Digitopia

Digi topia

Local economy

Industrial manufacturing and consumer goods will see major changes, while efforts to create a circular economy that cuts down on wasted resources will intensify. Industrial waste recycling will take on new importance, and thanks to the wide variety of digital services this industry may represent a potential way of earning money for individuals. The knowledge economy (leveraging knowledge to create added value) will become more dominant and lifelong education will become essential with improvements in artificial intelligence and automatization of certain activities or jobs.

Changes on the job market

Leaders expect continued growth in the number of external contractors (the gig economy). However, the increasing number of experts working on different projects for different companies will certainly lead to creating new forms of social programs and taxation methods. A combination of these factors could make the shared economy an attractive business model with perspective for the future.

Food production

One critical advance will be the option to find details on the origin and conditions of plant and animal products in response to pressure from consumers over how to handle food. Tracking origin will be possible thanks to geolocation using blockchain technologies, already in use today for organic products. We can expect growth in local food production at the expense of large industrial operations. This will involve not only local farmers, but also an expected increase in urban farms using advanced digital technologies. Experiments to this end are already underway. At the same time, however, feeding an ever-growing population will make genetically modified foods a necessity.

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A business that promises both profits and a strong contribution to sustainable resources. This could be our reality in the near future as modeled by analysts at Gartner. The Gartner project Digitopia 2035 asked business and tech leaders for their predictions as to how society will develop. Many of them focused on possibilities and ways that technology may contribute to a more sustainable future.

Energy

From solar panels to wind turbines and the new generation of desalination equipment, technology represents a complete revolution in renewable resources. In some areas these new technologies may lead to a sudden drop in energy prices down to practically zero at peak production. It may also lead to extreme imbalances between places (and times) in which energy is cheap and easily accessible, and those when it is not. According to estimates, differences in prices will be balanced out by digital technologies (appliance management, battery use in households or electric vehicles connected to a distribution grid). The risks? Digital technologies could make computer systems and solutions consume more energy.

Weather

Learning to adapt to and perhaps have an impact on ongoing climate change is of critical importance. Biotechnologies have the potential to give us new cultivated or GMO varieties of crops that will be more resistant to drought and other extreme weather. It is also possible that some countries will become more willing to influence the weather directly. Technologies like cloud seeding have been known and tested for more than half a century, although today they are deployed either with greater precision using drones or else in much greater scope, as is the case with the Chinese Sky River system. These direct interventions into local weather patterns are not without risk, however, and may be harmful.

LUKÁŠ ERBEN (THE AUTHOR WORKS AT KPC-GROUP, REPRESENTING GARTNER FOR THE CZECH REPUBLIC, SLOVAKIA AND ROMANIA) SOURCE: DIGITOPIA 2035 SCENARIO: A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY – HOW TO INCREASE YOUR DIGITAL AMBITION, PUBLISHED: DECEMBER 2020, AUTHORS: FRANK BUYTENDIJK, BETTINA TRATZ-RYAN P. 13