Trends Identified
Non-state actor influence in domestic and international affairs.
Non-state actors are expected to exert greater influence over national governments and international institutions and their role is likely to expand.
2017
Strategic foresight analysis
NATO
Non-radioactive Non-destructive Testing Technology
Non-destructive testing technology using non-radioactive substances or devices which can replace the radioisotopes in current industrial use
2017
10 emerging technologies in 2017
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
No-collar workforce- humans and machines in one loop- collaborating in roles an new talent models
As automation, cognitive technologies, and artificial intelligence gain traction, companies may need to reinvent worker roles, assigning some to humans, others to machines, and still others to a hybrid model in which technology augments human performance. Managing both humans and machines will present new challenges to the human resources organization, including how to simultaneously retrain augmented workers and to pioneer new HR processes for managing virtual workers, cognitive agents, bots, and the other AI-driven capabilities comprising the “no-collar” workforce. By redesigning legacy practices, systems, and talent models around the tenets of autonomics, HR groups can begin transforming themselves into nimble, fast-moving, dynamic organizations better positioned to support the talent—both mechanized and human—of tomorrow.
2017
Tech trends 2018
Deloitte
No Such Thing as Hacker-proof
You’ve been breached, or you soon will be. Now what? Who can forget that great line from the movie Field of Dreams? “If you build it, they will come.” It’s an inspiring incentive of future rewards to be reaped for challenging work today. But in the realm of cyber-threat defense, it is also an unfortunate likelihood. If you build something of value, others will likely come to steal it. No matter how you secure your environment. No matter how many redundant walls or how many futile moats you have.
2013
Tech Trends 2013 Elements of postdigital
Deloitte
No Rights Left
Amid a new phase of strong-state politics and deepening domestic polarization, it becomes easier for governments to sacrifice individual protections to collective stability. This already happens widely: lip service is paid to human rights that are breached at home or abroad when it suits states’ interests. What if even lip service goes by the wayside, and human rights are dismissed as anachronisms that weaken the state at a time of growing threats? In authoritarian countries with weak human rights records, the impact of such a tipping point might be one of degree—more rights breached. In some democratic countries, qualitative change would be more likely—a jolt towards an illiberalism in which power-holders determine whose rights get protected, and in which individuals on the losing side of elections risk censorship, detention or violence as “enemies of the people”. Battles are already under way among major powers at the UN over the future of the human rights system. In a multipolar world of divergent fundamental values, building far-reaching consensus in this area may be close to impossible. “Universal” rights are likely to be interpreted locally, and those interpretations then fought over globally. Even superficial changes might be of modest help, such as new language that is less politicized than “human rights”.
2019
The Global Risks Report 2019 14th Edition
World Economic Forum (WEF)
No End in Sight of Middle East Instability
Iraq and Syria are unlikely to be put back together. difficult reform efforts in Saudi Arabia and Gulf states are potentially destabilizing in the short term. Radical Islam and terrorism are not decreasing. A nuclear Iran remains an open question as Sunni-Shia tensions continue to escalate.
2016
Global risks 2035- the search for a new normal
Atlantic Council
No Clear Path to Post-Western Order
A United States-led global system was premised on a politically and economically dominant West. Financial regionalization will eat away at the central role of the Anglo-Saxon financial model. The challenge will be to establish a new world order that maintains a modicum of cooperation despite values gaps.
2016
Global risks 2035- the search for a new normal
Atlantic Council
Next-generation telecommunications services based on space systems
The development of next-generation telecommunications services based on space systems holds special importance for our country in view of its colossal territory. In this field the development of new space vehicles and infrastructure is directed at providing consumers with accessible and quality communications services by increasing the speeds of data transfer, providing higher positioning accuracy and more opportunities for the use of positioning in difficult-to-access terrain. In the future, satellite communications systems and television signal broadcasting will be in demand throughout Russian territory. The development of this field will provide an increase in data transfer volumes and multimedia content, including between satellites, by shifting to transmission frequencies up to 100 GHz.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Next-generation robotics
The popular imagination has long foreseen a world where robots take over all manner of everyday tasks.This robotic future has stubbornly refused to materialize, however, with robots still limited to factory assembly lines and other controlled tasks. Although heavily used (in the automotive industry, for instance) these robots are large and dangerous to human co-workers; they have to be separated by safety cages. Advances in robotics technology are making human-machine collaboration an everyday reality. Better and cheaper sensors make a robot more able to understand and respond to its environment. Robot bodies are becoming more adaptive and flexible, with designers taking inspiration from the extraordinary flexibility and dexterity of complex biological structures, such as the human hand. And robots are becoming more connected, benefiting from the cloud-computing revolution by being able to access instructions and information remotely, rather than having to be programmed as a fully autonomous unit. The new age of robotics takes these machines away from the big manufacturing assembly lines, and into a wide variety of tasks. Using GPS technology, just like smartphones, robots are beginning to be used in precision agriculture for weed control and harvesting. In Japan, robots are being trialled in nursing roles: they help patients out of bed and support stroke victims in regaining control of their limbs. Smaller and more dextrous robots, such as Dexter Bot, Baxter and LBR iiwa, are designed to be easily programmable and to handle manufacturing tasks that are laborious or uncomfortable for human workers. Indeed, robots are ideal for tasks that are too repetitive or dangerous for humans to undertake, and can work 24 hours a day at a lower cost than human workers. In reality, new-generation robotic machines are likely to collaborate with humans rather than replace them. Even considering advances in design and artificial intelligence, human involvement and oversight will remain essential. There remains the risk that robots may displace human workers from jobs, although previous generations of automation have tended to lead to higher productivity and growth with benefits throughout the economy. Decades-old fears of networked robots running out of control may become more salient with next generation robotics linked into the web – but more likely familiarisation as people employ domestic robots to do household chores will reduce fears rather than fan them. And new research into social robots – that know how to collaborate and build working alliances with humans – means that a future where robots and humans work together, each to do what it does best – is a strong likelihood. Nevertheless, however, the next generation of robotics poses novel questions for fields from philosophy to anthropology about the human relationship to machines.
2015
Top 10 emerging technologies of 2015
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Next-generation purification systems
New generation purification systems are based on nanotechnologies in water purification membranes. The availability of technology will lead in the long-term to solving the problem of drinking water shortages in a number of world regions and improving the effectiveness of closed loop water processes in industry with prospects for optimising the sizes and increasing the mobility of existing treatment complexes.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation