2020 has created more than a brave new world. It’s a world of opportunity rapidly pressuring organizations of all sizes to rapidly adopt technology to not just survive, but to thrive. And Andrew Dugan, chief technology officer at Lumen Technologies, sees proof in the company’s own customer base, where “those organizations fared the best throughout covid were the ones that were prepared with their digital transformation.

” And that’s been a common story this year. A 2018 McKinsey survey showed that well before the pandemic 92% of company leaders believed “their business model would not remain economically viable through digitization.” This astounding statistic shows the necessity for organizations to start deploying new technologies, not just for the coming year, but for the coming fourth industrial revolution.

This podcast episode was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not produced by MIT Technology Review’s editorial staff.Lumen plans to play a key role in this preparation and execution:

“We see the fourth industrial revolution really transforming daily life ... And it's really driven by that availability and ubiquity of those smart devices.” With the rapid evolution of smaller chips and devices, acquiring analyzing, and acting on the data becomes a critical priority for every company.

But organizations must be prepared for this increasing onslaught of data.

As Dugan says, “One of the key things that we see with the fourth industrial revolution is that enterprises are taking advantage of the data that's available out there.” And to do that, companies need to do business in a new way. Specifically, “One is change the way that they address hiring.

You need a new skill set, you need data scientists, your world is going to be more driven by software. You’re going to have to take advantage of new technologies.

” This mandate means that organizations will also need to prepare their technology systems, and that’s where Lumen helps “build the organizational competencies and provide them the infrastructure, whether that’s network, edge compute, data analytics tools,” continues Dugan.

The goal is to use software to gain insights, which will improve business.When it comes to next-generation apps and devices, edge compute—the ability to process data in real time at the edge of a network (think a handheld device) without sending it back to the cloud to be processed—has to be the focus. Dugan explains:

“When a robot senses something and sends that sensor data back to the application, which may be on-site, it may be in some edge compute location, the speed at which that data can be collected, transported to the application, analyzed, and a response generated, directly affects the speed at which that device can operate.

” This data must be analyzed and acted on in real time to be useful to the organization. Think about it, continued Dugan, “When you’re controlling something like an energy grid, similar thing. You want to be able to detect something and react to it in near real time.

” Edge compute is the function that allows organizations to enter the fourth industrial revolution, and this is the new reality. “We’re moving from that hype stage into reality and making it available for our customers,” Dugan notes. “And that’s exciting when you see something become real like this.

”Business Lab is hosted by Laurel Ruma, director of Insights, the custom publishing division of MIT Technology Review. The show is a production of MIT Technology Review, with production help from Collective Next.This podcast episode was produced in partnership with Lumen Technologies.

Show notes and links

“Emerging Technologies And The Lumen Platform,” by Andrew Dugan, Automation.com, September 14, 2020


“The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means, how to respond,” by Klaus Schwab, The World Economic Forum, January 14, 2016


“Why digital strategies fail,” by Jacques Bughin, Tanguy Catlin, Martin Hirt, and Paul Willmott, McKinsey Quarterly, January 25, 2018

Full transcript

Laurel Ruma: From MIT Technology Review, I’m Laurel Ruma, and this is Business Lab, the show that helps business leaders make sense of new technologies coming out of the lab and into the marketplace. Our topic today is building a connected platform for the fourth industrial revolution, which, granted, is a concept that is still being refined in practice, but is undoubtedly here, as data, artificial intelligence, network performance, and devices come together to better serve humans. Two words for you: next-generation apps.My guest is Andrew Dugan, who is the chief technology officer for Lumen. He has more than 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry and, unsurprisingly for his time as an engineer, more than 20 patents filed. Andrew, welcome to Business Lab.

Andrew Dugan: Thanks Laurel. I’m very happy to be here.Laurel: So, launching a new company during a pandemic may not be the most ideal situation, but a great opportunity to rise to the occasion. How has the covid-19 pandemic helped Lumen prepare for, perhaps unexpected, customer needs?Andrew: Well, covid has been difficult. It’s certainly had a terrible impact on the world, but one of the positive parts of it is that I’ve been really pleasantly surprised at how our team has responded and how our customers have responded. And covid gave us a really good opportunity to show how our infrastructure and our services are scalable by being able to turn up emergency bandwidth for our customers in a record time, surprisingly quick. Covid has also had a measurable increase in our customers’ understanding of how important digital capabilities are because those organizations that fared the best throughout covid were the ones that were prepared with their digital transformation.

We’ve watched how our customers’ needs have changed throughout covid. Early on, we did surveys and found the early concerns were around supply chain. “Will I be able to get the things that I need to be able to continue to run my business? Will I be able to keep my employees safe?” And we’ve seen a shift towards more of the digital concerns. “Is my new way of operating secure? Do I have the right type of security measures in place? Do I have the right type of network for my remote employees or maybe for my customers to be able to consume my services?

” A lot of businesses are looking forward and saying, “How do I create new forms of revenue in this covid world?” And so they’re looking at technology to help them with that. And we’re finding that the services that we have available at Lumen can really help them with that need. So, it’s been a difficult time, but also one that's exciting from a technology perspective.

Laurel: It has that, hasn’t it? We interviewed the CIO at Boston Children’s Hospital and he said that in the early days of covid telehealth visits skyrocketed from 20 visits a day to 2,000. Obviously, there's been a bit of a decrease as patients returned to in person visits, but clearly this is a huge disruption to the way that things were done. What opportunities during this time of great global disruption do you think could be actually accelerated?

Andrew: As I mentioned, I think businesses have really recognized the power of digital capabilities in today’s world. And I think covid has helped accelerate a lot of businesses in that digital transformation. The longer-term cultural changes that I think will result here, those usually take generations to occur. And when you’re forced into an environment like covid has put us into, it can help accelerate some of those changes. Whether it’s more work from home, the way that health care is provided through more virtual and online services, the way that people market and sell their services. Who would have thought that the number of home sales or cars that were sold through virtual visits would be a normal way of doing things? Also, the way that people interact. From my own personal experience, I’ve done more social interaction through game nights online. I even did an online wine tasting myself with my family and it was quite fun. So, I think we will see continued evolution of products and services, new revenue streams for companies as they embrace the possibilities of what technology can bring to them.

Laurel: Do you have any examples of what you’re hearing from your customers? Just kind of those, “Oh, we didn't know we could do X, but now we can and maybe it’ll work out.” Just those off-handed conversations that sometimes you have.

Andrew: Well, I think a lot of our customers were surprised at how quickly they were able to transform to a remote work environment. So, they were able to move the majority of their workforces home with little or no disruption to their business. We certainly found that in our business.

So I think that was one thing that was surprising for our customers was the usefulness of online learning. I’m not sure that many people before this would have expected that we could support this level of online learning or online healthcare. So I think those sorts of things, many people did find surprising at how quickly and how ready the technology was to support them.

Laurel: Yeah, to be able to do that, whether it’s education or telehealth, a complex and fast edge network needs to be built in most places, right? And expanded in others. So when you think of these complexities, how do companies best handle their plans for not just the edge, but also growing data infrastructure that's needed to support all of these services?

Andrew: One of the key things that we see with the fourth industrial revolution is that enterprises are taking advantage of the data that's available out there. There’s a lot more data being generated through things like IoT and smart devices, and the way that enterprises, I think, get to take advantage of those is they are going to have to do a couple things. One is change the way that they address hiring. You need a new skill set, you need data scientists, your world is going to be more driven by software. You’re going to have to take advantage of new technologies. Edge compute is one of those that’s emerging and becoming more available. And they're going to have to learn how to build that into their applications and their processes. And they're going to have to look at how the data can make them more efficient, what sort of new revenue streams they can create. So, those are going to be challenges that they may not have faced before. They may not have had to learn how to use AI and machine learning tools. But I think that those will become more critical as the fourth industrial revolution develops for enterprises to be successful.

Laurel: And that’s one of those things where if the old saying is true, that if every company is a technology company, then the technology demands today have advanced pretty greatly, pretty quickly, especially in the face of covid, but in general as devices get smaller and faster and edge compute becomes more real.

Andrew: Yeah, I think that statement is really true that every company is a technology company. I’ve got a family member that owns hair salon business, and you wouldn’t think that that’s a technology company, but how you interact with your customers, you need to have a digital presence. You need to have digital tools that may be less data-driven, but over time will become more data-driven. So, I think you’re absolutely right, that almost all businesses are becoming technology businesses to some extent.

Laurel: Especially with AI and ML [machine learning]. You add this all together with edge compute, AI, better devices, faster devices [and you have something new]. So, the World Economic Forum says the fourth industrial revolution isn’t just accelerating but exponentially advancing technological breakthroughs. How specifically does Lumen, or do you, define the fourth industrial revolution?

Andrew: We see the fourth industrial revolution really transforming daily life, not just people’s personal life, but organizations, as we talked about enterprises are becoming technology companies. And it’s really driven by that availability and ubiquity of those smart devices. Those smart devices are generating data, and enterprises and businesses, their ability to be successful is really being driven by their ability to acquire, analyze, and act on the data coming from those smart devices, to be able to improve their products and services, improve their outcomes as a business and differentiate themselves from competitors. And for us at Lumen, it’s about how do we enable those businesses to use that data and help them build the organizational competencies and provide them the infrastructure, whether that’s network, edge compute, data analytics tools, to help them implement insights using software to improve their business.

Laurel: So, thinking about that acquire, analyze, act on the data, what are some of those challenges that enterprises have with data and processing it?

Andrew: One of the biggest challenges as this transformation occurs, and as it’s centered around that data, it really does come back to that skill set. If your business is being driven by the data, you have to have the people that are able to understand that data and extract value from it. And that’s data science, and more businesses are going to require a data scientists, that skill set to be able to acquire, analyze, and figure out how to act on that data. That’s going to be driven by software, so I think there will be an increasing need for those software skill sets. Those are certainly challenges that they’re going to face. They’re also going to face technology challenges. How do you deal with the new architectures that are going to be required, whether that’s edge compute or more of the AI machine-learning technologies, to be able to deal with all of that data and extract that value. And then how does that affect their processes? A lot of times their processes today aren’t built around data. Those processes can be too slow. Data provides them a real opportunity to improve that efficiency, improve the speed, give them more of an ability to make real-time decisions as they automate the analysis of that data. So, having skills for things like robotic process automation across the organization to help take advantage of that, I think are going to be important, too. So, improving their people’s skill set, how they take advantage of technology, and how that affects their process are all going to be challenges that they have to deal with.

Laurel: That’s an excellent point. It’s not just one thing, is it? You really do have to improve the entire system down the line. And the focus on some companies may be hiring. And then on some other companies may be those apps and solutions and deployment because they have the infrastructure already built. As we know, the data has come out, and the companies that have done better during this time are ones that have already started or are in process with their digital transformation. So what specifically are some of those characteristics you can see forward-looking companies or companies who have started their digital transformation or in the process of it? What kind of technologies and thinking are they using and deploying?

Andrew: Yeah, I think that varies by industry. We talk to a lot of larger enterprises. People who are building smart factories as an example, and they’re dealing with, how do they make better use of robotics? How do they build that infrastructure? How do they run that infrastructure? How do they make it more secure? We see other enterprises out there that are looking to collect information about how their services are used, what their customers want to do with it and collecting that data and trying to figure out how to use AI and machine learning to better predict what their customers will need. So, it really varies by industry, but it’s the software tool sets that are out there to help them solve their business problems through data, but also the infrastructure that they’re going to need to be able to run things like smart factories with robots that are connected through wireless technologies. Feeding data back through sensors to their applications, which may not be located on-site. How do you run and operate those applications? How do you connect it all together and make it work seamlessly? Those are some of the things we’re seeing.

Laurel: And it’s a very complex issue for sure. So, speaking of robots, there’s always this discussion about automation in the work that robots can do instead of people, specifically those “tedious tasks,” that allow humans to do more creative work. What kind of opportunities do you see with robotics and automation?

Andrew: Oh, I see quite a bit. That’s a way for businesses to become more efficient, produce a better quality product, have a safer environment. Going back to that smart factory example, we’re talking with customers who are trying to figure out, how do they take advantage of the advancements in robotics and how do they build out the infrastructure? One of things that we found is that customers need help with deploying and managing those applications. They need help with the connectivity of those robots, to the network. They need to ensure that the infrastructure that’s supporting them can support the real-time processing. That’s so important in these robotics applications and looking for somebody who can help them design these solutions end-to-end from their enterprise locations where the factory is through the edge to the centralized cloud is something that we’re in a good position to help them with and has been a more recurring conversation as those enterprises try to figure out how to take advantage of the automation that robotics provides.

Laurel: Yeah, speaking of that competitive advantage, where are you seeing it? Smart factories and those edge devices? Are there any unexpected places that you’re starting to see that advantage come through?

