A good report about some megatrends in technology
Tallinn University of technology
Thomas Johann Seebeck Department of Electronics
Some
important megatrends in technology
Student: H. K.
Professor: Valerio Alessandroni
Tallinn 2014
Abstract
This
introductory report about few technological megatrends focuses on connectivity,
urbanisation, robots and sustainability - main trends that greatly influence
society. I will give short description of the trends and how will they
determine future life.
Introduction
Technology is
emerging and it has changed how people work, study, do everyday actions and communicate
with each other. One of the most important technological breakthroughs is a
real-time communication network – Internet. There are about 200 million emails,
20 million photo views and over 2 million Google searches in every minute. It
is safe to say that being connected and accessing the information through the
Internet has had tremendous impact on technological megatrends. That is why in
this report I will make a brief overview mostly about information and
communication technology megatrends influencing people all over the world.
There are a lot
of likelihoods for future trends that we can already see will have a grand
impact on business and society in next years and decades. Global marketplace is
changing and technology influences creating new designs, manufacturing systems
and innovative products that millions of people around the world seem to need. Technological
megatrends are worth looking into because they have become everybody’s close
part of life and progress in this area plays a great role in shaping the world,
especially now when investments to ICT area have been so enormous.
What
is a megatrend?
Megatrends are
new directions that are formed very slowly and transforming our lives. John
Naisbitt, who has been the world’s best known investigator of global trends,
invented the concept already in 1980 [1]. Businesses and governments are
constantly looking at how to stay successful, profitable and competitive and analyses
of main movements help them to make better investments and formulate strategies
for more effective functioning. Megatrends have wide-reaching impact also on
society and affect the future, which is the reason why analysts are doing
foresights and researches in that area. It is very valuable to know different
megatrends because they provide guidance for decision-making and has an affect
on technology planning.
Connectivity
Top megatrends
are all somewhat related to being connected to the Internet and making life
more comfortable to all its users. This kind of connectivity is now the
expected norm which means that generations are growing up with digital
technology very close to them. This generation expects to always have internet
access and spend most of their time in a virtual world rather than physical. Some
time ago getting connected to that world required an effort; today a similar
effort is needed to get disconnected. There is continuous evolution of wireless
network architectures and more than 140 countries were offering 3G services and
many countries have moved on to higher broadband speeds.[2] 4G Google Fiber
standard today provides Internet speed up to 1000 Mbps which is 100 times
faster than basic broadband and being connected in developed country is easier
than ever. [5] Forecasts say that global mobile connections will reach 7.6
billion in 2015 [6] and Internet usage has changed the way people work, learn,
consume, share information and communicate. Penetration in developed countries
was estimated at 73.8 percent by end of 2011 and in developing countries, the
rate is at 26.3 percent. [2]
Technology-driven
shopping, investing, studying, working, donating etc. have led people to expect
to have more free time and less use of energy. All online activity will become
more accessible in forthcoming time because there will be smarter and smarter
mobile devices, PCs and tablets with very fast connectivity. Personal computer
(PC) has been the most valuable tool in modern world so far but this year’s statistics
and foresights show rapid growth in popularity of tablets. It is clear that
people who use phones and tablets to access the Internet will outnumber those
who use a PC by already in year 2015. [4] Laptop will be out-of-date and replaced
by communication access device (for example mobile phone) and cloud computing.
All the applications, software and content will be in the cloud and you will be
able to access it through the network.
(figure available in the original)
Figure 1. NPD Displaysearch’s projections for sales of tablet
and notebook PCs.
