Update on the State of the Digital Revolution - Resistance (still) futile and Unnecessary

Two years ago I wanted to raise awareness for the digital revolution and its influence on our lives. So I invited digital startups as "Digital Lifestyle Showcases" to Startupfair. What has happened since? Did new digital technologies change our lives for the better? Or are there reasons to be scared of the oncoming digital tsunami? Time to assess for an update:

Digital technologies indeed started solving some previously unsolvable problems.

Digital technologies have matured from standalone concepts to integral parts of real world applications.

Some of the Startupfair  showcases  already transformed their field, many have grown into respectable businesses.

What I didn't see coming: Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain as new two powerful enabling technologies.

"Today's confluence of new digital technologies, new devices and people's lifestyle preferences is a revolution and offers vast opportunities for innovation, new businesses, and a better life", is how I started my post two years ago. And fundamentally nothing has changed: Moore's law continues to advance miniaturization, which in turns allows for ever smaller devices with ever larger capabilities! And with this, new digital technologies are being adopted by more and more users for many different applications.

What developments have we seen, what impact did new digital technologies have on our lives? For more on details please see this post on my website.

I invited 9 startups to showcase 7 different areas of our lives that would be improved thru new digital technologies. These were the areas and the startups

Virtual Reality, Trainings & Simulations: No contest - VR and AR have become mainstream! 5 years ago I regularly said in presentations: "The computer industry does not bring out new chips because of Excel. They do it because the gaming industry is pushing the envelope". Some in the audience laughed because sadly they didn't get it: The gaming industry has since completely changed the user experience. Movies in 3D are now the standard - period. High end headsets such as Oculus Rift or Microsoft Hololens are not only used for personal video game playing, but increasingly for professional use. See here for more details and the account of what happened to two VR / AR digital showcases after Startupfair (they are doing just fine!):

Learning: Educational technology is thriving thanks to digital technologies - making more teaching materials accessible online (e.g. Coursera) but also enabling new immersive learning formats, e.g. by including virtual or augmented reality elements (e.g. see this lecture on the geologic history of the Rocky Mountain National Park by Oregon State University professor Eric Kirby). At a conference this spring a fellow panelist said that the most popular service used on wireless broadband internet deployed in rural Minnesota was E-learning: New technologies enable more equitable access to education for those who were at a disadvantage before. The potential is enormous and I can't wait to get more of this! I chose a digital learning showcase that teaches very young children how to program a robot, because I wanted to demonstrate 2 things: That digital can enhance a learning experience and that digital skills must be taught from an early age on: In a digital world, programming a machine or at the very least understanding how software works is a skill as basic as reading and writing.

E-commerce & Arts: To say that "digital has changed shopping habits" is a complete understatement. Digital technologies are annihilating traditional retail and wholesale businesses. But we are not done yet: Yes, a lot of shopping have shifted to the internet (51% of purchases in the USA are now made online according to Fortune). However, there are still entire industries awaiting transformation by digital technologies: Doctors, insurances or the arts dealers still work very much unchanged as always. Slowness or unwillingness to change is a dangerous business attitude and presents an open invitation to digital disruptors. How to capture the buyers with an up to date customer experience that they like? The digital showcase for this category is attacking such a market. TechCrunch described them as "Tinder for buying art" and they made it into the global top 50 startups on Startupgrind since Startupfair.

For more on the developments in the other areas of digital lifestyles please see this post on my website