The World is In Your Hands
You just woke up on a warm and sunny day in America. As soon as you open your eyes, you were greeted by your assistant, which is a robot. Then, your IoT bedroom make itself like a tangled cable roll that is stretched until so straightaway also open the glass window in order to make you feel fresh air from outside your house. While you were waiting for a cup of Americano that is being made by your automatic coffee maker, you scroll through your smart watch, reading the news, on a hologram form. After a cup of coffee, your robot reminds you to get ready because a lot of stuff waiting ahead for you that day. Soon, you take a bath with a saving water shower, also ultrasonic bubbles that work like a micro-scrubbers that remove dirt and germs from most surfaces more efficient. As you do your hair and sprayed an eau de toilette that also works as a deodorant, your assistant shares your activity at that day generally while playing your favorite classical piano music.
Immediately, you take your stuffs with you and headed to the place where your driverless car is waiting for you, absolutely outside your home. You headed to your workplace, about 5 miles from home, without any traffic jam. The car travelled precisely because of that great algorithm design and when it arrives at the destination, the door automatically opened and wishing for your good that day.
As you arrived, a robot at your workplace warmly greeted you and bring your stuffs to your workspace. At your workplace, you open your holographic display and projection keyboard and also connecting with your business partner in China. Not only changing information through voices, you can clearly see your partner in front of you with hologram technology that you used. Discussing about the development of the business collaboration that both of your companies have done, starting from sales traffic, consumer purchase patterns, prediction of market competition to new software product that will be launched ahead. After that, you gather your employees to talk about your discussion with your partner in China.
It was a very pleasing day because so many ideas popped out in your and your employees mind, therefore you can discuss for the company’s plan in the future in a detailed way. Moreover, it is almost the summer holiday in a couple days. On your way home, one of your friend that helped you developing your company called you, asking if you want to spend your holiday with him. You answered yes, excitedly. Then, he asked, “Do you want to spend this holiday on Mars?”.
This thing may happen in some years. Maybe on 2030, longer, or sooner. Technology have evolved as a tree that rapidly grows, from it’s roots, branches, to it’s fruits. Technology have changed lives, from an individual, family, the government, also the world.
Back to the history, the growth of technology felt when Industry 1.0 started, during the mechanical weaving loom was invented in the end of the 18th century. Industry 1.0 introduced the concept of mechanical mass production with the help of water and steam power to the world that was first successfully invented by Thomas Newcomen. As production of both raw and manufactured products capabilities increased, business also grew from individual cottage owners taking care of their own needs to organizations with owners, managers and employees serving customers. This situation created a stronger national economy, supported by clean water and sanitation, which meant that life expectancy increased, causing a greater demand for products and more jobs for the masses to make the products and earn the money to buy steam engine itself. This phase usually called as the birth of industry.
After that phase, Industry 2.0 begin through introduction of mass production of assembly line with the help of electrical energy in 1870 that was first invented by Ford Motor Company. This phase made the control-obsessed industrialist increasingly found ways to make high-quality products without the need for highly skilled workers so its utilized the appropriate allocation of resources.
Now, we move to Industry 3.0 where automation made vital parts of the production process safer and more efficient. This phase begin by the creation of the first programmable logic control system in late 20th century. This phase was fulfill with high-speed Internet access, mobile connectivity and renewable energy. This was a time that is full of creativity, innovation and ingenuity and last but not least was an introduction to manufacturing world to face the fourth industrial revolution of Industry or some experts usually says Industry 4.0.
Today, Industry was enormously developing at 4.0 phase, the phase that connects the internet of things (IoT) with manufacturing techniques to enable systems to share information, analyze it and use it to guide intelligent actions. It also incorporates cutting-edge technologies including additive manufacturing, robotics, artificial intelligence and other cognitive technologies, advanced materials, and augmented reality, according to the article “Industry 4.0 and Manufacturing Ecosystems” by Deloitte University Press. In this 21st century on the basis of cyber-physical production systems (CPPS), this phase that was said to be a ‘buzz word’ by Dr. Carl Diver, lecturer at the University of Manchester’s School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, merging of real and virtual world via Internet of Things (IoT). IoT changes our paradigm about the life we live because Internet of Things has transformed how we do things. There appears to be an app for all aspects of how we live. This may be one of the first instances where a disruptive technology used by the mass market is being adopted by industry. Today, we have such different environment compared to the previous industry phases. The central importance is its interface with other smart infrastructures like smart mobility, smart buidings, smart grid, smart homes until smart logistics like we can see below in Chart 1. Link to both business and social networks — the business web and the social web — also play an increasingly important role to this phase. All of this infrastructures and networks are based on four things, Internet of Things (IoT), Internet of People, Internet of Services, and Internet of Data. Its not about robot or automation, its about how to use technology in more effective and more efficient way.
