7 Future Trends you Should Care About

There are quickly developing fields and we are on the verge of the manifestation of exponential technologies which allow what we once considered impossible, to become the new normal.

We live in exciting times and our workplaces are poised to transform further into more automated environments. The global economy will be challenged by the shift to exponential technologies in some cases disrupting our status quo. 

Many of these technologies will improve our lives for good and represent new forms of competition in the information economy. However, others disrupt our way of life and leave some of us without a job. 

How we adapt to the next twenty years of disruption will lay the foundations of technological progress in our relationship to important fields such as artificial intelligence, biotech, space exploration and sustainable development of urban centers. 

As an amateur futurist, I'm following dozens of trends that converge in the 2020s and 2030s that will alter civilization forever as we know it.  

1. Cyber Warfare 

With the admission from some of the top companies of the US that they have been targeted by sophisticated Chinese hacking campaigns for trade secrets and intellectual property and copyrighted material, in a market worth $trillions of dollars, China enters the innovation leaders of the world, via stealth. The evidence points to military run hacker groups. 

2. Virtual Reality 

Tractica predicts that nearly 200 million headsets will be sold by 2020. That's two-thirds of the United States population. VR will impact many fields with a wide range of new immersive experiences. According to a study from Ericsson ConsumerLab, shopping was the top reason worldwide smartphone users were interested in VR. 

3. Internet of Things

We've been hearing about IoT for a while, but it's about to get more tangible with 50 Billion connected devices by 2020. The smart home and smart car are evolving faster than ever, and wearables will soon be more interactive in retail and other spaces with the arrival of chatbots. 

4. Colonization of Mars

The race for colonization of Mars and Martian real-estate will drive a race between China, SpaceX, Europe and NASA, where we can expect full fledged colonies by the 2030s. The challenges presented by going to and living on Mars will drive innovation in new ways as well as the interaction of robots, humans and AI. 

(Pictured: Amazon's Echo, or "Alexa" is changing how we relate to the internet in the smart home and shop online). 

5. Rise of Mega Corporations 

The survival of the fittest of companies that could have legacies that last decades if not centuries is looking like a real possibility with disruptive companies changing the game to become superpowers positing themselves favorably for future technologies that will govern human activity and profits such as Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet, Softbank, Apple, Uber, others and companies yet to be born. 

6. Connecting the World Online

The rise of the internet has been impressive with over 41% of the world connected to the internet, but not as quick as some anticipated . In fact the developing world has been slower to get online than Google predicted. As broadband and mobile penetration increase, the other 4 billion people should be connected soon. 

7. Driverless Cars & Automation of Workforce

There's little doubt that self-driving vehicles, robots and customer service chatbots represent a huge shift in the future of work and towards the realization of smart cities. In the early 2020s, all of these will significantly alter economies of cities and create new jobs while eliminating older positions. 

What fields and future trends do you think will most alter the experience of the future of work, business, employment and of our children in the years ahead?