Figure 1. shows
that PCs sold in 2012 outnumbered tablets greatly but 254 million tablets sold
in 2013 represents 63,9% increase from 2012. Forecasts say that tablet sales
will shoot above 400 million by 2015 and it appears that tablets will become
dominant personal computing device. [4]
Information technology has
had rapid growth in last years and also it is connected to the biggest
megatrends in the future. Society is moving towards cloud based data treating as
said before, which means that all information is saved in the online system. To
bring some examples here it is good to look at our own country – Estonia, where
using Internet is found as human right. Estonia is been one of the pioneering
countries in developing data exchange layer which enables different
governmental databases to communicate and where every possible system is
plugged into the e-environment (police, school, government, hospitals, etc.) An
ID card, that all Estonians carry, also works in electronic environments to
encrypt documents and add a digital signature. E-census, e-voting,
e-government, digital prescription, e-reporting, tax-declaration – all this
connectivity leads to one big system and is actually a part of urbanisation. The
increasing sophistication in electronic devices is actually leading to simpler
life for consumers. The digital explosion has reduced all information to its
lowest form, sequences of 0s and 1s. But do we want that kind of new wave? Laws, regulations, paper work, and
bureaucracies change much more slowly than the technologies they govern, but
there are broad economic and social benefits from innovations in ICT. Wiis, and
toll booth transponders do not save lives, but wireless fire detectors and
global positioning systems do. The story of WiFi illustrates how rapidly an
unforeseen technology can become an essential piece of both business and
personal infrastructure [10]. It seems
that society is taking it all very well and digital explosion is something we
needed.
Urbanisation
and smart cities
Trend is to move
towards big societies and urbanisation where e-mobility is feature that holds
great regions from falling apart. Face of urbanisation is changing as we know
it: there will be no boundaries between suburb, urban, and rural areas.
Megacities are expanding and development of corridor regions between large
cities is becoming a great trend.
Mega cities are
shaped primarily in three forms according to Frost and Sullivan “Top 20 Global
Mega Trends”:
1)
Megacities,
which have a minimum of ten million inhabitants, such as Greater London, New
York, Metropolitan Paris, Shanghai, Sao Paulo;
2)
Mega
Regions, which combine with suburbs to form regions, such as the combination of
Johannesburg and Pretoria;
3)
Mega
Corridors, which connect two major cities or mega regions, such as Hong
Kong-Shenzhen-Guangzhou in China (population 120 million). [8]
As stated before
megacities are moving towards mega regions and cities will compound together
with surrounding suburbs to form much bigger areas and all the borders will
expand and blur. Much more interesting here is not the size of the city, but
how so tremendous area will be handled from inhabitant standpoints. These mega
cities have to be organized very effectively and that is why they are called “smart
cities”. Operation of one big region should be handled with great wit to not
waste any energy, also active cooperation between information and communication
technology (ICT) providers need managing. That is why “Smart cities” include smart
information technology, business, city planning, mobility and also smart
buildings. It is estimated that over 40 global cities will be “Smart” in 2020
and more than 50% of them of 2025 will be from Europe and North America. [9]
This kind of new
definition of “smart city” will probably create lots of advanced market
opportunities. There will be increasing demand for smart devices which will
cause new opportunities in energy industry, transportation, robotics,
healthcare, retail, telecoms, and home automation. Next generations will have
high-speed trains which will be more energy efficient, robots helping them in
the households, better access to healthcare and high level medical
instrumentations. For example e-government system in Estonia has already created
more transparent, efficient, convenient and trustworthy relations between
citizens and government agencies. These kind of smart technologies and smart
devices that have to improve due to that are raising also different kind of
problems. As everything that matters is in the cloud, the problems also start
from there. If somebody wants to affect certain area, the most productive way
to do it in nowadays society would be possibly a cyber-attack as cyber warfare
is gaining a lot of importance. World war 3 will be more connected to
information environment than we care to admit with all the advancements in
technology. Attacks could be done with botnets, ping attacks, hackers etc. and
it is clear that governments need Cyber Defence League to cope with modern threats.
