Trends Identified
Unemployment
The global unemployment rate during the MDG period fell from 6.5 percent in 2000 to 5.5 percent in 2007 but increased to 6.2 percent in 2009 due to the downturn of economic activity during the 2008 financial crisis. Since then, however, the unemployment rate worldwide has been declining steadily, reaching 5.8 percent in 2016, and is projected to fall further in the coming years
2017
Global trends
UNDP
Unconventional oil deposits
Oil from unconventional deposits includes problematic reserves of hydrocarbon raw materials, in particular traditional (or mobile) oil resources with difficult extraction conditions and immobile (or slow-moving) oil, caused by low porosity of collectors or high molecularity of the hydrocarbons themselves – dense and high-viscosity oils. However, on account of the lower consumer qualities and high costs of extraction, oil supplies from unconventional deposits with unconventional extraction conditions are evaluated only provisionally. The extraction of heavy oils is currently carried out in Canada, Venezuela, the USA and a number of other countries, including Russia, but according to the majority of forecasts, in the next two decades these products will not make a significant contribution to the global oil recovery.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Unconventional oil
The cost-effective development of unconventional oil (heavy oils and bitumen) will make it possible to significantly (by several times) increase the hydrocarbon resource base. At the same time, the extraction of heavy oils is much more polluting from an environmental perspective and is characterized by significant increases in CO2 emissions as compared with traditional oil extraction. The extraction costs will only be paid back under the conditions of high global oil prices. Thus, heavy oils are coming to be a strategic reserve of liquid fuel to provide energy for developed nations in the event of a crisis.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Unchaining land rights
Securing proof of land ownership is an enabling factor for increasing equality. Blockchain technology has the potential to make land registration transparent and tamper-proof. Securing land titles is an important step in empowering people to make investments and improve their financial situation.
2018
Global opportunity report
DNV GL
Uncertain economic growth
26% of responding CEOs answered that they were 'extremely concerned'
2018
Global CEO survey
PWC
Ultra lightweight transport devices
(Definition) A next-gen technology that allows transport devices and vehicles encompassing a large area of public/private infrastructure to save energy which is required for various sectors, while satisfying strict environmental regulations and requirements. (Use) Continuous-fiber composite materials are used for frames and load carrying members of autonomous driving vehicles, hybrid vehicles, EVs, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, and other future transport devices.
2019
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2019
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
UI/UX and VR/AR are improving productivity and the customer experience
Financial firms, as well as companies in other industries, are allocating significant resources to improve the online presentation of, and interaction with, their products. To this end, they are investing in User Interface (UI) Design technology to improve the look of their site and User Experience (UX) Design technology to improve how the site works. There have been major advancements in UI and UX over the last 10 to 15 years. Several frontend frameworks compete with each other nowadays, although JavaScript is among the most popular ones. Many products that were initially developed for commercial use are now open source, and this has accelerated adoption. React, Vue.Js and AngularJs are examples of this trend. They make applications faster, more attractive and userfriendly, and designers have to write less code. The UI/UX design process has been taken to the middle tier instead of full-stack development where the front end would be connected to the back end, and debugging was a challenge. Designers are using Single Page Applications (SPAs), which load a single HTML page and dynamically update that page as the user interacts with the web app. There is no need for constant page reloads, it is mobile responsive, and multiple teams can work on it simultaneously. With componentization in the JavaScript framework, multiple teams can work on different components of an application at the same time, and a common component can be reused by different applications. The JavaScript frameworks were initially created for the web development, but now they are extended to support building native mobile applications. Many companies have built their entire mobile applications using a JavaScript framework to further reduce the cost and accelerate the development. Further, these component-based frameworks support serverless application development running in the edge. These advancements in UI/UX have improved performance and enabled more consistency, resulting in higher employee productivity and a better customer experience. Yet this comes with some challenges. Transforming legacy products into the new way of doing development involves a multi-disciplinary team and a different mindset. Moreover, the toolsets change constantly, so firms need to be very adaptable and create a flexible, evolutionary architecture – thus the shift toward microservices. The emergence of Web Component standards is making it possible to simplify composing applications from microservices and enabling User Interface as a Service architectural models, which can help further facilitate reuse. Companies are also experimenting with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) solutions to develop marketing applications that bring experiences to life. Inexpensive solutions such as Google Cardboard can be used to create 360-degree videos, which bring a whole company into the emotional IPO Listing experience, for example. Microsoft HoloLens and Unity could enable users to more deeply and efficiently explore datasets. In 3D, users can experience another dimension of complex datasets and explore them in new ways to drive new insight. UI/UX and VR/AR offer huge opportunities for innovation, and it will be an exciting space to watch over the next few years.
2019
NASDAQ DECODES: TECH TRENDS 2019 -The technology trends that are driving the world of markets forward
Nasdaq
Ubiquitous radio-frequency identification tagging of products and people
2006
Global Technology Revolution 2020
RAND Corporation
Ubiquitous infrastructure
In general, infrastructure is no longer the key to strategic business goals. The appearance and growing popularity of cloud computing and the always-on, always-available, limitless infrastructure environment have changed the infrastructure landscape. These technologies will enable a new future of business. For example, quantum computing, with its complicated systems of qubits and algorithms, can operate exponentially faster than conventional computers. In the future, this technology will have a huge impact on optimization, machine learning, encryption, analytics and image analysis. Though general-purpose quantum computers will probably never be realized, the technology holds great potential in narrow, defined areas. A second new technology in this trend is neuromorphic hardware. These are semiconductor devices inspired by neurobiological architecture, which can deliver extreme performance for things like deep neural networks, using less power and offering faster performance than conventional options.
2018
5 Trends Emerge in the Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2018
Gartner
Uber and Lyft will lead a wave of IPOs.
Ride-hailing companies Lyft and Uber just filed papers on the same day to go public in early 2019. This could be a banner year for tech IPOs, with total proceeds forecast north of $100 billion. “According to the Chinese calendar, 2019 rings in the Year of the Pig...and boy is that apt for the IPO market!” says CBS News’s Jill Schlesinger. “Uber, Lyft, Palantir, Slack, Airbnb all could take the plunge in 2019. With the tech sector taking a bit of a hit recently, the C-suite execs and their bankers are trying to carefully weigh the old Wall Street mantra: ‘Bulls and bears make money; pigs get slaughtered!’” Despite a shaky market, they may still pull the trigger this year to avoid running into a downturn and an election cycle in 2020.
2018
50 Big Ideas for 2019: What to watch in the year ahead
LinkedIn