Emerging Technologies

Rapidly-evolving emerging technologies have begun to change the future of work.  They have begun to eliminate repetitive tasks.  The essence of emerging work is moving away from focusing on task and activity completion.  Instead, future work will demand problem-solving, interaction with humans and machines, digital communication, listening, analysis, and creative design will all be in dominance when it comes to future work. The emerging job pool will demand creative decision making, as well as the ability to dynamically think, create and strategically think.  The true impact of emerging technologies requires organizations to go well beyond looking at their financial contribution to the bottom line and efficiency and look at their demand for organizations to create the workforce of the future that they will without question require?

The filmmaker Tiffany Shlain said via Pew Research, “The skills needed to succeed in today’s world and the future are curiosity, creativity, taking the initiative, multi-disciplinary thinking and empathy.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is emerging as an extremely valuable technology after decades of research and development. Current projections suggest that the overall market for AI is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 53.65% from 2015 to 2020 and top $5.05 billion.  While this amount appears small compared to other technologies, one must consider AI is often a component within a much larger initiative. It is important to note that the vast majority of AI projects and programs will be embedded into other, often called “SMART” products and services.  Robotics, smart cars and smart services are among the leading segments for AI.  It should be noted that China has embarked on a new initiative they call Internet Plus Artificial Intelligence.

3D printing is not just one of those new/emerging technologies.  In the next few years, is believed that 3D printing will be one of the top technology disruptors that will be impacting virtually every industrial segment - no exception.  It is expected to kill millions of jobs while creating far less new jobs.  Today, about 18 percent of organizations have 10 or more 3D printers in use according to Gartner.  Forecasters believe that the global 3D printing market will robustly grow robustly and reach $21 billion by 2020.  One recent publication reported that 2.5 percent of 3D printers are being used to produce products that CAN’T be created using conventional methods?  That is a real breakthrough.  3D printing is really early on in its development.  Its capabilities and value will only continue to increase and cause disruption to current practices and models as the technology matures.  We can all expect more programs and projects involving 3D printing in our future.

In the next few years there will be an estimated 1.5 computer science jobs created in the United States.  Each year, the U.S. graduates 40,000 computer science majors.  

That means . . . between now and 2022 the U.S. will graduate about 240,000 computer science majors. In that same period of time the U.S. is expected to generate 1.5 million computer science related jobs. 

Those chilling stats cast doubt on the U.S. dominance in the coming era of rapid technology advancement!

New technologies are being developed constantly in labs at universities and companies around the world.  Determining which of these technologies are poised to transform business and our critical infrastructure is always a challenge.  The following technologies are at the top of the Q2-2016 hot list.

Today’s emerging technology hot list.

• 3D Printing
• Artificial Intelligence
• Connected Vehicles
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Robotics
• Wearable Technology

Blog posts about each of these technologies(pro & con) will be made on a regular basis.