5 Technology Enabled Disruptions to Look Forward to in the Coming Decade

Technological innovations are transformative, just think how the industrial revolutions changed how the world operates forever or the impressive progress of cyber age which started in the 1990s. One thing has been apparent over the last 50 years – the rate of innovation has enhanced exponentially. Propelled by existing development platforms which are cheaper, easier to scale and widely available – technological leapfrogs are going to occur at an even rapid pace, boosting economies forward.
So what would be the tech enabled disruptions that we need to keep an eye out in the decade? Below are 5 such transformations to look forward to.

• Social Matrix: Think about the time-frame of televisions to reach homes (13 years to reach the first 50 million households) or even internet to gain momentum (3 years to reach the first 50 million subscribers). Facebook or twitter reached this milestones less than a year. Socially enabled applications are on their way to become ubiquitous not only allowing sharing of information but enabling changes in our economic and social texture. Key sectors to watch out for would be retail, education, manufacturing, health care, finance, media, government and social enterprises.

• The Internet of All Things: Don’t think humans are the only one who will communicate with each other via advanced technologies. The network of an artificial cognitive society is on the rise. Don’t believe me? Just think your android phone is synced with your g-mails which is common across your laptops and tabs. You can run the TV set from your i-pad and your coffee machine retails your favorite latte mix. Very soon devices will be connected to their manufactures as they are shipped out of the factory and monitored over a life-cycle giving continuous feedback on their usage and status. Matrix might still be a movie but machine world will gain significant momentum over the next decade.

• Advanced Analytics and Big Data: Big Data created a lot of hype in 2013, with data science gaining prominence. Companies have proliferated investing in data architecture, top universities have opened up specialized courses in analytics and demand for analysts have shot up. The reason is simple in a networked world where both humans and machines are extensively connected and all interaction being recorded digitally – the need to analyze that data would always be there. On the coming decade we will see processes become automated, customers segmented to their exact behavioral norms and data processing occurring at unbelievable speeds. You might think the world Asimov envisaged in his foundation series regarding prediction of human civilization can become possible if we play our card right.

• Artificial Intelligence and Automation of Knowledge Work: Heard HVT or high volume trades which if not monitored carefully often disrupts the world capital markets? We have already seen industries shifting to emerging economies and rise of factory automation processes. The next wave would automation of intellectual work and that is being made possible by big data analytics, machine learning and natural user interfaces (even your phone can pick up your voices to call your desired contact). Medical diagnosis has the potential to evolve where machines make automated decisions, sports (yes cricket and football) will have automatic result declaration and customer servicing will actually be from robots with nice voices like Siri (of i-phone).

• Integrated Digital and Physical Experiences: People already claim Dystopia is near, all we do is interact via social media in our phone even while in groups sitting next to each other. Well brace yourself the next would be here soon – where you put a helmet over your head and move on to an avatar society in digital space (again Matrix alert). In essence our online presences have started substituting our physical world experiences. We now shop online, watch movies in 3D mode and our entertainment is inside a huge repertoire of digital experiences. When is the last time we had a nice picnic with our family amidst nature? Our life texture has changed and over the next decade we might soon be cheering for virtual football leagues and fantasy leagues as opposed to the real ones.