The Last Waltz

Sometime 15 years ago, in the year 2000, I was introduced to internet at home. And ‘The Last Waltz’ was the 1st song I downloaded off Napster. Today on way to a meeting I chatted with Selvarajan, my Uber driver about how Uber has given him a better life. In between the file sharing and on demand, we’ve all gone through the entire gamut of instant messaging, social media, and e-commerce.

Big changes, one has to admit. But going forward the changes that technology will help usher will be even more tectonic. Here’s my list of 3 big areas of change to watch out for as we move into 2016.

1. Transportation & Logistics: Autonomous vehicles in the really short term, Rapid Transit systems with autonomous vehicles in the not so short term, and teleportation in the extremely long term will be a reality. The first will be an almost pure software and hardware play, the second a combination of the first, infrastructure, and material science play , and the last will be through a profound new understanding of the laws of physics.
2. Education and Learning: Ubiquitous connectivity & accessibility, a marked shift in the models and mediums of learning, and creation of machine consciousness will lead this change.
3. Health & Life care: We should all aim to live to be at least a 100 if not achieve immortality. The sheer volume of information related to our personal corporal form that we will have, coupled with advances in nanotechnology and molecular medicines, and finally, a fundamental change in understanding and affecting human consciousness will get us there.