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Technology trends to watch out for in 2015 and beyond

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Ashutosh Saitwal
Ashutosh SaitwalFeb 05, 2015 | 18:08

Technology trends to watch out for in 2015 and beyond

Trends are normally influenced by the amount of funds chasing specific innovations in technology. Never before has the scale of private investments been so huge.

Determining technology trends for this year is equivalent to gazing at a crystal ball for answers. One year is a very long period and it might just be possible that the trends could either materialise and prosper, or decline, in this period.

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Many predictions are doing the rounds and it is plausible that any/many of them could materialise. I believe it will be more pragmatic to predict technology trends in the economic context as the world economy is witnessing some key changes currently. Trends are normally influenced by the amount of funds chasing specific innovations in technology. Never before has the scale of private investments been so huge. Venture capitalists, private investors and private equity are all driving pre-IPO valuations to levels never witnessed before - perhaps except to some extent - the 2000 dot-com bubble. We see a lot of companies with $1 billion pre-IPO valuations, and this number continues to grow. Hence, while analysing technology trends, I have tried to consider not only the technology maturity, but also some macroeconomic factors.

#1. Technology for the bottom of the pyramid: Close to half the population of the world doesn't have access to proper sanitation, clean drinking water, sufficient energy and Internet. Fast Internet hasn't really reached them as per The World Bank - primarily in the emerging and developing parts. A huge chunk of money from the pockets of investors and philanthropists has been moving to drinking water and sanitation - the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has come up with the reinvent the toilet challenge and production of drinking water from human waste; Tata Swach has introduced a helpful water filter that runs without electricity. The Middle East countries have been increasingly dependent on desalinated water for over 50 years. The world pyramid is very broad at the bottom. The business opportunity is so great that I believe technologies will continue to emerge in 2015 to address these problems.

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#2. Counter terrorism: Terrorism is not confined to a few parts of the world anymore. It is a global concern as there has been a whopping increase of 30% in the death toll due to terrorist activities in the last one year as per a report by The Telegraph. Not only the developing nations, but the developed nations as well are constantly under the radar. As more and more advanced nations with stronger economies are attacked, we will see a considerable outflow of capital towards counter-terrorism technologies. Terrorist surveillance and intelligence-gathering technologies such as drones and Throwbots; technologies to detect and disarm explosives, disaster management systems, communication systems and border control - better scanners, facial recognition systems - have all seen significant advancement. However, there are still some areas that hold immense potential for improvement such as inspection of container cargo, development of high-impact weapons (mostly unmanned), behavioural recognition to detect and alert when unmanned cameras and sensors capture abnormal activity or behaviour. We will definitely see advancement in these technologies this year.

#3. Climate change and renewable energy: World is going through unprecedented climate changes such as shifting of seasons across the globe, melting of polar ice caps, and rising temperatures. The impact is unpredictable but expected to be devastating, if urgent actions are not taken. Technologies that will advance in the year 2015 include development of new cities, renewable energy sources, high-tech subway systems, and cook stove designs.

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#4. Convergence of cloud, mobile, Big Data, analytics and in-memory computing: Cloud, mobile, Big Data and analytics have been the most talked-about trends in isolation, and are growing in their own right. Cloud computing has taken "supercomputing" much closer to businesses and consumers, beyond the likes of strategic research, government establishments and space program. Cloud, Big Data and analytics have already started forming the scalable back-end platform, using which mobile applications are delivering rich information to end users. We will soon see increased convergence of these technologies to solve complex problems and the major drivers for which will be the need for on-demand and faster information, preference of operating expenses over upfront capital expenses by businesses, and constant quest for cost efficiencies. This convergence will enable even more brick-and-mortar businesses, either moving to, or at least being facilitated through the Internet. The valuations of e-giants similar to Flipkart, Alibaba, Uber and Amazon, will continue to spring surprises. The economics of such businesses of the new era are quite mindboggling, as pointed out by an article in Forbes. Also, it is very interesting to note that only a fraction (estimated to be much less than 3-4%) of brick-and-mortar transactions has moved online so far.

#5. Robotics and artificial intelligence: Artificial intelligence is already making its place into our everyday lives. Several consumer-facing websites are already making smart choices based on end-user patterns and personal preferences - LinkedIn in aligning jobs, e-commerce sites in recommending products based on your purchasing history, search engines displaying the most relevant advertisements based on your search patterns.

Apart from the online world, we have also seen vacuum cleaners adaptively learning your house structure to improve effectiveness and efficiency of cleaning and home alarm systems recognising abnormal activity. Artificial intelligence and robotics is everywhere and we can expect this trend to gather more momentum in 2015. In the near future, I expect mainstream use of commercial drones.

#6. Internet of Things: What is Dholera SIR (Special Investment Region)? What are smart cities? In India, we have heard these terms quite often. They are nothing but examples of "Internet of everything". Leading analysts predict that there will be more than 25 billion interconnected devices by 2020. Advancements in wireless, embedded systems, control systems, and sensor networks will continue to converge to create bigger Internet of Things in 2015, as the need for quickest information and ultramodern automation continuously increases.

Will any of these probable developments be the most important technology trend for 2015 or will it be something else? Only time will tell.

Last updated: February 05, 2015 | 18:08
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