Andrew: Yes. There are. There are some things that I think are less obvious. One of our customers is a retail food chain, and you wouldn’t think that these technologies and the applications, the processing of data would be as important as it is. When you drive up to a restaurant, you want to go through the drive-through and get something. And you see the line wrapping around the building. There are certain restaurants where you look at that and you say, “Oh, that line is going to take me too long, but there are other restaurants where you look at it,” you say, “Yeah, that line does wrap around the building, but I know from my experience that I can get through that line in just a few minutes.” The fact that those restaurants run an efficient line like that, it’s not by accident, it’s not by necessarily just hard work with the employees, although they do work hard. It’s because the applications that they’re using have created a more efficient operation, whether that’s automation of the food preparation inside, how they collect the orders from customers, how they process the orders, the process that it allows them to operate as a business. So, it is affecting every parts of the business. Even those that you wouldn’t think are highly dependent upon data, highly dependent upon applications, like a retail food establishment. Their business success is becoming increasingly more dependent on the things that are enabled by the fourth industrial revolution.

Laurel: That’s really interesting because when you think about just that one example, there are so many edges there, right? And that doesn’t even go into supply chain and efficiency across the entire retail chain, across a certain geographic area. When we think about this kind of real-time response rate, yes we have this example in a retail food chain, but why is it so important? Why is real-time processing that key component to the fourth industrial revolution?

Andrew: I think there’s a couple of reasons why. One is that the lifetime of data in many cases has a very short useful life. And whether it’s that robotics example or other examples like smart energy grids, you’ve got sensors out there. Those sensors are collecting information. The applications that are being written to react to those sensors are being written for real-time response. Whether it’s in going back to the robotics example. When a robot sensors something and sends that sensor data back to the application, which may be on-site, it may be in some edge compute location, the speed at which that data can be collected, transported to the application, analyzed, and a response generated, directly affects the speed at which that device can operate. And so the ability to manage that data process, that data in real time is critical for those types of applications. When you’re controlling something like an energy grid, similar thing. You want to be able to detect something and react to it in near real time. Other examples of safety examples, where you’ve got video processing managing the movement of something around a campus. The ability to see something in the camera sense it, detect ,and react to it is critical for safety. So we’re seeing a lot of applications that their dependency on fast processing of data is becoming very important to them.

Another reason for real time is the amount of data being generated out there is just huge. And that data is moving quickly and you don’t have necessarily to store it over a long period of time. And as that data is coming in, you want to be able to process it as quickly as you can, extract whatever value you can out of it, and then dispose of that data. And so you don’t want to get behind in that processing and the ability to handle it in real time is also important.

Laurel: Yeah. Kind of focusing on that sense, detect, and react that of course has a lot to do with the security as well. So the attack surface of what enterprises are looking at now is growing, right? So it’s every device, every network connection, every point. How is security tackled and how is this a priority for businesses?

Andrew: Yeah, this is a really interesting problem, I think. Years ago, an enterprise would build a private network and they would protect it largely with perimeter based security. You make sure that data or people getting into that network are the people and data that you want there. And you could protect a lot using a perimeter model like that. As applications distribute, as they become available on the public internet, that perimeter based security is not the only thing that you can rely on. You have to think about security at every layer. And the layers that I think you have to worry about today is your network.

One, operating system, application security and your data security. From a network perspective, you want to ensure that you’re operating on a network that is inherently secure. One of the things that we do at Lumen to help with that is we have a group that we call Black Lotus Labs. It’s a research group inside the company and their job is to analyze data available through the internet. Through analyzing internet traffic patterns and detecting malicious actors out there, and then build that protection into our networking and enterprise security products. By doing that, we can make the network inherently more secure at the operating system level and application level. You need to make sure that you’re continually patching. That you’re understanding what exposures might exist in that operating system that’s running your applications and the applications themselves. And ensuring that you’re continuing to close any gaps that are found. And as data becomes more available, as we’re extracting more and more valuable information about our customers and users using that data analytics, data privacy and security are becoming even more important. And so, use of data encryption where appropriate, ensuring that you have the right data security and controls in place is also critically important. So yeah, we’ve changed quite a bit from a perimeter model to one where you need to think about it at every layer of the network and layer of your application.

Laurel: And that makes sense as everything becomes much more integrated and like you said, the data at every layer demands that sort of response. So when I’m thinking about customers, that’s a broad category. And Lumen obviously is a bit behind the scenes to their customers’ customers, but still very important. You need to care about how everyone is using the network devices. And how do you instill that curiosity into your organization where you look out and you are responsible for the experiences of many different people and many different applications. And it’s hard to, I guess, sometimes square what a smart factory does with a food retail outlet, but at the same time, you’re still reliably giving them that network connectivity securely, quickly to allow them to do what they need to do.

Andrew: Well, I think you hit on it there. Even though it’s our customers’ customers that have a lot of the experience that we’re trying to drive, we really do have a direct effect on that. As you outlined, it’s the network experience. We provide a lot of the underlying infrastructure and the performance of our network directly affects those end customers’ experience. So, that’s really important. How secure we make our network, how secure we make our infrastructure also directly affects those end customers. So, we try to instill in our employees, in our products and services, that recognition that we are here to create a great customer experience for our customers and indirectly to their customers. And I think we do a good job of that. I think everybody recognizes how critical the services are that we perform and provide and that our customers rely on us.

Laurel: Absolutely. So one last question, as an engineer yourself, we’ve touched on so many different aspects and we could easily talk for days about certain parts of this conversation, especially security, but what are you most excited about or curious and what gets you just really happy to read the news, to get going, to do the hard work that really helps companies do those amazing things?

Andrew: Well, I get excited about technology being an engineer. There’s so much that we can help our customers do to improve their businesses but improve society overall. I look at that technology as being a real tool that we can make available to our customers to make things better. And it’s really fun for me to be involved in the development of the technologies that empower them to take advantage of this fourth industrial revolution. One of the ones that gets me up on a daily basis recently is the developments around edge and edge compute and supporting these applications that are becoming more performance sensitive. How do we build and manage the infrastructure that lets those applications operate with a high degree of performance so that they can provide that real-time feedback to our customers and real time improvement?

So, it’s pretty exciting that the edge compute part of what we’re building is relatively new. The conversation’s been around in the industry for a couple of years, but it’s now becoming real and we’re moving from that hype stage into reality and making it available for our customers. And that’s exciting when you see something become real like this.

Laurel: It is. Anything to get away from the hype and into the reality. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me today in what has been just a fantastic conversation on the Business Lab.


Andrew: Thank you very much. Enjoyed it.

Laurel: That was Andrew Dugan, who is the chief technology officer for Lumen, who I spoke with from Cambridge, Massachusetts, the home of MIT and MIT Technology Review, overlooking the Charles River. That’s it for this episode of Business Lab. I’m your host, Laurel Ruma. I’m the Director of Insights, the custom publishing division of MIT Technology Review. We were founded in 1899 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And you can find us in print, on the web and at dozens of events each year around the world. For more information about us and the show, please check out our website at technologyreview.com.

This show is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you’ll take a moment to rate and review us. Business Lab is a production of MIT Technology Review. This episode was produced by Collective Next. Thanks for listening.

MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor has invested billions in Bitcoin. Can we trust him—or the cryptocurrency’s skyrocketing value?

Times are bad, which means, by the perverse logic of American capitalism, stock markets and speculative investments are flourishing. Bitcoin, the digital currency whose value is pegged to nothing but the amount its adherents are willing to pay for it, is at an all-time high, approaching $29,000 at the end of 2020.

For those who held on and defended Bitcoin during its fallow periods, its time seems to have finally come, particularly as PayPal promises to allow customers to start buying and selling cryptocurrencies next year.

Every bull market has its whales, and for Bitcoin of late the biggest whale has been Michael Saylor, the CEO of MicroStrategy, a Virginia-based enterprise software company.

Saylor, who controls a majority of his company’s voting shares, has put more than $1.2 billion of MicroStrategy funds into Bitcoin, much of it in just the last month.

The company now calls Bitcoin its “primary treasury reserve asset.” Saylor’s bold positioning (raising debt offerings explicitly to buy Bitcoin) and unapologetic attitude (he’s become a regular on the cryptocurrency talk circuit) have made him a darling of crypto-loving Redditors and tech executives inspired by his example. (A Canadian augmented reality company recently announced, as part of its capital diversification strategy, that it was putting $2 million into Bitcoin, which the CEO called a “digital version of gold.”)

The strategy has been more than good for Saylor, who claims to personally own nearly 18,000 Bitcoin, and for MicroStrategy, whose stock has risen from about $92 in mid-March to nearly $400 at the end of the year. The price of Bitcoin rose more than $10,000 in December alone.

Saylor has done something unusual, turning his unremarkable software company into more like a Bitcoin investment vehicle that happens to make software. (Saylor, while bombastic on Twitter about his venture, has denied that his company’s huge cryptocurrency holdings qualify it as an exchange-traded fund, or ETF, which carries with it certain regulatory burdens.)

Other companies have bought Bitcoin: The payments company Square, which is helmed by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, bought $50 million worth in October 2020. But none have made such a project of it, orienting the company around accumulating a chaotic currency that also happens to be an environmental catastrophe.

But whatever you think of Bitcoin, Michael Saylor’s own story is more complicated, calling into question what we should expect from Bitcoin’s latest rally.

After founding MicroStrategy in 1989, Saylor was part of an alleged accounting scheme that vastly overstated the company’s earnings, making a money-losing, publicly traded corporation look profitable. In 2000, Saylor, two other MicroStrategy executives, and the company itself paid a total of $11 million in a settlement with the SEC; Saylor, who personally signed off on the fraudulent earnings reports, paid $8.2 million of that.

The charges were settled with no one admitting any wrongdoing. Somehow, Saylor has held onto his role at MicroStrategy over the last 20 years, reportedly becoming one of the richest people in the capital region. The company’s revenue has declined every year since 2014.

A critic of Covid-19 lockdown measures, Saylor exhibits many of the libertarian-inflected tendencies of the Bitcoin true believer. For him and his ilk, Bitcoin is an asset in which funds may be parked (and hopefully grow in value) while mostly outside the reach of the government-managed economic system.

Like goldbugs, they have a distrust of federal authority and think that the economic lesson of the Covid-19 crisis is that scarcity reigns—in fact, should reign—and that central banks, by simply printing money through quantitative easing and relief efforts like the Cares Act, are risking inflation and cheapening the value of the dollar.

The virtue of Bitcoin is that it’s limited—according to the code underpinning the cryptocurrency, only 21 million Bitcoin will ever be “minted,” with about 18.5 million already in circulation—so better to get in as soon as possible.

Even Saylor, who has also called Bitcoin “digital gold,” has his regrets about not buying more earlier: “I wish I knew then what I know now,” he told a journalist in September.Saylor described his company’s decision as a way of dodging inflation, taxes, and fees, and putting extra capital to more productive use.

He says that the company will hold onto its Bitcoin for 100 years. But a company struggling to increase revenue that chooses to put its cash reserves into a speculative digital cryptocurrency is reason enough to take pause. Saylor and MicroStrategy’s history of alleged fraud is another one.

The truth is that Bitcoin, unlike gold, is worthless.* It doesn’t do anything; it has no inherent value and can’t be converted to some other purpose. It’s not backed by a government, making it most useful to transnational crime networks, intelligence agencies, and anyone else looking to keep some assets off the books.

The electricity cost of creating, or “mining,” a Bitcoin—which requires accessing the Bitcoin network and making a complicated mathematical calculation that requires tremendous computer power—makes it indefensible. (The more Bitcoin that are mined, the more complicated the calculations become.)

Bitcoin works, if at all, because a band of rich speculators has decided it should. Institutional investors are pouring billions into Bitcoin, which some analysts think account for much of its movement in recent months.

MicroStrategy itself counts the finance giant BlackRock as its biggest outside shareholder. (Saylor has said that he thinks much Bitcoin trading data is inaccurate.)

But just because Bitcoin is volatile and potentially worthless doesn’t mean you can’t make money from it. “Buy low, sell high” applies as easily to Bitcoin as it does to MicroStrategy’s stock (which Citigroup downgraded to a “sell” rating in response to the cryptocurrency purchases).

On Monday, MicroStrategy transferred 50,000 shares of Class A company stock to Alcantara LLC, of which Saylor is the sole owner.

Many executives exercise stock options through private investment vehicles—and Saylor reportedly controls another company called Aeromar Management Co. LLC—but there is something strange about the move.

According to SEC filings, until just a few days ago Alcantara hadn’t received any MicroStrategy stock, or any other securities, since March 2012. Whatever Saylor is up to, Bitcoin isn’t the only thing he’s changed his mind about.

Imagine if your manager could know whether you actually paid attention in your last Zoom meeting. Or, imagine if you could prepare your next presentation using only your thoughts.

These scenarios might soon become a reality thanks to the development of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs).

To put it in the simplest terms, think of a BCI as a bridge between your brain and an external device.