Talk about the future, we can’t forget about globalization. Today, globalization getting more complex and the changes are getting more rapid than before. There is so many obvious difference between the past and the present. As examples, income increases for half of the world population although the total population raised about two billions and the number of illiterates also decreases from half to a quarter, even less of the total population. Looking at differences that is very obvious, we have huge opportunity to unleash new potential for innovation and also development. However, besides that advantages there is another edge of this effect, certainly it will be the challenges for us. Ian Goldin, economist, development visionary and also the director of the Oxford Martin School said in TED Global Talks that was filmed in July 2009 that there is 2 Achilles heels of globalization and the first is growing inequality. First, globalization has not been inclusive, or we can say that exclusive just for some groups of people who feels it. There are still some people who have not experienced the impact of globalization, whether partially, or not at all. This thing absolutely will cause those who are left behind will more and more left behind by those who experienced globalization completely. This will lead to bad impacts in the future. Second, the complexity of globalization. What happened in one place will very quickly affect everything else from in its environment even until the world itself. The growth of fragility and weakness as an example is the complexity of globalization. There is systemic risks and shocks for every event that will happening later.
This two Achilles heels merged as a very challenging homework for us to done. In the future, when our smartphone will be more powerful from the Apollo space engine or even more powerful from some of the strongest and best computer 30 years ago will be some of the impacts from those two Achilles heels. It is like a boomerang, it might help us, as it also might destroy us.
Globalization give us huge opportunities to improve technology greatly and give us the ability to do things in new ways to unleashing potential in many aspects of our lives. In other words, the question that is need to be answer by the intellects, also us, as someone who took an important role for the future is how we manage this technology changes? How can we ensure that it will creates more inclusive technology, not the exclusive one? Technology which ‘means’, not only as we grow older, but also makes us to grow wiser and makes us to supporting our grandchildren in the future.
After knowing the rapid development of technology that still happening until now, what will the world be like 5 or even 10 years later? What will the world be like in 2030? Will the rapid development of technology make the world a better place? Or even with the rapid growth of technology, makes 2030 the worst year ever in human history? It all depends on our very own decision, the decision to take another steps forward in every aspect of our life, from education, economy, social, to culture. Will the new industry phase, Industry 5.0, happen in 2030? Ed Fagan, Operator Manager of London Museum of Water and Steam said “We will see, in my lifetime, the complete, man free automation of manufacturing, where computers manage lower level computers and man checks in over a virtual network”. It seems that Industry 4.0 will be whether evolutionized or even revolutionized to, let’s say, “Industry 5.0” and it seems seriously not impossible in 2030 that there will be so many factory which have less employee compared to earlier years.
Research has shown that Moore’s law — which states that the capacity of microchips, bandwidth, and computers doubles every 18 months, representing exponential growth — also applies to other technologial developments like 3D printing, sensor technology, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, nanotechnology, drones and biotechnology (Deloitte, 2015). So, the impact of exponential growth of technology will be massive too in our life, although there are some experts who stated that Moore’s Law is no longer valid in this century. Therefore, the problem that we have to face is not ‘if technology affects our lives’ or ‘what changes will technology give to us’, but ‘how fast technology affects our life’ and ‘can we adapt to all the things technology have done to us?’ The answer have to be yes, if we can’t do that, we will left behind by the technology itself. Furthermore, we will be far behind the era. Hence, another question will show up, ‘how long can we adapt with the the development of technology that exponentially grow?’ All those questions will lead to whether we can make the world better with varied technology we will face by 2030? The answer is, it is possible.
In advance of finding the solution, we have to look at potential problems that may happen in the future. I will say that there will be a lot of problems that this world will have to face by 2030, and it all will refers to technology. One of the most talked issues is work crisis that is usually associated with the development of artificial intelligence (AI). As a common people, we would most likely to agree because it makes sense, with automation in every field, there will be many jobs replaced by AI. But there are several experts’ opinion about this issue that also makes sense if we think about it further.
Rainer Strack, human resources expert said in TED at BCG Berlin that was filmed in October 2014 that he already done some interesting research. First, he compared labor supply and labor demand for 15 largest economic country around the world which labor supply obtained from potential working age population — between 15 and 65 years old — or we usually look from the age pyramid of a country and labor demand obtained from observing GDP of this 1 countries for last 20 years. The result is very surprising! Originally in 2020 the labor surplus from several countries still enough like UK, Spain, and the US, however it changes dramatically by 2030 with this analysis. Almost all of the countries experience labor shortage which means all countries can not fulfill market demand on labor. He said that yes, technology like artificial intelligence, big data, automation will replace not only regular jobs, underlined the regular jobs, but also like office jobs. In labor shortage-labor surplus data below, if we expand our analysis, we might discover significant differences on future situation, that is a very high demand of high skilled labor and low demand of low-skilled labor compared to the present that there are only a few high skilled labor. Instead, low-skilled labor dominates. So, technology will replace jobs but also creating new jobs that was hard for us to predict. Surely, this new jobs will bring up new skills that is have to be mastered by the labor and every components from each, they need to participate in helping the skill development of the labors, from the labor itself, government, until company. So the key question is not ‘if technology replace jobs’ but ‘when and how fast will technology help us to face work force crisis?’