Robots
In the future megacities
people will use robots as their companions, household workers, nannies or even
pets. But what problems do these “slave robots” raise. Could the science
fiction movies be true that one day robots will conquer the world? It does seem
futuristic and unlikely but there is really only one important step to go –
consciousness. Mixing machines with living tissues could be the answer of
reproductive robots themselves. Already now Japan and South Korea as the leaders
of robotics have developed such machines that look intimidatingly a lot human
like. Megatrends show that some machines will become much more than just
household helpers but also companion to humans. We have machines that can do a
lot of things better than people and we are already giving away our power
because we are dependant on many technological inventions (mobile phones,
computers etc.) which means that power is on the hands of little elite and it
can control the masses more easily. Future in robotics is all about
nanotechnology, genetic engineering and matter of time when we realize that
there are truly intelligent machines among us. Scientist Hugo de Garis, who became
known for his research on the use of genetic algorithms to evolve neural
networks, thinks it is possible to create “artificial brain” which could lead
to robots with human level intelligence and the worst scenario to that would be
an artilect that can develop itself. To think more critically, there comes a
question if one could create something smarter than it is itself?! Robotics is
one megatrend that seems to develop slower and has not reached its closeness to
custom consumer just yet, but observing the trend, it is only a matter of time
when every household has a robot cleaner lady.
Sustainability
Smart technology
is all about increasing the role of innovations to enable better
sustainability. This means also smart reuse of materials and energy saving.
High-energy costs refer to rising amount of traditional sources, such as fossil
fuels, which mean that alternative energy sources are more in honour in the
future. All environmentalism will get more popular because energy prices are increasing
and there is expanding concern for our generations’ environmental legacy. In
the next 40 years it is estimated that population will grow about 30% which
causes increasing demand for food, healthcare, transport, infrastructure and
energy. [2] As stated before, our population will continue to grow, life
expectancy also increases and global health care system needs to follow
society’s needs. ICT here has very crucial place in enabling remote services in
order to stretch limited health care resources. Consuming, energy harvesting,
pollution, etc. will only get worse and we need 5 planets to hold the mass of
altering world, but as we have to fit on this one planet (at least for now)
sustainability comes into the picture. World’s resources without “green” and
renewable approach will soon drain the earth and ICT industry has to support
the sustainable living with smart devices and technologies.[7] Next figure
shows the world population graph by age groups to the year 2050.
(Figure available in the original)
Figure
2. World population distribution by age groups in world and development regions
From the graph
we can see that elderly group 60+ will match the persons group younger than 15.
By 2050, elderly population will drive the trend for continuous care. In
Europe, between 2008 and 2060, the population of the European Union member
countries aged 64 and over is estimated to increase by 67 million, and the
group of people aged 80 and over will be the fastest growing [13]. The average
GPD spent in Europe on healthcare has escalated from 6 % in 2000 to 8% in 2009 [11].
Use of technology among the seniors has also been increasing rapidly. The 46 to
64 year old group now spends more money on technology than any other
demographic according to Forrester Research’s annual benchmark tech study [3].
Sustainability will
be a part of everything companies do, it will not be an option in the future,
it will be a must. Population will rise to 9 billion by 2050 [12] and this
means increase in consumption of goods and higher demand for energy. United
Nations estimates that most of the world’s population growth is coming from
emerging markets which means that the active (especially consumer) class is
growing. Environmental impacts of consumption are already now in critical level
and when there will be millions of consumers more, we will need to find ways to
reduce the humanity’s footprint briskly. Products have to be fully recyclable
and renewable and system that produces them needs to be sustainable. IT is
heavily dependent on energy and companies have the need to reduce power
consumption. Already now there are more efficient processors and Green IT
offers better network infrastructure and devices. Keywords here are smaller
components integrating multi-functionality to support higher speeds and lower
energy consumption – all this reduces the footprint.[14] Main question here is
if sustainability ideas are getting all the support they need to change the
thinking of society.
Conclusion
Megatrends are
essential in helping companies and governments to gain a good strategic vision
and sustainable development. One most important impact of megatrends is that the
divide between developed and developing economies is decreasing. Access to the
network has changed the world and different societies are now more connected
and accessible. Governments are investing more into ICT to modernize and
integrate infrastructure with technologies like the government cloud, open
source public sector, and mobile applications which sums up all to a smart
governance and fits with the smart cities. The megatrends described in this
discussion are all very much connected to each other and it is difficult to
bring out the most important movement but I think as the population is growing
and aging with such rush, trying to be sustainable and reduce the ecological
footprint should be society’s main concern.
Used
literature
(list is available in the original)
Note: You can ask for the original of this report and for the references of my student by writing an email to info@alessandroni.net
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