As of today, we mostly rely on electroencephalography (EEG) — a collection of methods for monitoring the electrical activity of the brain — to do this. But, that’s changing.

By leveraging multiple sensors and complex algorithms, it’s now becoming possible to analyze brain signals and extract relevant brain patterns. Brain activity can then be recorded by a non-invasive device — no surgical intervention needed.

 In fact, the majority of existing and mainstream BCIs are non-invasive, such as wearable headbands and earbuds.

The development of BCI technology was initially focused on helping paralyzed people control assistive devices using their thoughts. But new use cases are being identified all the time.

For example, BCIs can now be used as a neurofeedback training tool to improve cognitive performance. I expect to see a growing number of professionals leveraging BCI tools to improve their performance at work.

For example, your BCI could detect that your attention level is too low compared with the importance of a given meeting or task and trigger an alert. It could also adapt the lighting of your office based on how stressed you are, or prevent you from using your company car if drowsiness is detected.

A Toronto-based startup called “Muse” has developed a sensing headband that gives real-time information about what’s going on in your brain.

As you can imagine, the startup already has a “Corporate Wellness Program” to “help your employees lower stress, increase resilience, and improve their engagement.” Other headbands on the market also use proprietary sensors to detect brain signals and leverage machine learning algorithms to provide insights into the engagement levels of users/workers.

They can track whether someone is focused or distracted. Theoretically, this could help individuals in their day-to-day tasks, by evaluating which tasks should be tackled first based on your attention level. But, there’s also huge potential for abuse (more on this below).

This ability to monitor (and potentially control) attention levels creates new possibilities for managers. For example, companies could have access to a specific “BCI HR dashboard” in which all employees’ brain data would be displayed, in real-time.

Are we going to see supervisors monitoring the attention levels of their colleagues?

At the end of each annual performance review, are we going to also analyze and compare attention levels thanks to our BCIs? Your brain information may be of interest to your employers, allowing them to keep an eye on how focused you are, and allowing them to adapt employees’ workloads accordingly.

Again, there is much potential for abuse.I also expect more professional events to leverage BCIs in the near future. Indeed, research has shown that brain data can help predict which booths and activities people would visit.

In the future, are we going to need BCIs to participate in business events?Beyond the analysis of brain signals, some companies are already working on solutions that can actually modulate your brain activity.

 Researchers at Columbia University have shown how neurofeedback using an EEG-based BCI could be used to affect alertness and to improve subjects’ performance in a cognitively-demanding task.

Despite these promising results, some experts, such as Theodore Zanto, a director of the UCSF neuroscience program, say that while BCIs based on EEG scans can determine a user’s attention levels, they are as of yet still incapable of differentiating what the user is actually focused on. 

In a January, 2019 Medium article, he says, “I haven’t seen any data indicating you can dissociate if someone is paying attention to the teacher or their phone or just their own internal thoughts and daydreaming.

” Moreover, I realized through my own work that BCIs are also affected by user’s specific characteristics, such as gender, age, and lifestyle. Indeed, my team and I are trying to determine how brain activity can affect an athlete’s performance.

According to some research, “psychological factors including attention, memory load, fatigue, and competing cognitive processes, as well as users’ basic characteristics such as lifestyle, gender, and age, influence instantaneous brain dynamics.

” Experts believe that around “15-30% of individuals are inherently not able to produce brain signals robust enough to operate a BCI.” Obviously, this situation can lead to wrong results and ultimately bad decisions from companies. BCIs still have a long way to go, and much improvement is needed.

Another use case for BCIs at work is related to the ways we interact with machines and devices. Indeed, I predict that in the future, the most “dangerous” jobs will require the use of BCIs.

For example, some BCI companies have already used EEG to analyze signals of drowsy driving. Companies with workers who operate dangerous machinery may require their workers to be monitored in the same ways. I believe that someday, it will be mandatory for pilots and surgeons to wear a BCI while working.

The idea of humans interacting with devices is a pillar of BCIs, as BCI technology provides direct communication between the brain and external devices.

In the next few years, we might be able to control our PowerPoint presentation or Excel files using only our brains. Some prototypes can translate brain activity into text or instructions for a computer, and in theory, as the technology improves, we’ll see people using BCIs to write memos or reports at work.

We could also imagine a work environment that adapts automatically to your stress level or thoughts. BCIs can detect the mental state of a worker and adjust nearby devices accordingly (smart home utilization).

Concretely, when stressed, your headband could send information (using Bluetooth) to your computer so that it starts playing your “calm” playlist, or your Slack can turn to “do not disturb” mode while your next appointment can be automatically cancelled.

Obviously, this scenario raises questions about privacy. Would you feel comfortable knowing that others can know precisely how you feel mentally? What if this information could be used against you? What if this data could be modified by someone else without your approval? 

Researchers are also experimenting with “passthoughts” as an alternative to passwords. Soon, we might log into our various devices and platforms using our thoughts. As described in this IEEE Spectrum article, “When we perform mental tasks like picturing a shape or singing a song in our heads, our brains generate unique neuronal electrical signals.

A billion people could mentally hum the same song and no two brain-wave patterns generated by that task would be alike.

An electroencephalograph (EEG) would read those brain waves using noninvasive electrodes that record the signals. The unique patterns can be used like a password or biometric identification.”

As you can imagine, there are myriad ethical questions and concerns surrounding the use of BCI technology in the workplace. Companies who opt to use BCI technology can face massive backlash from employees, not to mention from the public.

When it comes to collecting brain data, the potential for abuse is frightening: Even when used with the best of intentions, companies could risk becoming overly dependent on using brain data to evaluate, monitor, and train employees, and there are risks associated with that.

BCIs aren’t a perfect technology — there’s no telling what sort of mistakes or mishaps we’ll encounter as companies and individuals begin to use these devices in the real-world. What’s more, BCIs — like any technology — can be hacked. Hackers can access a BCI headband and create/send manipulated EEG data.

A hacker could also intercept and alter all data transmitted by your BCI. It’s possible that a hacker could steal your “passthoughts” user credentials and interact with your devices (laptop, car, etc.). These risks can directly impact our physical integrity.

Brain data could also be stolen to be used against you for extortion purposes. The potential for serious abuse is significant. When companies begin to use and analyze brain data, how will they prioritize privacy and data security and meet the industry’s top standards for protecting employee data?

Who will ultimately own the data that’s collected? And what are employees’ rights when their companies begin to roll out these technologies? Needless to say, the technology is well ahead of the policies and regulations that would need to be put in place.

Still, the technology is slowly moving into the mass market. A growing number of startups and large tech firms are working on safer, more accurate, and cheaper BCIs.

I expect to see business leaders embracing this technology and trying to leverage brain data to achieve better work efficiency and greater safety.

I recommend that business leaders start building a BCI strategy as soon as possible to address the potential risks and benefits.

Alexandre Gonfalonieri is the Head of Innovation at DNA Global Analytics and writes about AI and BCI. Find him on Twitter @AGonfalonieri.

Galileo viewed nature as a book written in the language of mathematics and decipherable through physics. His metaphor may have been a stretch for his milieu, but not for ours. Ours is a world of digits that must be read through computer science.

It is a world in which artificial-intelligence (AI) applications perform many tasks better than we can. Like fish in water, digital technologies are our infosphere’s true natives, while we analog organisms try to adapt to a new habitat, one that has come to include a mix of analog and digital components.

We are sharing the infosphere with artificial agents that are increasingly smart, autonomous, and even social. Some of these agents are already right in front of us, and others are discernible on the horizon, while later generations are unforeseeable. And the most profound implication of this epochal change may be that we are most likely only at the beginning of it.

The AI agents that have already arrived come in soft forms, such as apps, web bots, algorithms, and software of all kinds; and hard forms, such as robots, driverless cars, smart watches, and other gadgets.

They are replacing even white-collar workers, and performing functions that, just a few years ago, were considered off-limits for technological disruption: cataloguing images, translating documents, interpreting radiographs, flying drones, extracting new information from huge data sets, and so forth.

Digital technologies and automation have been replacing workers in agriculture and manufacturing for decades; now they are coming to the services sector.

More old jobs will continue to disappear, and while we can only guess at the scale of the coming disruption, we should assume that it will be profound. Any job in which people serve as an interface – between, say, a GPS and a car, documents in different languages, ingredients and a finished dish, or symptoms and a corresponding disease – is now at risk.



Image: CB Insights

But, at the same time, new jobs will appear, because we will need new interfaces between automated services, websites, AI applications, and so forth. Someone will need to ensure that the AI service’s translations are accurate and reliable.

What’s more, many tasks will not be cost-effective for AI applications. For example, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program claims to give its customers “access to more than 500,000 workers from 190 countries,” and is marketed as a form of “artificial artificial intelligence.”

But as the repetition indicates, the human “Turks” are performing brainless tasks, and being paid pennies.These workers are in no position to turn down a job.

The risk is that AI will only continue to polarize our societies – between haves and never-will-haves – if we do not manage its effects. It is not hard to imagine a future social hierarchy that places a few patricians above both the machines and a massive new underclass of plebs.

Meanwhile, as jobs go, so will tax revenues; and it is unlikely that the companies profiting from AI will willingly step in to support adequate social-welfare programs for their former employees.

Instead, we will have to do something to make companies pay more, perhaps with a “robo-tax” on AI applications. We should also consider legislation and regulations to keep certain jobs “human.” Indeed, such measures are also why driverless trains are still rare, despite being more manageable than driverless taxis or buses.

Still, not all of AI’s implications for the future are so obvious. Some old jobs will survive, even when a machine is doing most of the work: a gardener who delegates cutting the grass to a “smart” lawnmower will simply have more time to focus on other things, such as landscape design.

At the same time, other tasks will be delegated back to us to perform (for free) as users, such as in the self-checkout lane at the supermarket.

Another source of uncertainty concerns the point at which AI is no longer controlled by a guild of technicians and managers. What will happen when AI becomes “democratized” and is available to billions of people on their smartphones or some other device?

What’s more, many tasks will not be cost-effective for AI applications. For example, Amazon’s Mechanical Turk program claims to give its customers “access to more than 500,000 workers from 190 countries,” and is marketed as a form of “artificial artificial intelligence.

” But as the repetition indicates, the human “Turks” are performing brainless tasks, and being paid pennies.

These workers are in no position to turn down a job. The risk is that AI will only continue to polarize our societies – between haves and never-will-haves – if we do not manage its effects. It is not hard to imagine a future social hierarchy that places a few patricians above both the machines and a massive new underclass of plebs.

Meanwhile, as jobs go, so will tax revenues; and it is unlikely that the companies profiting from AI will willingly step in to support adequate social-welfare programs for their former employees.

Instead, we will have to do something to make companies pay more, perhaps with a “robo-tax” on AI applications. We should also consider legislation and regulations to keep certain jobs “human.” Indeed, such measures are also why driverless trains are still rare, despite being more manageable than driverless taxis or buses.

Still, not all of AI’s implications for the future are so obvious. Some old jobs will survive, even when a machine is doing most of the work: a gardener who delegates cutting the grass to a “smart” lawnmower will simply have more time to focus on other things, such as landscape design.

At the same time, other tasks will be delegated back to us to perform (for free) as users, such as in the self-checkout lane at the supermarket.

Another source of uncertainty concerns the point at which AI is no longer controlled by a guild of technicians and managers. What will happen when AI becomes “democratized” and is available to billions of people on their smartphones or some other device?

All of these profound transformations oblige us to reflect seriously on who we are, could be, and would like to become. AI will challenge the exalted status we have conferred on our species.

While I do not think that we are wrong to consider ourselves exceptional, I suspect that AI will help us identify the irreproducible, strictly human elements of our existence, and make us realize that we are exceptional only insofar as we are successfully dysfunctional.

In the great software of the universe, we will remain a beautiful bug, and AI will increasingly become a normal feature.

At the recent Blockchain LIVE 2019 hosted annually in London, I had the pleasure of giving a talk on Next Generation Infrastructure: Building a Future for Smart Cities. 

What exactly is a “smart city?” 

The term refers to an overall blueprint for city designs of the future. Already half the world’s population lives in a city, which is expected to grow to sixty-five percent in the next five years. Tackling that growth takes more than just simple urban planning.

The goal of smart cities is to incorporate technology as an infrastructure to alleviate many of these complexities. Green energy, forms of transportation, water and pollution management, universal identification (ID), wireless Internet systems, and promotion of local commerce are examples of current of smart city initiatives.

The current technology needs of smart cities are served by what is called the “Internet of Things,” a term used to describe an overall network of devices with embedded unique identifiers. Example use cases for these devices include payment for items, and traffic management.

In London, a traffic management system known as SCOOT optimises green light time at traffic intersections by feeding back magnetometer and inductive loop data to a supercomputer, which can coordinate traffic lights across the city to improve traffic throughout.

