Trends Identified
New cures from the bacteria that live in the human body
In life sciences, we’ll have greater understanding of the dynamics of how our microbiome – the tiny organisms, including bacteria, that live in the human body – influences multiple systems in our body, including our immune systems, metabolic processes and other areas. This will result in seminal discoveries related to a variety of conditions, including autoimmune diseases, pre-term birth and how our metabolism is regulated. Regenerative medicine approaches to creating new tissues and organs from progenitor cells will expand significantly. Finally, the long-awaited ability to employ precision medicine, providing specific treatments to a specific patients, will become much more common. The emergence of real-time diagnostics for complex diseases will mark the beginning of the end of their debilitating reign by 2020. The ability to monitor cancer, the dynamic immune system, intestinal flora and pre-diabetes in real-time will change the nature of medicine and usher in a new era of human health where wellness is protected versus illness treated. As a result, fundamental shifts in healthcare will occur, causing it to become largely preventative rather than fire-fighting. It’s far more productive and economical to stop a fire from happening in the first place than to rebuild something after the fire has taken its course. The amount of data available in the world is growing exponentially, and analyzing large data sets (so-called big data) is becoming key for market analysis and competition. Analytics will dramatically shift away from reporting and towards predictive and prescriptive practices, dramatically improving the ability of healthcare providers to help the ill and injured. Even more importantly, it will create the possibility for truly personalized healthcare by allowing providers to impact the biggest determinants of health, including behaviours, genetics and environmental factors.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
The beginning of the end for cancer
The emergence of real-time diagnostics for complex diseases will mark the beginning of the end of their debilitating reign by 2020. The ability to monitor cancer, the dynamic immune system, intestinal flora and pre-diabetes in real-time will change the nature of medicine and usher in a new era of human health where wellness is protected versus illness treated. As a result, fundamental shifts in healthcare will occur, causing it to become largely preventative rather than fire-fighting. It’s far more productive and economical to stop a fire from happening in the first place than to rebuild something after the fire has taken its course. The amount of data available in the world is growing exponentially, and analyzing large data sets (so-called big data) is becoming key for market analysis and competition. Analytics will dramatically shift away from reporting and towards predictive and prescriptive practices, dramatically improving the ability of healthcare providers to help the ill and injured. Even more importantly, it will create the possibility for truly personalized healthcare by allowing providers to impact the biggest determinants of health, including behaviours, genetics and environmental factors.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Data-driven healthcare
Today, we are already at a turning point in our ability to 3D “bioprint” organ tissues, a process that involves depositing a “bio-ink” made of cells precisely in layers, resulting in a functional living human tissue for use in the lab. These tissues should be better predictors of drug function than animal models in many cases. In the long-term, this has the potential to pave the way to “printing” human organs, such as kidneys, livers and hearts. By 2020, our goal is to have the technology be broadly used by pharmaceutical companies, resulting in the identification of safer and better drug candidates and fewer failures in clinical trials.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Printable organs
We are on the verge of the “internet of everywhere”. It will be far more democratic: accessible to everyone, rich and poor. The excitement of the internet of things will be a small footnote in history as the internet of everywhere becomes our reality. Do you remember the old movie, Minority Report, with Tom Cruise? Ultra cheap, internet-enabled solar-powered screens that display in HDTV resolution will be on bus stops, in shopping centres, at tables in restaurants – all operating on a centralized advertising model. Gone are the days of the static acetate poster on the wall of a shopping mall. And finally, since these HD monitors have beacons, they will dynamically change content as your phone passes by, telling the monitor all your preferences.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
The ‘internet of everywhere’
We have become dependent on mobile communications in our daily lives, but the dirty secret is that mobile networks around the globe are notoriously energy inefficient. In fact, we are stuck with outdated mobile network technology that basically performs as poorly as incandescent lightbulbs, with the result that 70% of the energy used is wasted as heat. By 2020, we predict that pioneering innovations in radio engineering will have a positive impact on the world’s economy, environment and quality of life. We even foresee a time when advances allow renewable energy to power the mobile industry, helping bridge the digital divide and extend communications to the 1.7 billion people living off-grid.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Renewables will power mobile networks
The skills gap is actually an information gap. The problem is not that workers are unskilled; it’s that workers don’t know what skills employers need. Technology is already disrupting existing jobs, and creating new jobs that never existed before. In fact, the top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 did not even exist in 2004. Change is happening so rapidly that 65 percent of today’s grade school kids in the U.S. will end up at jobs that haven’t even been invented yet.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Learning on the job will never stop
How will our education institutions keep up? Today, there is a disconnect between education providers and employers. In the future, however, technology will enable education and training to respond dynamically to real-time labor market changes. With widespread access to training and courses online and available on-demand, workers can be informed of skill updates while they work, and will regularly top up their education with the skills they need to remain relevant in the workforce.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Wastewater is an asset, not a liability
Water is one of our most precious resources, yet our infrastructure is failing. Driven by global population growth and rising water scarcity, the UN reports that 75 percent of the world’s available freshwater is already polluted. Under-investment in water management is exacerbating the problem, causing serious impacts on human health and the environment. A key challenge is the high capital cost, and high energy requirements, of current wastewater treatment and management systems. By 2020 I predict that a new class of distributed systems, powered by advances in our ability to use biotechnology to extract resources, such as energy, from waste, and the dropping cost of industrial automation, will begin to change our approach to managing water globally. Rather than a liability, wastewater will be viewed as an environmental resource, providing energy and clean water to communities and industry, and ushering in a truly sustainable and economical approach to managing our water resources.
2014
14 tech predictions for our world in 2020
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Scarcity
Economic growth means the use of scarce natural resources. If people become richer they will use up more energy, water and food, and create more waste. Technological advances often also lead to increased consumption, as well as to new challenges (rebound effect). The much acclaimed introduction of biodiesel, for instance, led to an undesired decrease in farmland used for food production. There is an end to our natural resources. Many of these resources are found in areas that are politically unstable. The rise of the BRIC1 and MINT2 countries (and probably other nations in the future as well) and the corresponding growing prosperity have increased the demand for natural resources considerably, creating an additional problem for countries consuming the most.
2014
Horizon scan 2050
Netherlands, The Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends (STT)
Climate change
Man’s relation to earth is complex. Earth and nature determine the fate of mankind, but in turn mankind determines the fate of earth (nature) through technological advances and the extraction of natural resources, for instance, through large-scale deforestation, leading to less biodiversity and, consequently, desertification and erosion of the soil. Or through dumping plastic in the ocean (the infamous plastic soup). Ever since the seventies of the 20th century there has been a global debate on the limits of growth. Will tomorrow’s population be so large that it will exhaust the earth? Experts believe that climate change (through the greenhouse effect and global warming) will render specific regions on earth uninhabitable [Knox and Marston, 2011]. Weather conditions may become more unstable and more extreme. This will, for instance, increase the risk of large hurricanes and disastrous floods. Extreme heat and lack of water may turn specific parts of the world into deserts. Cities lying on the coast may disappear into the ocean.
2014
Horizon scan 2050
Netherlands, The Netherlands Study Centre for Technology Trends (STT)