My 2020 Vision and the 10 Tech Trends Shaping our

It is funny to think that 20 years ago we were worried what would happen when the clock struck midnight and took us in to the new millennium. Now we are talking about robots, digital currency, drones and self-driving cars…

Technology has completely revolutionised the way we view the world, how we interact with one another and how we do business. With the relentless pace at which technology evolves and changes, it’s only going to get more exciting!

Here are my top 10 Technology Trends for 2020 and beyond:

1. 5G

5th Generation Internet will be at the core of all technological advances in the next few years. With its super low latent capabilities, this is an exciting time ahead. As Aussies, our internet speed will probably still be slower than that of Romania’s though...

2. Blockchain far surpassing that of Crypto.

To put it simply: Blockchain is to assets what the internet is to content and a number of companies have successfully looked beyond Bitcoin and implemented blockchain into their organisation.

The Webjet team based out of Melbourne, has developed a blockchain-based solution called Rezchain, which is a sophisticated reconciliation platform which is helping the accounts teams. The travel industry estimates that 3-5% of bookings are disputed, and this technology platform will be a game-changer in their field.
London based company, Everledger, uses over 40 unique characteristics to create a digital barcode on Diamonds and makes a record on the blockchain of these stones.
Walmart has also taken the Blockchain technology to the next level and has developed software which can allow their customers to scan their produce and find out where it came from, you can literally find out which farm your fresh produce came from and the journey it has taken.

So with these examples I think it is safe to say that the Bitcoin bubble might have somewhat fallen, however the underlying technology which pins it all together is well and truly flying!

3. Data Analytics and its competitive advantage.

If you aren’t looking at data analytics as a company before 2020 you won’t be trading much into 2021 it is that simple. Organisations which have been looking at data to provide more insights into customer interactions now have the upper hand and have gained that competitor advantage. The 5 most valuable companies globally (Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft) in addition to their product offering also have the most amount of data at their disposal. Joe Kaeser (Siemens CEO) summed it up perfectly by saying “Data is the oil, some say the gold, of the 21st century”.

4. IoT and more devices.

Gartner calculated that around 8.4 billion IoT devices were in use in 2017, up 31 percent from 2016, and this will likely reach 20.4 billion by 2020. How are all these devises kept secure?

5. Augmented Reality

Albeit, Pokémon Go probably did raise a huge awareness of the potential of AR and has made the franchise over $2.45 Billion in the process. In 2017, 46% of Americans used an Augmented Reality app and by 2020, experts are predicting that there will be over 1 Billion Augmented Reality users globally. Augmented Reality is here to stay.

6. Quantum Computing

Richard Feynman proposed QC in the 1980’s and it has intrigued people ever since. Quantum Computing uses sub-atomic particles to represent information and promises processing power higher than the fastest of today’s semiconductor-based supercomputers. Ground-breaking developments in this field are happening right here in Australia too, with UNSW recently building the first two-qubit gate, which can operate complex problems at 0.8 nanoseconds or 200 times faster than previous research.

We are probably a decade away from having mainstream Quantum Computers available, however we will see a lot of pioneering advancements in this space in 2020.

7. Increased Data Governance

GDPR has set the bar high and I envisage that this will now set the standard. The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) will come into effect in 2020 which again will pave the way for stronger data governance and protection. Google, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft have all come out and are encouraging more regulation here also. I think that this is probably a sensible safeguarding strategy because they don’t want to follow Mark Zuckerberg and have to sit in front of congress defending themselves.

8. Xaas or Anything-as-a-service

This isn’t a new term but I think in 2020 we will see it being used more widely. With increased globalisation and the pace at which technology innovation moves, companies are now redefining their product and service offerings constantly.

9. Voice recognition

Voice Recognition has grown massively in recent years and it will only continue to grow. Venture Capitalists, Kleiner Perkins stated that in June 2015 Siri handled more than 1 billion requests per week; and in May 2016, 1 in 5 searches on Android were voice searched. Andrew NG, Chief Scientist at Baidu, predicts that come 2020, 50% of searches will be through voice.

10. Edge Computing

Edge Computing is a distributed computing system which brings computation and data storage closer to the location where it is needed. The reason behind this is to improve response time and save bandwidth. The increase of IoT devices at the edge of the network is producing a massive amount of data to be computed to data centres thus pushing network bandwidth requirements to the limit. With the abundant increase in the amount of IoT devices expected in 2020 ‘Edge Computing’ will be the norm.

In conclusion, Technology is limitless and we are embarking on an unprecedented time ahead. Speaking about: Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Computing and Blockchain seems like something from a sci-fi movie, however this is our current technological landscape.

It will be an interesting year ahead but Technology will not replace all human resources... for the time being at least.