Barcelona saved €75 million of city funds and created 47,000 new jobs in the smart technology sector by implementing a network of fiber optics throughout the city, providing free high-speed Wi-Fi that supports the IoT and further linking to the integration of smart water, lighting and parking management.

The Netherlands has tested the use of IoT-based infrastructure in Amsterdam, where traffic flow, energy usage and public safety are monitored and adjusted based on real-time data.

Meanwhile, in the United States, major cities like Boston and Baltimore have deployed smart trashcans that relay how full they are and determine the most efficient pick-up route for sanitation workers.

In 2015 India became one of the pioneers to openly enact a smart city mission across 12 of its cities. As governments across the world start to implement these initiatives, blockchain can provide the infrastructure necessary for transaction management.

Transparency and security core fundamentals of blockchain are two very important elements in a smart city implementation.Today, there are over a dozen smart cities, with less than a quarter that have an active large scale implementation of the use blockchain or distributed ledger technology.

The city of Dubai has already planned to become the first blockchain powered smart city by 2021 and the country of Estonia has been using variations of blockchain and distributed ledger technology to keep track of citizens since 2012.

Leading smart city developers like Hancom are already supplying products and services from core hardwares of IOT to actual Smart City development. Gapyeong Malang Malang Smart Ecosystem a 470 acre smart city development project is just one the many initiatives under the Hancom Group that will incorporate blockchain technology as the basis for smart city development.

The most recent project for the Group, is the development of the Atlanta based Augury Square. The Augury Square is a 30-acre project that will incorporate blockchain and the use of cryptocurrency accelerating the concept of digital currency usage into daily life activities for its residents.

Example use cases that will improve resident life across cities when implemented with blockchain are without bounds. Information captured and kept in a cloud a based infrastructure utilized by a smart city can be encoded through a blockchain system to ensure the privacy and security of data. 

The use of blockchain for identification in a smart city can assist with proof of citizenship, voting for public office, and tax data. In addition to security and fraud measures, the elimination of paperwork under such a system connects right with the smart city initiative to manage and reduce pollution and waste.

Other typical services include the use of  internet sensors to detect road maintenance or other general repairs, connection of home utilities and rent to the blockchain and well as healthcare services.

Blockchain healthcare networks which store protected health data information can be useful when considering emergency situations that involve individuals in a crisis, proving beneficial to certified first responders (MFS) in accessing pertinent medical information.

What’s most important to a smart city, however, is integration. None of the services mentioned above exist in a vacuum; they need to be put into a single system.

Blockchain provides the technology to unite them into a single system that can track all aspects combined.The Smart City Expo will take place in Barcelona, Spain, in November 2019. It aims to discuss the growing urbanization of the world with attributes of blockchain.




Chrissa McFarlane

Named as one of the top women, “leaving their mark on the MedTech field in health IT,” by Becker’s Hospital Review, Chrissa McFarlane is the Founder and CEO of Patiento... Read More

A team of researchers in Israel has produced the world’s first 3D print of a heart made with human tissue, calling the feat “a major medical breakthrough.”The 3D print was realised by scientists at Tel Aviv University, who hope to one day create hearts and patches suitable for human transplant.

“At this stage, our 3D heart is small, the size of a rabbit’s heart,” explained Professor Dvir. “But larger human hearts require the same technology.


It was the first time an entire human heart with cells and blood vessels had been printed successfully, according to Tal Dvir, who led the project.

“People have managed to 3D-print the structure of a heart in the past, but not with cells or with blood vessels,” he added.Researchers took a biopsy of fatty tissue from patients, which they used to develop the ink needed for the 3D print.

Using the patient’s tissue reduces the risk of an implant being rejected, Dvir said. The scientists unveiled their findings on Monday, which were published in the peer-reviewed journal Advanced Science.They will now focus on developing and teaching the printed hearts to “behave” like hearts, Dvir said.

“The cells need to form a pumping ability. They can currently contract, but we need them to work together,” he added. “Maybe, in ten years, there will be organ printers in the finest hospitals around the world, and these procedures will be conducted routinely.”

Technologies such as 5G, IoT sensors and platforms, edge computing, AI and analytics, robotics, blockchain, additive manufacturing and virtual/augmented reality are coalescing into a fertile environment for the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), which is set to usher in what's often described as the Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0.


Here's how analyst firm IoT Analytics sees the relationship between the broader IoT and the IIoT/Industry 4.0 sector:

Special Report: The Rise of Industrial IoT (free PDF)

This ebook, based on the latest ZDNet / TechRepublic special feature, explores how infrastructure around the world is being linked together via sensors, machine learning and analytics.

Read More


In this brave new world, supply chains will have end-to-end transparency thanks to sensors, data networks and analytics capabilities at key points. All other things (trade barriers, for example) being equal, parts and raw materials will arrive just in time at highly automated factories, and the fate of the resulting products will be tracked throughout their lifetimes to eventual recycling.

Similarly, 'smart farms' will combine emerging IIoT-related technologies into integrated high-resolution crop production systems based on robotics, big data and analytics.

As a result, businesses deploying IIoT systems will see increased operational efficiency, will reduce their environmental impact, and will have better information on which to base their future plans.

That's the theory anyway, but how are things progressing in practice? This guide examines available information on IIoT adoption, market size estimates, startup activity and IIoT platforms. See the rest of ZDNet's special report for more detail on other important areas, including security.

Who is deploying IIoT solutions?

The State of the Industrial Internet of Things (PTC)





PTC is a leading IIoT software platform provider, and this research, published in February 2018, was based on data gathered from the company's customer base.


The Americas led the way on IIoT adoption in PTC's survey (45%), followed by EMEA (33%) and Asia Pacific (22%). The leading sectors deploying IIoT solutions were industrial products (25%) followed by electronics & high-tech (23%) and automotive (13%):

Image: PTC"

These industries lead the IoT charge because they have complex manufacturing and operational processes, along with high-capital equipment, that can benefit greatly from IoT solutions and data-driven insights that drive more sustainable, resilient, and efficient processes," the report said.

The majority of IIoT-adopting companies were larger organisations (58% had revenues over $500 million), although a third (31%) were smaller, presumably nimbler, companies with revenues of less than $100m.IIoT use cases in PTC's survey encompassed manufacturing/operations, service, product design and IT:

Image: PTC

"The most predominant use cases employ the IoT for manufacturing operational intelligence and operational asset monitoring. These smart, connected capabilities help product manufacturers increase throughput, improve production quality, and reduce manufacturing costs," the report said.

IIoT deployments generate vast amounts of data, and decisions need to be made about where best to store and analyse that data. PTC's report noted that factories and hospitals, for example, might favour on-premises deployments due to the need for security and low-latency response, while for smart cities, transportation or oil-and-gas the scalability of the cloud could win the day. 

At the time of PTC's survey, on-premises deployments outnumbered cloud deployments (62% versus 38%).In conclusion, PTC stated that "IoT is no longer a wait and see technology; companies must act now or risk being left behind," noting that 83 percent of adopters in its survey planned to move their deployments from proof-of-concept to full-scale production environments within 12 months.

Industrial IoT on Land and at Sea (Inmarsat)




Image: InmarsatInmarsat's 2018 research looked at the adoption of the IIoT in the agriculture, energy, maritime, mining and transport sectors (with an emphasis, naturally, on the role of satellite connectivity as an enabling technology).

Market researchers Vanson Bourne interviewed 750 respondents with decision-making or influencing responsibilities for IIoT initiatives in their organisations, which covered the Americas, EMEA and APAC, and had at least 500 employees. (An exception was the maritime sector, where 45 percent of organisations had less than 500 employees.) Here are the headline findings.




Data: Inmarsat / Chart: ZD


NetNearly half (46%) of businesses reported either fully deploying (21%) or trialling (25%) IIoT solutions, with the main drivers being resource efficiency, improving health & safety and monitoring environmental change.

The main barrier to IIoT adoption was skills, followed by a lack of turnkey/off-the-shelf solutions, higher-than-expected costs, and security. Specific IIoT-related skills identified as lacking were security (56%), analytical/data science (48%) and tech support (42%), with decision-making, management, planning, database management and customer service also mentioned in dispatches.

On the security front, nearly two-thirds (65%) of respondents recognised that their IIoT defences should be stronger, with external cyber-attacks, poor network security and misuse of data by employees being the biggest challenges.

Data is the key to IIoT-based transformation, and Inmarsat's respondents flagged up cost-saving and efficiency opportunities, productivity monitoring and health-and-safety improvements as current data-related concerns. Going forward, better decision-making, increased internal data visibility and greater supply-chain insights were seen as important potential benefits.


Unsurprisingly, the maritime sector placed the most importance on satellite communications (Inmarsat's core business) in their IIoT deployments. RFID and Bluetooth LE headed up the list of other connectivity technologies used by survey respondents.

A quarter of Inmarsat's respondents expected to spend more than 10 percent of their IT budgets on IIoT solutions over the next three years, and overall were expecting good returns on their investments: "a 10 percent reduction in costs and a five per cent lift in turnovers expected at the end of this period, and more by 2023," the report said.


Data: Inmarsat / Chart: ZD

NetFinally, to assess the level of readiness for IIoT solutions, Inmarsat scored survey respondents on six key areas (adoption, security, connectivity, skills, data and investment/ROI) and divided them into categories (laggards, starters, progressives and leaders). On this basis, the maritime and transport sectors are leading the way on IIoT, with mining bringing up the rear:



Data: Inmarsat / Chart: ZDNet

Inmarsat has recently announced a collaboration agreement with Microsoft combining the former's satellite communications network with the latter's cloud-based Azure IoT Centralplatform. 

Data generated by IIoT infrastructure, wherever it may be located, will be transferred via satellite to Azure IoT Central for analysis. This tie-up will focus initially on IIoT solutions for the agriculture, mining, transportation and logistics sectors, says Inmarsat.

The IIoT market

Given the number of core and supporting technologies in the IIoT, and the need for manufacturing businesses of all sizes to keep up with digital transformation or fall behind their competitors, it's no surprise to find that analysts are forecasting impressive (if somewhat varying) growth for this market over the next few years:

Source Current market size2023 forecastCAGRCoverageHighlights

Research & Markets (

May 2018) $214bn10 industries, 10 technologies, 4 revenue sources, 5 regional and 22 national markets, offering 2016-2017 estimates and 2018-2023 forecasts and analyses for each The major winners might be those that control Industry 4.0 Platforms -- software layers that syndicate various devices, information and services, on top of which other firms can build their own offerings

Markets & Markets

(June 2018) $64bn (2018) 
$91.4bn 7.34% 

Devices & technology (sensor, RFID, industrial robotics, DCS, condition monitoring, smart meter, camera system, networking technology), software (PLM, MES, SCADA), verticals and geographies IIoT market for smart beacons technology to grow at a high rate between 2018 and 2023;

Manufacturing vertical to hold largest share of IIoT market in 2018; The IIoT market for the agriculture vertical is likely to grow at the highest CAGR between 2018 and 2023; IIoT market in APAC to grow at highest rate during forecast period 

Zion Market Research

(July 2018) $145.8bn (2017) $232.1bn 8.06%

Components (sensors, industrial robotics, Distributed Control Systems [DCS], condition monitoring, camera systems, smart meters), software [Product Lifecycle Management [PLM] Systems, Manufacturing Execution System [MES], SCADA systems, distribution management systems), verticals (manufacturing, utilities, oil & gas, metals & mining, retail, healthcare, transportation & logistics) 

The camera system segment is expected to grow at highest CAGR in the forecasted period; In the software segment, the demand for distribution systems has increased over the period of time due to increasing use of distribution systems in transportation and logistics; 

The manufacturing sector is expected to witness moderate growth in the IIoT market due to the adoption of advanced robotics and cloud robotics in manufacturing practices  IoT Analytics

(November 2018) $64bn (2018) $310bn 37% 6 connected industry building blocks, 6 supporting technologies, 12 use cases, 7 regionsKey findings include 9 disruptive trends that have the potential to fundamentally change existing industrial network architectures, business models, and technology stacks.

Three of the nine disruptive trends relate to the traditional 5-layer automation pyramid. One such trend is for I/O and PLC hardware to bypass the traditional automation pyramid and instead connect to the cloud either directly or via industrial gateways IDC (January 2019) $329bn (2019)

The Worldwide Semiannual Internet of Things Spending Guide forecasts IoT spending for 14 technology categories and 82 named use cases across 20 industries in nine regions and 53 countries 

The industries that are forecast to spend the most on IoT solutions in 2019 are discrete manufacturing ($119 billion), process manufacturing ($78 billion), transportation ($71 billion), and utilities ($61 billion) Here's how the November 2018 report from IoT Analytics sees the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) market growing between 2017 and 2023:


Image: IoT Analytics

Among the 12 use cases identified by IoT Analytics, the largest in terms of market size will be Advanced Digital Product Development, while the biggest growth rates between 2018 and 2023 will be for Additive Production (i.e. industrial-scale 3D printing) and Augmented Operations:


Image: IoT AnalyticsIn a statement, Matthew Wopata, the report's main author and IoT Analytics' lead expert for Industrial IoT said:

"Advanced digital product development emerged as the largest use case for I4.0 technologies as companies are using additive manufacturing, AR/VR, and digital twin technologies to reduce product development costs and time to market. Other large use cases such as data-driven quality control, predictive maintenance, and data-driven asset/plant performance optimization will continue to grow in popularity as manufacturers use I4.0 technologies to improve their operational KPIs, such as OEE [Overall Equipment Effectiveness]. The leading vendors of I4.0 solutions are hyper-focused on customer pain points/use cases and ensure that the data-driven insights generated from I4.0 solutions lead to measurable improvements and tangible ROIs."

