between societies that are progressing towards gender equality and those that are not, will continue to grow. Progress towards equality will be uneven and conditioned by cultural assumptions, demographic trends and economic circumstances.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Gender equality: a pervading driver of change?
As a cross-cutting driver, gender is affecting several income groups and societies, particularly insofar as inequality is concerned. While each could be seen as an outcome of other societal developments (eg economic growth, value changes), there are several developments that could be seen as driving closure of the gender gap, for example, women’s growing involvement in politics, increasing educational attainment and labour market participation. Attitudes towards gender equality itself are likely to affect several policy areas in the future, owing to their relation with a variety of unpredictable factors such as fertility levels, migration flows and individual empowerment. For example, according to the EUISS, gender equality is one of the main drivers behind individual empowerment and the emergence of the global middle class, through the near-universal access to education and the empowering effects of ICT (EUISS, 2012).
2013
Europe's Societal Challenges: An analysis of global societal trends to 2030 and their impact on the EU
RAND Corporation