Major economic, demographic, technological and political Mega trends will take place in the next decades and will shape the future and force major shifts in governments and individuals priorities and in our entire way of life. Some of the key Mega trends are listed below:
1)Food, Water and Energy
-Demand for food, water, and energy will grow significantly, fueled by global population growth and expanded middle class consumption.
2) Climate change
-will worsen availability of these critical resources. Precipitation decline in the Middle East, northern and southern Africa, Central Asia, southern Europe and the US Southwest will greatly impact the growth of these regions.
3) Population Displacement
-will happen among many countries due to their inability to supply the basic necessities needed for life without massive external assistance. External assistance will not be readily available due to the exponential increase in demand for precious resources.
4) Shifting Demographic Patterns
-Aging countries (largely in the western hemisphere) will struggle to maintain living standards due to fiscal pressures attributed to longer life span and exponential cost increase of healthcare services.
5) Rapid urbanization
-will continue in the developing world and demand for skilled and unskilled labor will spur global migration
6) Individual Empowerment
-Individuals and small groups will have greater access to lethal and disruptive technologies enabling them to perpetrate violence on a scale historically monopolized by large states. These technologies will include Precision-Strike weapons, Cyber Attack Instruments, Bio-terror Weaponry, High Performance Computing, and ubiquitous Communications.
-Many of the technology trends powering the global economy do so through individual empowerment thus amplifying the trend
7) Diffusion of Power
-By 2025, Asia will surpass North America and Europe combined in terms of economic and political power based on GDP, population size, military spending and technological investment (Asia-Pacific pivot)
8) Health of the Global Economy
-will be linked to how well developing world does more so than the traditional west
-Enabled by communications technologies, power will shift toward multi-faceted and amorphous networks to influence state actions
These Mega trends will generate a need for developing new technologies in order to maintain a safe and resourceful world. These technology trends will require advances in:
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Clean water generation and delivery
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Efficient energy generation and delivery
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Nano-Science and Nano-Engineering
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Large Scale Distributed Autonomous Systems (Small swarm UAVs)
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Transformational Manufacturing (3D Printing)
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Highly Discriminating Precision Intelligence and assured communication
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Precision Weapons
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Human Augmentation and Synthetic Biology
16 Responses
It sure feels overwhelming reading a list like this! But there’s no hiding from the facts that humans are changing the way the Earth functions and resources are limited. And we definitely need technology to help us handle and cope with all of these growing and complex issues.
Right on!
Technology shapes the world, and without it we probably wouldn’t even be here today.
Adapt or die! It’s ultra-important to try and get a handle on these sweeping trends in order to devise strategies to take advantage of future opportunities. Great article;
Thanks Chaz.
Future opportunities are essential, and you are right the strategies that we need to devise will shape our future.
Thanks for dropping by!
I think water is going to be the biggest one. Especially when you couple this with climate change.
Definitely. Water is essential and it is definitely being limited. We need to create new and efficient ways to stimulate its rapid growth.
Thanks for stopping by!
I have to agree with Money Ahoy – I also think water is going to be a big one.
Thanks for your insight!
I agree with the above poster, this list is definitely overwhelming! I do hope that with all these develops, we develop great minds in upcoming generations to develop technologies and ideas to help us deal with what’s to come.
That is my hope is well.
Yes David, pretty catastrophic things will be happening in the coming years. This world is becoming a very crazy place to live. Time to prepare.
Definitely. I hope you will be ready as well as everyone else.
I’m a little bit into end times and I think about what I would do from time to time, when worst comes to worst. A lot of my family are really into that kind of stuff, so if worst does come to worst, I might just follow their lead. A few people in my family I know will be more prepared than I am right now… In the end I just pray God’s will be done and that as little harm as possible is done.
I really hope so as well. Thanks Lisha!