IIoT industry associations

There are a number of industry associations relevant to the IIoT, and on 31 January 2019 two of the leading bodies -- the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) and the OpenFog Consortium-- announced that they had united.

The IIC's goal is to accelerate the industrial internet in five areas: utilising existing and creating new use cases and testbeds for real-world applications; delivering best practices, reference architectures, case studies and standards requirements; influencing the development of global standards for internet and industrial systems; facilitating open forums to share and exchange real-world ideas, practices, lessons and insights; and building confidence around new and innovative approaches to security.

The OpenFog Consortium's raison d'etre is defined thus: "Our efforts will define an architecture of distributed computing, network, storage, control and resources that will support intelligence at the edge of IoT, including autonomous and self-aware machines, things, devices, and smart objects. OpenFog members will also identify and develop new operational models.

 Ultimately, our work will help to enable and drive the next generation of IoT."According to the IIC/OpenFog merger statement, "the organizations will work together under the IIC umbrella to drive the momentum of the industrial internet, including the development and promotion of industry guidance and best practices for fog and edge computing.

""This agreement brings together the two most important organizations shaping the Industrial Internet of Things. The combined organization offers greater influence to members, more clarity to the market, and a lower-risk path to the future for end users. 

We will be the center of gravity for the future of Industrial IoT systems across industry verticals," said Stan Schneider, CEO of Real-Time Innovations (RTI) and vice-chair of the IIC Steering Committee in a statement.

Other IIoT-related bodies (listed by IoT Anaytics) include: Plattform Industrie 4.0, Labs Network Industrie 4.0, OPC Foundation, Industrial Data Spaces Association, CyberValley of Baden Württemberg, Center for the Development and Application of Internet of Things Technologies, and Manufacturing USA.

IIoT platforms

The IIoT represents the convergence of operational technology (OT) and enterprise IT systems, the potential benefits being improved asset management and operational visibility. IIoT software platforms need to enable these benefits and interface with enterprise systems, and need to do so securely.

Gartner's first Magic Quadrant for Industrial IoT Platforms (May 2018) included the requirement that "the product must be available as both a cloud industrial IoT platform and an on-premises deployment". 

This raised eyebrows because several companies with "significant brand equity associated with IIoT" -- including Bosch, GE Digital, Microsoft, Schneider Electric and Siemens -- were excluded from consideration for lacking the on-premises component.

"Simply put, the culture of industrial engineers, while changing, places high trust in what they can touch and control," Gartner explained. "An on-premises deployment of an IIoT platform is the genesis of forming trust.

"Gartner also required vendors to "develop, market and sell IIoT platforms as asset-agnostic, horizontal middleware that is salable as a stand-alone offering", in order to "ensure broad availability and usefulness for industrial enterprises conducting due diligence". This also ruled out some large and important manufacturers.

All this helps to explain the somewhat sparse nature of Gartner's inaugural IIoT Magic Quadrant, and the fact that it's devoid of any entries in the Leaders and Challengers quadrants:


Image: Gartner

PTC, SAP and Hitachi were classified as Visionaries, while the remaining eight vendors -- some big names among them -- were seen as Niche Players.

For Gartner, PTC's strength is in its core applications for product lifecycle management (PLM), computer-aided design (CAD) and service lifecycle management (SLM). 

The company focuses on solutions for asset monitoring, predictive maintenance and operational excellence.SAP's Leonardo is a multi-cloud (AWS, Google, Microsoft) platform with a separate on-premises solution. 

According to Gartner, Leonardo is best suited to SAP customers seeking to combine IT/OT integration with SAP's IoT applications, asset intelligence network and legacy industry applications.

Hitachi Vantara's Lumada platform is best for industrial environments involving Hitachi equipment, says Gartner, where customers can leverage prebuilt functionality for edge device interaction and off-the-shelf 'solution cores' that address requirements such as industrial asset monitoring, maintenance, scheduling, quality, safety and productivity.

The IIoT platform market was examined in The Forrester Wave: Industrial IoT Software Platforms, Q3 2018, with somewhat different results. For Forrester, an IIoT software platform must do five things: (1) create the link between industrial machinery and digital systems; (2) protect IoT devices and data from attack; (3) control the provisioning, maintenance and operation of IoT devices; (4) transform data into timely, relevant insight and action; and (5) create applications and integrate with enterprise systems.

Where Forrester parts company with Gartner is in its judgement that 'the place to be' is the public cloud:

"Practical considerations about providing connectivity to remote locations, plus a general suspicion about the security, capability, and trustworthiness of startup-obsessed public cloud providers, led the early entrants in the industrial IoT space to invest in building their own networks of data centers. Those days are behind us. All of the evaluated vendors retain some ability to deploy in private data centers, but the direction of travel is clear: They, and their customers, are headed to the cloud."

Other changes since Forrester first evaluated IoT platforms in 2016 include: modern API-backed user interfaces; analytics, plus machine learning and AI, as a core component; increased data flows with other enterprise systems (ERP, CRM, service desk); digital twins, with augmented reality on the way; and solutions focused on use cases such as predictive maintenance.

Forrester included 15 vendors in its evaluation: Amazon Web Services, Atos, Bosch, C3 IoT, Cisco, GE Digital, Hitachi, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, PTC, SAP, Schneider Electric, Siemens and Software AG.Judged on their current offerings, strategies and market presence, IBM, C3 IoT, Microsoft, SAP and PTC and emerged as Leaders:



Image: ForresterAccording to Forrester: 

IBM's Watson IoT Platform offers 'extensive analytics with industry-specific and services expertise'. C3 IoT 'leaves management of things to partners and differentiates with analytics'; Microsoft's Azure IoT 'offers enabling cloud infrastructure and more' -- including development tools, advanced analytics capabilities, augmented reality (HoloLens) and edge computing; SAP Leonardo 'encompasses IoT as well as other digital innovation technologies' — including machine learning, blockchain and big data; and PTC'fuses device connectivity strength with augmented reality vision'.

IIoT players

There are many more companies involved in the IIoT ecosystem than just software platform vendors, of course. For its Industry 4.0 & Smart Manufacturing 2018-2023 report, IoT Analytics identified over 300 companies that deliver products and services driving the fourth industrial revolution. 


The analyst firm divides these into suppliers of 'Connected industry building blocks' and suppliers of 'Other Industry 4.0 supporting technologies':


Image: IoT AnalyticsAnalytics and connectivity hardware lead the way in the building blocks category, while additive manufacturing (industrial 3D printing) and AR/VR head up the supporting technologies:



Data: IoT Analytics / Chart: ZDNet

Companies highlighted in each category were: Microsoft (hosting); Microsoft, General Electric, PTC and Siemens (IIoT platforms); Uptake (analytics); Nvidia (microchips); Festo (sensors); HMS (connectivity hardware); Claroty (cybersecurity); Accenture (systems integrators); General Electric (additive manufacturing); Upskill (augmented and virtual reality); ABB (collaborative robots); Cognex (connected machine vision); PINC (drones/UAVs); and Clearpath Robotics (self-driving [material transport] vehicles).

Digital Twin: A key emerging IIoT technologyAs noted earlier, a number of emerging technologies are creating suitable conditions for the adoption of IIoT solutions, including 5G, edge computing, AI and analytics, robotics, blockchain, additive manufacturing and VR/AR. One that deserves special mention is the digital twin, which can be defined as a virtual representation of a real-world entity or process. 

With real-world 'things' modelled in software and fed with real-time sensor data, engineers can head off potential problems and use simulations to optimise performance.Digital twin technology is firmly at the 'peak of inflated expectations' in Gartner's 2018 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, so it's worth looking at some recent research into the current state of play.

Digital marketing specialist Reboot Online has analysed data from research facilities provider Catapult on digital twin technology. Catapult's information comes from a survey of 150 engineers and is reported in more detail in its report Feasibility of an immersive digital twin: 

The definition of a digital twin and discussions around the benefit of immersion.The key components of a digital twin, according to the engineers, are a physical asset, live and offline data sets, a 3D representation and real-time simulation:


Data: Catapult-Reboot Online / Chart: ZDNet


When it comes to the value of digital twins in the product life cycle, maintenance, repair & operations and manufacturing are the clear leaders, followed by simulation and quality control: 


Data: Catapult-Reboot Online / Chart: ZDNet


"We are in an era of rapid technological developments. At the forefront of that has been the rise and evolution of digital twins," said Naomi Aharony, managing director of Reboot Online in a statement.

"With the technology having the ability to cover the entire life cycle of a physical system, process or product, it provides businesses with a powerful analytical tool which can thoroughly assess key performance indicators and provide insights as to where enhancements can be made. 

In the long-run, the lessons and suggestions taken from digital twins will drive various opportunities for innovation and growth," Aharony added.

Outlook

Although many IIoT projects are still in the proof-of-concept or trial stage, there are clear signs of a widespread move towards full production deployments. The relevant technologies are available, investment decisions have been made, and returns on those investments are expected.


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The Fourth Industrial Revolution has arrived with the emergence of new technologies. Is your company ready to join in?

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is building momentum and creating opportunities and challenges for businesses of virtually all types and sizes, particularly those engaged in leading a successful digital transition.

Emerging 4IR technologies, such as autonomous vehicles, VR/AR, AI, robotics, blockchain and IoT, are poised to simultaneously raise the stakes and create new opportunities across an array of business sectors.

The 4IR represents a crash of two worlds, according to Mohamed Kande, an advisory leader at professional services firm PwC. "It’s the collision of time and technology, the wall of physical assets colliding with a digital wall," he explained.




Mohamed Kande

The challenge now facing industries worldwide, Kande observed, is handling the emerging business models and evolving customer expectations created by new 4IR capabilities.

"With this in mind, a key issue for executives will not only be to understand how these technologies can benefit their businesses, but how to react to drastic market changes and divergence caused by the unforeseen technological innovation," he said.

The task aheadIT leaders are currently facing two high-level tasks: the need for business model innovation and identifying the next generation of challenges. "Simply put, typical product innovation will no longer be enough," Kande warned, noting that leaders will need to balance product innovation against business model innovation. "This puts a premium on identifying new ways to serve the market."

IT leaders can prepare themselves for 4IR technologies by embracing them in combination to solve various business issues. "If the technologies aren’t employed to solve a business problem, they aren’t generally going to help the organization keep pace with the rate of change," commented Scott Buchholz, national emerging technologies research director for business consulting firm Deloitte.




Scott Buchholz

Getting startedConnectivity and collaboration are the keys to preparing a business for new technologies, said Gregory Hayes, director of North America applications and consulting at EOS, an industrial additive manufacturing systems developer. "When considering implementing new technologies like AR, VR or Blockchain, no one company is going to be able to do it alone successfully," he observed.

"IT leaders can prepare by identifying and partnering with organizations that have pieces of the IT solution that they need to implement."The advanced technologies discussed here will be key themes of the new Emerging Tech track at Interop 2019, running May 20-23 in Las Vegas.

A common way to evaluate promising 4IR technologies is with pilots or proofs of concept projects. "Not every technology needs to be in production tomorrow," Buchholz advised. "This also gives staff a chance to adjust and learn the new technologies as they go."




Greg Hayes

Yet despite best efforts, many 4IR projects fail to make it past the proof of concept pilot stage. "This is not because the project won't deliver value," observed Stephan Biller, chief innovation officer and vice president, IBM Watson IoT.

"The problem is that leaders fail to plan in advance how to measure value and how to build the business cases to move the projects into production.

"Developing and nurturing a future-focused workforce is also essential for successful 4IR adoption.

"People not only provide execution, but also help to ensure seamless technological adoption within an organization — and leaders need both," Kande noted. "If you’re making the decision to invest in next-generation technology to reap the benefits of the 4IR, it's important that your people know how to properly use and interact with these technologies on a daily basis."




Stephan Biller

In the years ahead, virtually all types of businesses will need designers and engineers who can think in 4IR terms. "This may take shape in re-learning design methodologies, understanding and accounting for security concerns or other factors that require a learning curve to transform ways of working from Industry 3.0 to Industry 4.0," Hayes said.Investments in IT, operational technologies and HR should be synchronized to deliver the maximum possible RoI.

