TRENDING TECH
The most significant breakthroughs of the past 30 years involve major technological advances and have changed nearly every aspect of our personal and business lives. The next 30 years will bring along even greater advances in even more powerful technology fields. Growing population, changing climate and drastic shift in the urban-rural population ratios are further catalysts to accelerate the upcoming technological breakthroughs.
Each of these technologies on its own has the potential to disrupt entire industries. In combination, however, they will lead to innovations, products and services that will have an even greater impact on our society, health and our everyday lives.
Established Industries, startups and Universities around the world are actively working on such cutting-edge technologies and are defining the way we live. This is probably the best time for young professionals and graduates to participate in this tech leap. The following are some of the most important areas being focused on. Studying abroad is a great way to expose yourself to such and even more opportunities. Is there a reason why YOU shouldn’t be contributing to these?
The world demand for energy is increasing drastically, with electricity being one of the major drivers in the increase of global energy consumption. Researchers estimate that even in a scenario that includes new policies and slower growing energy needs, the global energy consumption might increase by 30% until 2040. The majority of energy still comes from sources like coal, gas and oil. The impact of the applied processes and greenhouse gas emissions on our climate is dramatic and the consequences of climate change for us as humans, societies and our environment are already clearly visible. We need a dramatically faster transition to renewable energies. We believe innovative green technologies will soon make this transition possible, without many restrictions in our everyday lives.
With a faster moving world, we see an increasing demand for transportation both for people and goods. Causing over 8.05 gigatons of carbon emissions, the transportation sector makes up for around a quarter of the global carbon emissions. Projections have shown that those carbon emissions will double by 2050. Another challenge is urbanization: it is estimated that as of today, 4 billion people – 54% of the global population – live in urban areas. By 2050, that number could increase to 68%, causing even more congested streets. We need sustainable and smart solutions for those challenges, which in our eyes only technological innovation can offer.
With a faster moving world, we see an increasing demand for transportation both for people and goods. Causing over 8.05 gigatons of carbon emissions, the transportation sector makes up for around a quarter of the global carbon emissions. Projections have shown that those carbon emissions will double by 2050. Another challenge is urbanization: it is estimated that as of today, 4 billion people – 54% of the global population – live in urban areas. By 2050, that number could increase to 68%, causing even more congested streets. We need sustainable and smart solutions for those challenges, which in our eyes only technological innovation can offer.
As of 2020, 8.9% of the world population lives in hunger. Over 690 million people do not have enough food. With a constantly growing world population, this challenge is bound to increase over the next years. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), if world population growth continues at the current rate, by 2050 we will need to produce 70% more food than is currently produced. We desperately need to come up with new solutions, as current food production already takes up all the available land and too much water. Another huge problem is meat production. Livestock farming alone is responsible for 18 % of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. We need to find new ways to enjoy food without harming the environment and ideally, without harming animals.
A rapidly growing world population with growing consumption is taking its toll on the planet. The usage of rare resources in the electronics industry is high – not only for batteries and permanent magnets, but also tantalum for capacitors, indium for touchscreens, gallium for semiconductors and LEDs – just to name a few prominent examples – and all of them are rare and difficult to extract. Also, electric vehicles and wind turbines need powerful permanent magnets which are manufactured using rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium and their mining is a serious problem for the environment. The cobalt in Lithium-Ion batteries is often mined under inhumane conditions and the mining of lithium is even causing desertification in some regions.
Research on fundamental technologies to find smart and sustainable alternatives for those limited resources is the need of the hour.
A rapidly growing world population with growing consumption is taking its toll on the planet. The usage of rare resources in the electronics industry is high – not only for batteries and permanent magnets, but also tantalum for capacitors, indium for touchscreens, gallium for semiconductors and LEDs – just to name a few prominent examples – and all of them are rare and difficult to extract. Also, electric vehicles and wind turbines need powerful permanent magnets which are manufactured using rare earths like neodymium and dysprosium and their mining is a serious problem for the environment. The cobalt in Lithium-Ion batteries is often mined under inhumane conditions and the mining of lithium is even causing desertification in some regions.
Research on fundamental technologies to find smart and sustainable alternatives for those limited resources is the need of the hour.
54% of global energy use is attributed to manufacturing, as well as one fifth of all global greenhouse gas emissions. But sustainability is not the only challenge here. Consumer demands are changing rapidly with new technologies evolving. The fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, has already started and there is a whole new world of possibilities to explore. Digitalization has changed and will further change the way human workers interact with each other, how machines interact with each other, and also how machines interact with humans. A continuously improving connectivity enables a massive amount of data on real-time performance and analytics paving the way for numerous applications. With technologies like IoT, 3D-printing and augmented reality, the entire manufacturing process and product development cycle will be undergoing many transformations.
The possibilities to improve life on earth using space technology are abundant. Satellites can be used to enable real-time data transfer everywhere and thus improve communications in isolated or rural areas and with it access to knowledge, data and healthcare services. To pave the way for further research and exploration into space, we need to find ways to make space access not only reliable and safe but also economical. As ironic as it might sound, even space will become more crowded with time. Satellites will eventually need lasting and efficient propulsion systems to avoid collisions, as well as for constellation flights, which are necessary especially if our future communication networks rely on them.
The possibilities to improve life on earth using space technology are abundant. Satellites can be used to enable real-time data transfer everywhere and thus improve communications in isolated or rural areas and with it access to knowledge, data and healthcare services. To pave the way for further research and exploration into space, we need to find ways to make space access not only reliable and safe but also economical. As ironic as it might sound, even space will become more crowded with time. Satellites will eventually need lasting and efficient propulsion systems to avoid collisions, as well as for constellation flights, which are necessary especially if our future communication networks rely on them.
As life expectancy increases, more people will be in need of affordable healthcare. This will push healthcare resources and infrastructures to their limits. The global pandemic that has placed unparalleled demands on our healthcare system has emphasized this challenge. As healthcare organizations reached their capacity limits, many of them turned to technological solutions. This alone is a clear reflection of the potential in this area. At the same time, we are living in an era marked by a remarkable number of medical breakthroughs. Tremendous advances in genome sequencing, synthetic biology, thousands of new medications currently undergoing clinical trials; and the convergence of groundbreaking 10x biotechnology methods is opening up many new possibilities.
It is hard to imagine a world without the internet these days with over 50% of the global population being active internet users. In North America and Europe, the internet penetration rate is 95% as of January 2019. Anything that can be digitized, will be digitized over the next years, and with good reason. Digitizing processes and collecting and analysing data results in higher efficiency, lower costs and more time for other tasks for both companies and individuals. Breakthrough technologies like artificial intelligence can only exist and further be developed by digitizing as many aspects of our world as possible. A growing number of connected devices will luckily also lead to a growing amount of data available to enable critical breakthroughs in healthcare, energy, cybersecurity and co.
It is hard to imagine a world without the internet these days with over 50% of the global population being active internet users. In North America and Europe, the internet penetration rate is 95% as of January 2019. Anything that can be digitized, will be digitized over the next years, and with good reason. Digitizing processes and collecting and analysing data results in higher efficiency, lower costs and more time for other tasks for both companies and individuals. Breakthrough technologies like artificial intelligence can only exist and further be developed by digitizing as many aspects of our world as possible. A growing number of connected devices will luckily also lead to a growing amount of data available to enable critical breakthroughs in healthcare, energy, cybersecurity and co.
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