Futurist reveals the top 5 predictions for the year ahead

Will your job exist in ten years’ time? What skills do we need to be teaching our children to prepare them for the roles of the future? Will robots start doing our shopping for us? Will blockchain change your life for the better? In such a fast-paced age, and technology changing the face of the future at an alarming rate, these are all questions with answers impossible to predict; until now.

Anders Sorman-Nilsson (LLB / EMBA) is a global futurist and innovation strategist. Anders has worked with many of the world’s largest and most well-known brands, including Apple, Amex, Adobe, Mercedes Benz, Hilton, SAP, Gartner and Macquarie Bank, and has shared the stage with notable speakers, including Hillary Clinton, Nobel Laureates, and European and Australian heads of state.

As a futurist, Anders offers key foresight into what’s to come by analysing key signs, data and intelligence to map out the future.

Here, he shares his top 5 predictions for 2019 and beyond:

Travel in a biometric age: “Within just five years, the way we travel will be a far cry from today. To board an international flight will require little more than stopping to pose for a photo thanks to facial recognition technology. This means no more passports, tickets, or long customs queues. Rather, travellers will simply pause for a camera which will have inbuilt facial scanning, and then pass through customs and immigration in a matter of minutes – all thanks to biometrics. Increasingly, Alexa will also play a big part in our travel, with the robot offering advice to consumers on their travel plans. In fact, robo-advice will become mainstream within the next 3-5 years,” says Anders. “And in just a few short years, we may not even have to travel at all. Virtual Reality will become so good that we will be able to take a holiday that’s fully immersive in the comfort of our own homes.”

We are all cyborgs: “Brain implants letting us read each other’s minds and augmented reality that will enable those that are legally or partially blind to wear ‘smart specs’ to help them with everyday tasks, are all technologies of the future,” says Anders. “It’s hard to imagine a world where 3D bio printers will build custom organs, robo-advisors will take over the role of human financial advisors and will use algorithms to calibrate a financial portfolio, or ‘social credit scores’ will be implemented to take into account a person’s bad driving, smoking habits or if they post fake news online to determine a ‘score’ that may punish them with slower internet, travel restrictions or prevent them from getting a good job. But these are all technologies that are being created right now and will be available in just a few years’ time.”

Smart parents will stop encouraging their kids to become doctors and lawyers: “The job landscape will be unrecognisable in a decade’s time. In fact, according to the World Economic Forum, 65% of children today will end up in jobs that simply don’t even exist yet*, including coding ethicists to problem-solve eventualities that may arise with future technologies, or experience creators who will work for companies in the ‘transformation economy’ offering customers experiences and self-development to transform themselves. We are entering a second renaissance and a creativity explosion, where robots will take care of the boring, admin jobs for us, and jobs will focus on creativity and emotional intelligence. As such, unlike when we were younger, and creativity was stifled in children, these skills and thinking outside the box will be crucial for future roles. As parents, we must ensure our children are being taught these in school, as well as being adaptable and able to think critically to prepare them to thrive in the workforce of the future,” states Anders.

How blockchain will change your life for the better: “There will be a shift away from the hype around bitcoin to the underlying and lifechanging form that is blockchain,” comments Anders. “This particular technology will enable smart, self-executing contracts to digitise trust. Commercial transactions that are readable by machines will be transformed, with property transactions, mortgage settlements and more using digitised trust and opening up human willingness to engage in binding agreements. Insurance will also benefit from blockchain-based solutions. For example, blockchain will be able to securely access electronic medical records to issue a policy within minutes and trigger an automatic payment upon diagnosis.”

Shopping will take on a whole new meaning: “Over the next few years, the in-store and online shopping experience for consumers will completely change,” says Anders. “Expect Artificial Intelligence to take on job roles, cashier less stores to pop up, biometric payment to become the norm, with retailers allowing customers to scan the veins in their thumbs as payment and facial recognition technology as tills to offer discounts for smiling customers. In fact, we soon won’t even need to ‘pay’ at all. Customers will be able to choose items from stores and leave without handing over any details as shops will have all of your data stored to bill you digitally.”

Anders is an active member of TEDGlobal, has keynoted at TEDx in the United States and Australia, was nominated to the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders in 2019, and was the keynote speaker at the G20’s Y20 Summit in Australia.

He is the author of the books Seamless: a hero's journey of digital disruption, adaptation and human transformation (Wiley, 2017), Digilogue: how to win the digital minds and analogue hearts of tomorrow's customers (Wiley, 2013) and Thinque Funky: Upgrade Your Thinking (Thinque, 2009).

* http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/chapter-1-the-future-of-jobs-and-skills/#view/fn-1