"Leaders need to ensure their digital investments match their investments in people," Kande explained. "If an organization only focuses on the technology, they are missing an opportunity to close critical skills gaps within their organization, which is a big reason why many digital transformations fail.

"Maximizing 4IR ROITo maximize ROI, IT and business leaders planning to in invest in 4IR technologies should consider taking a step by step approach toward adoption.

"Developing a strategy from the outset, realizing the total investment needed and calculating your potential ROI over time, are critical steps in maximizing return," Hayes said.




Jay Venkat

As projects move from proof of concept into the pilot stage and beyond, they need to be constantly monitored and tracked against defined KPIs, Biller stressed. "Defining the KPIs and tracking their progress gives you well defined results," he explained.

"Tracking the metrics also helps you obtain credibility and buy-in from your teams and business partners as you expand projects into the next stage with production rollouts.

"As business and IT budget boundaries continue blurring in the years ahead, CIOs and other business and IT leaders it will need to begin focusing on overall business value rather than counting budgets in functional silos, said Jay Venkat, senior partner and managing director of the Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm.

He noted that IT leaders must also invest in themselves by keeping on top of emerging technologies and understanding how to harness their capabilities. "Doing so will position them for dialogues with business counterparts on curating the right set of tech," Venkat advised.

[For more on implementing today's emerging technologies and what they mean to business check out these recent articles.]

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John Edwards is a veteran business technology journalist. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and numerous business and technology publications, including Computerworld, CFO Magazine, IBM Data Management Magazine, RFID Journal, and Electronic ...View Full Bio

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The World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting at Davos takes place this week in Switzerland.

World leaders and heads of state from over 100 governments, titans of industry from over 1000 of the world’s foremost companies, and movers and shakers alike from NGOs and cultural organizations have converged in The Alps to discuss the state of global economics and plot a better future as we edge ever closer to a new decade.

In addition to being a catalyst for global business and geopolitics, annual events at Davos are critical in developing global narratives that help guide us to a more equitable future.

Founder Klaus Schwab’s vision of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is a theoretical driving force that has encouraged thinkers all over the world to consider the intersection of tech like artificial intelligence, blockchain, and automation as it relates to our near term future.

Last year, blockchain, cryptocurrency, and distributed ledger technology were some of the dominant buzzwords at Davos as excitement about these nascent technologies reached a global fervor.

In 2019, it’s all about action, and putting decentralized technologies to work. Just like last year, Consensys’ Ethereal Lounge will be the hub of the blockchain action.We sat down with Sheila Warren, the World Economic Forum’s Head of Blockchain, to get an overview of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, how blockchain technology is integral to the 4IR, and what’s in store at Davos this year….

Can you give an overview of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and where we are in its progression?

So far we’ve seen a series of industrial revolutions. We start with the agrarian revolution to steel and the steam engine. Then, we have the digital revolution with computers, and now we’re in this fourth industrial revolution, where we’re seeing increased connectivity between different kinds of technologies. In a nutshell, we’re seeing a merging of technological and human processes in a way that becomes far more pervasive in our lives.

We see a number of technologies that range from being quite nascent to fairly well developed as critical to 4IR. Those include blockchain, distributed ledger technologies, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, 3D printing, robotics, machine learning, autonomous mobility, drones, AR/VR.

What we focus on in our San Francisco office — the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution — is these technologies, their intersection, and exploring policy mechanisms that can help these new technologies, as they become more embedded in society, develop in a way that’s inclusive, ethically considered, and has benefit at heart to society.

How does blockchain technology play into all of this?

We see blockchain as a foundational technology. While blockchain certainly has its own applications that are somewhat bespoke or unique, it also has the ability to serve as a layer in a tech stack that amplifies technologies like AI or IoT.

When you think about the potential of blockchain — which currently is not ready to serve as a substitute for a massive database — when you see scalability enter into the equation, there’s an opportunity for decentralization to enhance equality in addressing issues ranging from wealth inequality to access rights, to addressing personal autonomy around aspects like data in a way that’s more human centered.

We see blockchain technology as quite fundamental to the fourth industrial revolution, becoming a new layer that will amplify its speed, and provide opportunities to shake up in society that we think — if done thoughtfully and correctly — could be quite transformative in many ways.

Are there certain technological tracks that are most central to the 4IR?

Machine learning is quite critical. Robotics, which i’d put in a similar category. The idea that we’re actually going to be relying on machines to outsource some of our analytics processes is quite profound.

I think a lot of the attention on robotics focuses on labor displacement, machines taking people’s jobs, but I think the average citizen is not paying enough attention to things like algorithmic biases and our relationship to data in an automated world.I also think the Internet of Things is critical.

People use IoT devices every day without thinking about using them. There’s some media awareness around what it means to have smart devices in your home listening to what you’re doing — but it’s more from a surveillance perspective that people are concerned.

What they’re not thinking about what happens to us as people when we’re completely on-grid. The more we tech up in an IoT world, the more there’s a question of what that means. Concerns about this are often relegated to fringe groups, but this is extremely transformative.

Certainly, the way that my children are going to interact with machines and objects, and the expectations we have around privacy, are going to be quite different than before, and very rapidly so.

Watch Sheila Warren discuss ethics and blockchain at Ethereal Summit NY 2018. Tickets for Ethereal 2019 are on sale now!

What does your work at the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution focus on here?

The reality is that these technologies are already big money businesses. Where you have rapid opportunities for ROI, there isn’t necessarily the thought put into what the downstream consequences are when taken collectively, and how they may impact our world. We’re very focused on the ethical implication of these things and their intersectionality.

Every incremental device or app doesn’t seem like a big deal, and addresses convenience or access to data or property remotely in a way that seems simple. But when you aggregate of all the things connected, what you have is a totally new way of existing.

What we worry about at the Centre, particularly with the blockchain ecosystem, is that we’re just replicating a lot of our problematic systems, and we’re not really blowing them up! The reason i’m so passionate about DLT specifically is because it’s very distributive nature actually makes us more prone to being aware about these sorts of things.

Which is not to say that we’re not already replicating a lot of historical power structures inn crypto asset holdings, who’s making the money, things like that.

But, the technology’s nature if not a centralized one. It’s not a tech that is looking for a centralized body to control everything. It’s the opposite. It’s one of our best shots at actually mitigating some of the system replication and doing better.

What do you think the conversation around blockchain will be at Davos this year?

Last year, Davos was crypto crazy. It was insane! I feel like it’ll be a little more collected this year, which I’m grateful for personally! I think there’s a lot of interesting conversation happening around stablecoins, digital fiat, central bank digital currencies, digital identity is of course a big topic that’s important. Supply chain is really where enterprise is focused.

There’s going to be a lot of focus on layer two solutions. It’s not different subjects than last year, things are just more involved.Personally, I’m really excited about conversations we’ll be having around government use of blockchain and DLT.

Whether we like it or not, governments are some of the most successful distribution platforms. If we can find a way to use government to actually deploy and use blockchain technology, we’re going to move a long way towards adoption.

Much of what we do with the Forum is speak to governments, central banks, and other bodies about their own exploration of this technology. There’ll be a lot of that.

Are there certain regions that you see taking big strides in blockchain integration this year?

My eyes are really on Asia. I think Singapore, China, are doing a lot of fascinating work across the 4IR. I think the autonomous urban mobility movement in Japan is really exciting. They have an aging population, so there’s a need for considerations about transit.

The government is doing a lot of experimentation there. What i’m excited about is that a lot of high growth, emerging economies are doing a lot of the most innovative experimentation.

My hope is that some of those experiments will be picked up by some of the big, market making G-7 economies of the world, and we’ll see more willingness to take on some of those solutions.I do think India’s poised to be a big player in a lot of this 4IR technology. There’s challenges in every country, but India is a very tech minded country and they’re ready for a lot of change. The scope and scale of India — it’s its own market.

We opened up a Centre for the 4IR in Mumbai that’s focused on blockchain, AI, and drone technology, and we’ve got some exciting work coming out of there that we’ll be talking about more soon.

Disclaimer:

The views expressed by the author above do not necessarily represent the views of Consensys AG. ConsenSys is a decentralized community with ConsenSys Media being a platform for members to freely express their diverse ideas and perspectives. To learn more about ConsenSys and Ethereum, please visit our website.

Certain skills will be required to succeed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Here are four recommendations to help bridge the youth skills gap.by Jamira Burley


The rapid march of emerging technologies has ushered in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and along with it concern from many in business, government and academia about the impact on today’s workers, not to mention the workforce of the future.

By 2030, an estimated 1.8 billion youth worldwide will not have the skills or qualifications required to participate in the workforce, according to predictions in a new report by Deloitte Global and the Global Business Coalition for Education (GBC-Education).

“Business has to play a leading role by not only defining and communicating what skills are needed in the future, but also by working side by side with educators, governments and nonprofits to ensure our future employees are receiving the education necessary to compete and succeed,” said Deloitte Global Chairman David Cruickshank.

Four Skills Essential for Success



Titled “Preparing tomorrow’s workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” the new report found that four skills emerge when looking at what will be required for individuals to succeed in 4IR:

• Workforce readiness: Basic skills such as time management, personal presentation and attendance are critical.
• Soft skills: As humans increasingly work alongside robots, uniquely human skills, such as creativity, complex problem solving, emotional intelligence and critical thinking, will be irreplaceable by machines.
• Technical skills: New employment opportunities are being created through technology. Jobs that are currently going unfilled often require industry-specific technical skills and targeted training.
• Entrepreneurship: As the gig economy grows, youths’ ability to be innovative, creative and take initiative to launch new ventures will be critical.

Financial investment alone will not employ 1.8 billion youth. Instead, new system-wide approaches are needed.

Businesses currently make trade-offs between scale and impact, but this research suggests ways to achieve both. It is critical to overcome the challenges of reaching the most marginalized youth, including women and girls who in many parts of the world already face significantly higher rates of unemployment.

Four Recommendations to Bridge the Skills GapWithin this landscape, following are four key recommendations to address the youth skills gap.

First, align stakeholders’ objectives and approaches. In order to achieve scalable results, businesses need to work with the broader ecosystem, implementing an integrated approach that leverages each group’s strengths and capabilities for impact.

This includes coordinating opportunities, identifying gaps in training, finding opportunities for co-investment and sharing information about future talent needs.

Second, engage in public policy. Business has an opportunity — and a responsibility — to help governments prepare policies, rules and regulations that will benefit youth and strengthen our future workforce.

Dialogue, advocacy, collaboration and influencing government are key means to drive results.Third, develop strong talent strategies. Reviewing and adapting current talent strategies will be important to future success, and developing best practices that promote inclusivity and innovation will be critical.

Last, invest in workforce skilling. Employee training can no longer be a “check the box” activity, and businesses need to evaluate, invest and promote workforce training programs strategically so future talent needs and requirements can be met.

GBC-Education will take the recommendations forward through its Youth Skills and Innovation Initiativeby establishing an Action Hub, which will share information about programs that are working in the hopes that they can be scaled or easily duplicated.

At the heart of the issue is quality education and training, but there is now a framework for how to address the youth skills gap. Equally important, there’s a broad commitment across stakeholder groups and unlikely allies, led in large part by youth themselves, to bridge that gap.




Jamira Burley is the head of Youth Engagement and Skills for the Global Business Coalition for Education. She is a White House Champion of Change and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. To comment, email [email protected].

World’s most famous footballer will be involved in the launch of the Finney blockchain smartphone

BC SportBC Cryptocurrency

Jonathan Symcox




Finney phone is named after cryptocurrency pioneer Hal FinneyLionel Messi is backing the launch of the world’s first blockchain smartphone.

The Barcelona star is a brand ambassador for Israeli start-up Sirin Labs, which is launching the $1,000 Finney phone in Barcelona on November 29th.Its previous device was the $16,000 Solarin smartphone, launched in 2016 and aimed at high net-worth individuals who wanted “military grade security”.

The Finney phone, named after cryptocurrency pioneer Hal Finney, will look to compete with premium consumer smartphones from the likes of Apple and Samsung.It has an inbuilt cryptocurrency wallet viewed on a screen which slides out.




Sirin said: “After a significant amount of time discussing a wide range of issues, Messi saw the power, professionalism and future within Sirin Labs, and it was for these reasons he agreed to represent us to the masses.

”Acknowledging that sometimes apparent celebrity endorsements in the crypto space can lead to scams, a blog post continued:

“If you’ve followed Messi’s career at all, you’d know he doesn’t just put his name on anything to make a buck.

“As the greatest of all time in the most popular sport in the world, you can imagine the type of vetting process that he and his team have to ensure they’re not going to associate with something criminal, illicit, or anything that might tarnish his stellar brand.”

Klaus Schwab, author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Photo: XinhuaJOHANNESBURG – South Africa's economic development will ride in the cockpit of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.My assertion is based on the forecasts done by Klaus Schwab in his latest book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution.

According to this book, Africa will benefit immensely from the ageing declining populations in Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean, Asia (including China), southern India, and some Middle East countries.

This view is supported by the report published in 2011 by the African Development Bank (ADB) entitled “Africa in 50 Years’ Time”.

According to this report – Africa is the only region where there will be about 1.87 billion people of working age in about 50 years’ time.

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On the other hand, Africa will have more than 3billion people by 2050. This means that around 74percent of the African population will be of working age.

Other than an increment of nationalism sentiments across Europe and the US, the Europeans are tightening their migration regulations and that is why instead of importing skilled labour, they move their firms to the countries that have such labour.In the past century, East Asia and South America were the best beneficiary of this kind of direct investment.

However, due to Asia's ageing populations, investors will move their manufacturing plants to Africa, where there will be abundant labour and consumers of produced products.

According to the ADB, there is a huge decline in Africa's child mortality rate and deaths caused by HIV/Aids related diseases. This is a significant factor in Africa's population growth.Another crucial factor in favour of Africa's massive economic growth is the fact that the continent possesses half the world's arable land.

This will lead to massive agricultural investments and Africa's food production will feed the whole world.This view is supported by the World Bank - which predicted that Africa's agriculture and agribusiness markets are destined to top $1trillion (R14.39trillion) in 2030.

According to Professor Calestous Juma of Harvard Kennedy School of Government, three technologies will be deployed to boast agricultural output in Africa; these include Geographical Information Systems, nanotechnology, biotechnology and mobile-technology.

Four technological (industrial revolution) megatrends which will play a prominent role in driving economic development in the near future are: autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, advanced robotics, and new materials. Africa will be the biggest beneficiary of these technologies.

Due to the shortage of infrastructure in the form of roads, rail, border posts, airports, seaports etc, it is cheaper for Nigeria to import food from Peru instead of Cameroon.

Due to the fact that multinationals will mainly be operating in Africa, they will work with the African governments to build infrastructure that services their operations and transports their goods. In other words, infrastructure will be built through public-private partnerships.

It will be in the best interests of the investors to participate in the construction of the infrastructure.In some instances, the public (consumers) will also have to pay for this, in the form of taxes and payments, such as tolls.

Currently, due to the lack of infrastructure, trade among African countries is limited. By 2050, intra-African trade will increase substantially thanks to the availability of regional connectivity.

The availability of multinationals and infrastructure in Africa will inevitably lead to free labour movement. Something good about labour movement is that it will increase the flow of remittances across the African countries.

The incremental growth of populations, industrial production, agricultural activities and mining will require huge quantities of water.In certain parts of Africa, there is a lot of water in the ground and technology will be employed to extract such water.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution’s mega-technology will also be used to harvest rainwater.

Africa is surrounded by two oceans, the Atlantic and the Indian.Mega-technology will also be employed to extract water from these oceans and make it consumable.

Moreover, technology will play a critical role in the recycling of water.As a matter of fact, most production activities in manufacturing plants will be done with less water. Technology will play a critical role in promoting intra-continental trading and the supply of water.

Although the South African population remains stagnant and will not grow rapidly, South Africa can become the biggest beneficiary of this African growth.That is why South Africa should cultivate better relationships with other African countries.

Among other things, we should stop being xenophobic, and treating fellow Africans with arrogance and a condescending attitude.In the absence of huge population like other African countries, South Africa's strength will be to continue to serve as African gateway to the African continent and regional financial hub.

Rabelan Dagada is Professor of Practice in Digital Commerce at the University of Johannesburg's Postgraduate School of Engineering Management. He is on Twitter: @Rabelani_Dagada

The views expressed here are not necessarily those of Independent Media.

It’s the end of spring and millions of young Americans have put on caps and gowns, collected their college degrees, and are out looking for jobs. Many are aiming for the companies they consider the coolest, behemoths like Apple and Google and Facebook. I’d like to offer one piece of advice: If you want to know what it feels like to make a real difference, go anywhere but Silicon Valley.

Ten years ago, I was a recent grad myself, a tech dreamer with few prospects. Some of my friends went west to find their fortune; I stayed in Connecticut and bootstrapped a company out of my father’s basement. When it took off, I was summoned by the Valley’s oligarchs to meetings designed to impress me.

I’ll never forget one in particular: Sitting in a slick office and talking about million-dollar deals, I looked out the window and saw a homeless man in the street below sorting through garbage. This is the kind of radical gap between rich and poor you rarely see so conspicuously elsewhere in America, and, sadly, Silicon Valley does little to make it smaller.

In large part, it’s because the Valley’s main goal isn’t to make the world a better place; it’s to make investors wealthier. It is why an industry that started out as a vibrant and competitive market is now controlled by a few companies that treat people and ideas as just more lines on a spreadsheet.

And that, dear grads, is where you come in.  Let me tell you something: America doesn’t need another blockchain startup or another app disrupting another industry — or whatever the latest tech trend in the Valley happens to be. It needs young people who understand two things: What you do matters and where you do it matters too.




Austin McChord built a tech unicorn in Connecticut — way outside of Silicon Valley. (Photo: Rebecca Greenfield)

The real world, as I’m sure you have noticed, has very real problems, and fixing them is up to nobody but you. Instead of shuffling off to some tech company’s campus to have your dry cleaning taken care of and your snacks provided, and your creative output consumed by some mammoth company, try asking the seminal question that every great entrepreneur — and every good person — should ask: What do people need? Muhga Eltigani did.

Born in Sudan, she arrived in America when she was five years old. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and had her pick of plum positions. Instead of heading to the Valley, she settled in Cleveland, courtesy of Venture for America, an impressive fellowship that sends recent college graduates to communities that are busy reinventing their economies.

There she worked on a healthy snack company that sought to address the obesity epidemic. Soon she launched her own company, NaturAll Club, which uses avocado oil to create hair products that met the specific needs of African-American women.

The company doubled in size last year, with offices opening in midsized towns across America. This is what real innovation looks like, benefiting both employees and consumers in communities not traditionally served by the bottom-line-driven tech industry.Which brings me to my second, and closely related, piece of advice: Where you do what you do matters.

A lot. Instead of heading to Cupertino or Menlo Park, consider Des Moines or Detroit or Durham, the maligned but absolutely necessary “second- and third-tier” American cities that were once the backbone of our economy.Go to these proud places, and you’ll find three things that are crucial to success, no matter what it is that you choose to do.

The first is simple — your buck goes much further in real America than it does in the tony and overpriced towns of the Valley.The second is even more crucial: Settle down in a “second-tier city” and you’ll find a very helpful community — from the local government on down — eager to see you thrive.

And finally, rather than surrounding yourself with talented people who are too often only interested in padding their resumes before hopping to the next opportunity, you’ll find communities of equally talented men and women who aspire to have meaningful careers without leaving their hometowns.

Forget about going west to work for companies that build $700 juicers while turning a blind eye to people going hungry down the road. And don’t worry about missing out: Google and Apple and Facebook will always be hiring.

But if you want to change the world, do real work in real towns and you’ll soon know what real success feels like.

Austin McChord is the founder and CEO of Datto. He spoke about his experience outside of Silicon Valley at Techonomy NYC.  See the video here.

Amazon recently abandoned a recruiting tool that used artificial intelligence to rate candidates. The tool studied the resumes of previously hired engineers to create algorithmic associations with certain schools, experiences, and key words that were supposedly indicators of work success.

But the company belatedly recognized that the tool was, in fact, teaching itself that men were preferable candidates to women.Chalk it up to the unintended consequences of technological advancement.

When Facebook’s ad targeting system was used to spread misinformation, the unrest it created around the world was another unintended consequence. When the company tried to fix the problem by clamping down on political advertising, it created even more unintended consequences by blocking dozens of non-political, LGBT-related ads.

And now, despite a rash of hate speech spread on Facebook that incited ethnic violence in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, and propaganda in the Philippines manipulated by its violent dictator, Facebook is accelerating its plans to expand Wi-Fi access in India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania. 

Unintended consequences, anyone?As technology races ahead of society’s ability to absorb its impact at work, at home, and in world affairs, unintended consequences are becoming more ubiquitous than e-scooters. The so-called unintended consequences of social media have left consumers vulnerable to misuse of their data and resulted in just about every part of the world being plagued by misinformation and disinformation.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner put it in perspective during a recent talk: “It’s far less about the technology these days, and far more about the implications of technology on society,” he said. “We need to proactively ask ourselves about the potential unintended consequences of these technologies.”Unintended consequences are one thing, predictable outcomes are another. Let’s not be glib about root causes. 

Let’s not conflate errors, poor judgement, and shortsightedness with unintended consequences in order to shirk responsibility. And let’s not ignore the lessons of today’s unintended consequences. They are a warning about the potential impact of the next set of emerging technologies.

AI will soon be upon us; 5G promises to accelerate the speed of consequences, both good and bad. The combination is poised to change everything — our companies, our products, our transportation, and even our governments.




Kai-Fu Lee 

Two of the world’s leading AI experts will be at Techonomy 2018 next month for a conversation about how AI will change innovation, policy, the nature of companies and work, and even national competition. Kai-Fu Lee, alumni of Apple, Silicon Graphics, Microsoft, and Google, is based in Beijing and is the author of a new book that explores the global fight for AI dominance.

Paul Daugherty is chief technology officer at Accenture and a longtime student of how AI is transforming business. He is bullish, writing here for Techonomy that “artificial intelligence could double annual economic growth rates of many developed countries by 2035, transforming work and fostering a new relationship between humans and machines.

”Given its transformational power and the global stakes, now is the time to assign responsibility for AI’s thoughtful development and deployment. A recent paper from EY contends that AI and machine learning are outpacing our ability to oversee their use, and points out that it’s risky to use AI without a well-thought-out governance and ethical framework.

The paper suggests four conditions that should be considered before starting an AI initiative:

• Ethics: An AI system must comply with ethical and social norms. Ethics must inform how people design, develop and operate the AI, as well as how the AI behaves. This approach, more than any other, introduces considerations that have historically not been mainstream for the development of technology, including moral behavior, respect, fairness, avoidance of bias, and transparency.
• Social Responsibility: The potential societal impact of the AI system should be carefully considered, including its impact on the financial, physical and mental well-being of humans and our natural environment. Potential impacts include workforce disruption, skills retraining, discrimination and environmental effects.
• Accountability and Explainability: The AI system should have a clear line of accountability to an individual. Also, the AI operator should be able to explain the AI system’s decision framework and how it works. This is more than simply being transparent; this is about demonstrating a clear grasp of how AI will use and interpret data, what decisions it will make, how it may evolve, and the consistency of its decisions across subgroups.
• Reliability: This involves testing the functionality and decision framework of the AI system to detect unintended outcomes, system degradation, or operational shifts — not just during the initial training or modelling but also throughout its ongoing “learning” and evolution.

EY frames these considerations as risk management, but it is really a guide to building trust when developing and deploying any emerging technology. It requires a new way of thinking, one that acknowledges that while consequences can be unintended, they are not necessarily unpredictable.




Terah LyonsPaula Goldman, global lead of the Tech and Society Solutions Lab at Omidyar Network, is championing programs to bring this kind of thinking to the development process and to computer science education. 

She and Terah Lyons, who leads the Partnership on AI, will lead a discussion about how to build an ethical operating system at next month’s Techonomy 2018.

The three-day retreat will be a very intentional conversation about consequences — how to anticipate them, how to guard against them, and how to react to them when they do inevitably come. It is a crucial step forward on the path toward a more trustworthy future.

By Klaus Schwab
Founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum


After World War II, the international community came together to build a shared future. Now, it must do so again. Owing to the slow and uneven recovery in the decade since the global financial crisis, a substantial part of society has become disaffected and embittered, not only with politics and politicians but also with globalization and the entire economic system it underpins.

In an era of widespread insecurity and frustration, populism has become increasingly attractive as an alternative to the status quo. But populist discourse elides – and often confounds – the substantive distinctions between two concepts: globalization and globalism.

Globalisation is a phenomenon driven by technology and the movement of ideas, people, and goods. Globalism is an ideology that prioritizes the neoliberal global order over national interests. Nobody can deny that we are living in a globalized world. But whether all of our policies should be “globalist” is highly debatable.

After all, this moment of crisis has raised important questions about our global-governance architecture. With more and more voters demanding to “take back control” from “global forces,” the challenge is to restore sovereignty in a world that requires cooperation.

Rather than closing off economies through protectionism and nationalist politics, we must forge a new social compact between citizens and their leaders, so that everyone feels secure enough at home to remain open to the world at large.

Failing that, the ongoing disintegration of our social fabric could ultimately lead to the collapse of democracy. Moreover, the challenges associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are coinciding with the rapid emergence of ecological constraints, the advent of an increasingly multipolar international order, and rising inequality.

These integrated developments are ushering in a new era of globalization. Whether it will improve the human condition will depend on whether corporate, local, national, and international governance can adapt in time.

Meanwhile, a new framework for global public-private cooperation has been taking shape. Public-private cooperation is about harnessing the private sector and open markets to drive economic growth for the public good, with environmental sustainability and social inclusiveness always in mind. But to determine the public good, we first must identify the root causes of inequality.

For example, while open markets and increased competition certainly produce winners and losers in the international arena, they may be having an even more pronounced effect on inequality at the national level. Moreover, the growing divide between the precariat and the privileged is being reinforced by 4IR business models, which often derive rents from owning capital or intellectual property.

Closing that divide requires us to recognise that we are living in a new type of innovation-driven economy and that new global norms, standards, policies, and conventions are needed to safeguard the public trust. The new economy has already disrupted and recombined countless industries and dislocated millions of workers. It is dematerializing production, by increasing the knowledge intensity of value creation.

It is heightening competition within domestic product, capital, and labour markets, as well as among countries adopting different trade and investment strategies. And it is fueling distrust, particularly of technology companies and their stewardship of our data.

The unprecedented pace of technological change means that our systems of health, transportation, communication, production, distribution, and energy – just to name a few – will be completely transformed. Managing that change will require not just new frameworks for national and multinational cooperation, but also a new model of education, complete with targeted programs for teaching workers new skills.

With advances in robotics and artificial intelligence in the context of ageing societies, we will have to move from a narrative of production and consumption toward one of sharing and caring.Globalisation 4.0 has only just begun, but we are already vastly underprepared for it. Clinging to an outdated mindset and tinkering with our existing processes and institutions will not do.

Rather, we need to redesign them from the ground up, so that we can capitalize on the new opportunities that await us while avoiding the kind of disruptions that we are witnessing today.

As we develop a new approach to the new economy, we must remember that we are not playing a zero-sum game. This is not a matter of free trade or protectionism, technology or jobs, immigration or protecting citizens, and growth or equality. Those are all false dichotomies, which we can avoid by developing policies that favour “and” over “or,” allowing all sets of interests to be pursued in parallel.

To be sure, pessimists will argue that political conditions are standing in the way of a productive global dialogue about Globalisation 4.0 and the new economy.

But realists will use the current moment to explore the gaps in the present system and to identify the requirements for a future approach. And optimists will hold out hope that future-oriented stakeholders will create a community of shared interest and, ultimately, shared purpose.

The changes that are underway today are not isolated to a particular country, industry, or issue. They are universal and thus require a global response. Failing to adopt a new cooperative approach would be a tragedy for humankind. To draft a blueprint for a shared global-governance architecture, we must avoid becoming mired in the current moment of crisis management.

Specifically, this task will require two things of the international community: wider engagement and heightened imagination. The engagement of all stakeholders in sustained dialogue will be crucial, as will the imagination to think systemically, and beyond one’s own short-term institutional and national considerations.

These will be the two organising principles of the World Economic Forum’s upcoming Annual Meeting in Davos-Klosters, which will convene under the theme of “Globalisation 4.0: Shaping a New Architecture in the Age of the Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Ready or not, a new world is upon us.

OriginTrail (TRAC) Takes Part In EUR 20 Million Digital Transformation Project For The European Agri-Food Sector

11 hours ago By Editorial Staff 0

Blockchain technology is becoming part of a large-scale EU-funded project, intended to boost the digital transformation of the European countryside!

OriginTrail (TRAC), a blockchain company developing data exchange protocol for interconnected supply chains, has become the go-to blockchain solution for 108 organizations, from 22 different European countries, involved in a SmartAgriHubs project, managed by Wageningen University & Research, the world’s leading provider of scientific education in the healthy food and living environment domain.

European Farming Sector Needs the Blockchain

By 2050, 70% of the world’s population will live in cities. As a result, cities will, to an increasing degree, face issues concerning sustainability and quality of life. This will have an impact on food security, mobility and logistics, the availability of water, dealing with raw materials and waste, health, and well-being.

The European Commission recognized the importance of facing this challenge by creating a competitive advantage for non-urban regions, including the initiatives connecting the countryside with the Information & Communication Technology (ICT) sector.George Beers, Project Manager at Wageningen University & Research and SmartAgriHubs Project Coordinator:

SmartAgriHubs will not only increase the competitiveness and sustainability of Europe’s agri-food sector. It will become the 4th industrial revolution that will strategically re-orient the digital European agricultural innovation ecosystem towards excellence and success. Together with our partners we believe SmartAgriHubs will unlock the potential of digitization by creating a pan-European network of Digital Innovation Hubs, organizing an inclusive ecosystem around them and fostering them to achieve their full innovation acceleration capacity.

EUR 20 Million from the European Union to Develop and Stimulate the Adoption of the Technology

The project aims to involve 2 million European farms and introduce 80 new digital solutions onto the market.Digital Innovation Hubs are spread across the European Union with a regional approach, focused on 9 regional clusters, building a network covering all EU regions and connecting technology, business and industry-specific expertise with relevant players.

The consortium consists mostly of small and medium enterprises, but also of consultancies and private banks rooted in agriculture. It also plans to involve the broader community, with activities such as hackathons and datathons.

Among other partners in the project are other R&D companies as well as public entities, such as UK’s Innovation for Agriculture, Schuttelaar & Partners, Austrian Chamber for Agriculture, French region of Loire, FIWARE.

Blockchain technology provided to partners via the OriginTrail protocol is the underlying technology for building trust in supply chains that SmartAgriHubs is addressing.

The blockchain is bringing the decentralization of trust, through end-to-end visibility and better guarantees of integral quality and safety. It is also addressing European consumers’ needs for traceability and transparency.With this undertaking, the results of OriginTrail’s pilot projects will be disseminated across the network of DIHs and beyond the agricultural sector.

In the second stage, the consortium will also publish open calls for both private and public entities to utilize the technology on further use cases.In the graphic below, you can see the main technological and consumer trends that are vital to the project, including robotics, biotechnology, IoT, machine learning and the blockchain.




Source: https://ec.europa.eu/futurium/en/system/files/ged/wolfert_-_smartagrihubs_dih_wg_brussels_21feb2018.pdf 

Žiga Drev, Co-Founder of OriginTrail, on the importance of this achievement and acknowledgment:“OriginTrail’s team has been actively solving supply chain transparency and efficiency challenges since 2013. We have worked closely with farmers, producers, supply chain companies, and end consumers to fully understand what the challenges in food supply chains are.

This approach was welcomed by stakeholders. We are proud that the European Commission appreciates these efforts, too.OriginTrail solutions have been presented to European Commission officials on several occasions, including the anti-counterfeit IoT traceability proof-of-concept and the Smart Villages initiative.

The response was always encouraging. In association with the Wageningen University and the SmartAgriHubs project, we are making a significant step towards protocol adoption and will be working on tangible use cases.”

Key Facts at a Glance

• Instrument: Horizon 2020, DT-RUR-12-2-18: ICT Innovation for agriculture
• Contribution of the European Union: €20 million
• Duration: 4 years, 2018-2022
• Consortium: 108 initial partners, possibility to extend through open calls
• 140 digital innovation hubs, 9 regional cluster & 28 flagship innovation experiments
• Bridge public-private funding by mobilizing additional funding (30 M€)
• Strong focus on establishing a sustainable network of DIHs with viable business models and investment funds

• Africa cannot afford, nor does it have to, miss the possibilities of the 4th Industrial Revolution.
• By 2030, Africa will have the world’s largest potential workforce. What if every one of them was connected, digitally skilled and an empowered digital consumer and/or producer?

Historically, technology has been a major driver of human advancement. The agrarian revolution ended more than 50 millennia of a hunting-gathering lifestyle and ushered unprecedented population growth, urbanization and the development of knowledge and governance tools such as writing and democracy.

In just 2 centuries, the industrial revolution globalized the economy, with new forms of energy, organization, production and distribution capabilities; propelling industrialized countries into a golden age of prosperity.

But it also powered slave trade, colonization and two World Wars.Over the past few decades, the digital revolution made it possible for companies such as WhatsApp and Snapchat to reach billion dollar market valuations within 2 years and a few dozen staff, something that used to take the best companies of the industrial revolution 20  years and hundreds of thousands of staff to accomplish.

Today, the world stands at the cusp of the 4th industrial revolution, with the rapid convergence of technologies in the digital, biological and physical domains.

From the onset of the agrarian revolution in 10,000 BC, it took 6,000 years to double the world’s GDP. When the industrial revolution kicked in at around 1760, it took less than 100 years. With the computing revolution around the 60s, the time was reduced to less than 15 years.

The 4thindustrial revolution –digitally smart factories, cities and entire economies connected to the Internet-- has demonstrated that the rate of change will continue to accelerate.

Africa has essentially missed the opportunities of the second and third industrial revolutions. The continent is home to 16.3% of humanity but home to less 1% of the world’s billion dollar companies and only about 4% of  global GDP. 

Africa cannot afford, nor does it have to, miss the possibilities of the 4th Industrial Revolution.


Africa’s best opportunity to bridge the gap with the rest of the world is through unity of purpose: if Africa unites, connects everyone, empowers the young generation, embraces change and thinks exponentially, it could bridge the development gap with the rest of the world in around a decade.

UniteHere’s an example of what needs to be done. In 1994, MTN Group, a telecoms operator, was born in South Africa, while at the same time  Amazon was born in the United States. 25 years later, MTN is among Africa’s top 5 companies valued at $9B (as of Sept 2018) while Amazon became the world’s second trillion-dollar company this year after Apple.

What made Amazon grow 100 times faster than MTN? MTN operates a product-focused, linear business model in 24 different, low income markets, with different policy and regulatory constraints.

he fourth industrial revolution (4IR), which began as an initiative to combat challenges faced by the manufacturing sector, has grown to include almost every sector and is set to influence every conceivable aspect of business.

Technologies that are shaping the so-called Industry 4.0 (the industry emerging out of 4IR) include robotics, the Internet of things (IOT), artificial intelligence (AI) and big data.

While in a manufacturing context these technologies are shaping the 'factories of the future' (a Web of interconnected machines creating products that are pre-programmed, while all the time uploading process data, completely without the involvement of any humans), these same technologies are also constructing most other industries.

The role of big data in the fourth industrial revolution is critical. In fact, some argue that big data is the fourth industrial revolution.

Understandably, there are concerns that autonomous machines will increasingly take over tasks that humans have always performed, leaving many jobless. However, it seems more likely that many new jobs will be created as the power of data is harnessed and used in a meaningful way.

The sheer pace of these emerging technologies, with associated demographic and socioeconomic impacts, is rapidly transforming industries and business models, completely redefining the skills that employers need.

Four ways in which work will change in 4IR:

Why we work

For generations, grown-ups have asked children: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" In the future, the concept of a 'job-for-life' will be met with blank stares. Rather than asking what you want to be, the question will be:

"What do you really enjoy doing?" This means learning will not only be lifelong in terms of skills, but also, at a deeper level, that learning will need to focus internally, to really understand ourselves.

This will be essential as 4IR is likely to impact our lives in how we communicate, how we produce, consume and even our identities. For this reason, it will be essential to understand why the work we do matters, what value it adds, especially in a world where automation and artificial intelligence is woven into every part of our lives.

What we do

Employees will have to adopt a life-long learning approach to work, upgrading skills continuously, either to ensure they remain at the cutting edge of their field or to keep pace with the technological advances unfolding across industries.In fact, constant upskilling will be more important than work experience gained or tenure.

Occupations traditionally regarded as technical will require additional skills in creativity and interpersonal skills. As the ecosystems in which they operate evolve, even jobs that are generally expected to be less affected by technological changes, such as marketing, are likely to require very different skillsets in just a few years from now.

How we work

Disruptions brought on by technology, such as machine learning and robotics, are likely to, rather than completely replacing existing occupations, substitute tasks previously performed as part of these jobs, freeing employees to focus on new tasks. A digital economy will drive new ideas, new information and new business models that are continuously expanding, combining and changing into new ventures and businesses.

Where we will work

The blending of physical and organisational boundaries will continue, requiring greater agility not just in innovation, but also operationally. Rather than being confined to a single space, work will be outcome-based, leveraging flexible arrangements as well as online talent platforms. Work will increasingly be understood as what people do, not where they do it.

This means businesses will collaborate with independent professionals and freelancers, often through digital talent platforms. It is likely that a new form of 'labour union' will emerge, which will require new policies, regulations and protections to newly emerging occupational categories and models of work.

Exactly what the world will look like in 20 or 50 years' time is still not clear, but the words of Klaus Schwab (Founder of the World Economic Forum) serves as a signpost to all of us.

"The fourth industrial revolution can compromise humanity's traditional sources of meaning: work, community, family, and identity, or it can lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a sense of shared destiny. The choice is ours."