Another interesting research that Rainer do is about job references from 200.000 job seekers from 24 country around the world and the results was incredible. Fixed salary placed in number 8, while top 4 topics filled with culture. From number 4 to number 1 consecutively that is good relationships with superior or boss, good work-life balance, good relationship with colleagues and at the top is appreciation for your work. Years from now, the thing that have to our concern on our work field is recognition for work. In this data-filled — and quite charming — talk, Rainer gives 4 People Strategy to help the world solve this problem. Fourth people strategy is how to forecast supply and demand, how to attract great people, how to educate and upskill people and last but not least is how to retain great people. Everything in this 4 people strategy related to one another and can not be separated More important, this strategy have to be applied in every country around the world including the company inside it.
As well as Rainer, Ian Goldin said that dramatic manifestation might happen in the future as the result of the changing of population age statistics from a pyramid to a crate shape below. This shows that there might be no longer retirement age or pension phase for us in 2030. More dramatic, it changes from pyramid to skyscraper or usually called another shape of pyramid that will take places in China and in other countries. This thing absolutely in line with the research Rainer did. Together with the increase of new jobs and new skill, work field is provided for those who should have been retiring or for those who have not reached their working age — where new jobs and new skills will reappear in their future.
The researches that have been discussed earlier should increase our confidence to face exciting challenges in the future and innovation that is unstoppable. We have to prepare as soon as possible, not only ourself but also our surroundings because if we prepare properly, we will be able to use technology development as our weapon in the future — exactly in 2030.
All key question that are presented are only some of problems that will happen and we will have to face in 2030 or more than that is experts’ prediction about aspect they expert in. However, we will see it in the future. The differences of predicition with the experts’ are inevitable because as what Robert Rudolph, Head of Training and Innovation of Deloitte said, ‘The question arises with industry 4.0 of whether it is an evolution or a revolution’. We can conclude that the experts could still have another thought whether Industry 4.0 is an evolution or revolution. We know well that evolution and revolution are a very different thing in term of time and transformation that it causes. So it will make sense if we generalized this thing on technology development that is us — moreover the experts — will continue to monitor technology development that could be evolving this year, but in some years will be revolving in such a high rate. Nonetheless, behind all that the experts have provided many illustrations with enough data that is very helpful for us to face the unpredictable future.
Of course, as common people we often try to generalized past problems, along with the solution. With the limited knowledge we have, we will try to look for the root of the problem in general and then after that we will try to elaborate deeper although it is far behind the researches by the experts. But is there really a solution that is sufficiently said to be a ‘wrapper’ of fairly complicated solutions to be discussed as previously discussed? The answer is probably there.
At the beginning of the new millennium, world leaders gathered at the United Nations to shape a broad vision to fight poverty in its many dimensions. That vision, which was translated into eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), has remained the overarching development framework for the world for the past 15 years in 2015. Undeniably, this goals has so many objectives with 8 main goals that is targeted can be achieve by every country around the world by 2015 like we can see above in Figure 2. All of this target that is begin with solve poverty and hunger, gender equality, combat many diseases and ensure environmental sustainability around the world should be the world achieve but as I told you before, globalization has growing very fast and the changes is going to be very rapidly and another plenty problems an challenges. However, John W. McArthur, a senior fellow and Krista Rasmussen, a research analyst both in Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution, informs that a critique to this goals according, for example, to a Financial Times editorial in September 2015 that said the MDGs were little more than a “bureaucratic accounting exercise with scant impact on reality”, is correct(O’Connor, 2011). Then, because of the time is over and we need such better goals to be achieved than the MDGs, UN was updating their goals that have decided by The Head of States and Government and High Representatives in New York from 25 to 27 September 2015 and produced The Global Goals for Sustainable Development or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Global Goals is such a great invention and ambitious one remembering that there are 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 associated targets also literally hundreds of indicators that if we look at its logo every color represented one main goal and because the time range that have UN targeted to achieve all of this goals is 15 years ahead from 2015, that is by 2030(United Nations General Assembly, 2015). This confotion has so obvious difference remembering the Millenium Develompent Goals (MDGs) in quantity was just 8 main goals. Moreover with there was so many critics and skeptics to the MDGs that has only 8 main goals, surely will affecting by so many pessimistic and low-trust level to The Global Goals that is pretty charming.
However, lets forget our skeptical and pessimistic about this product of a massive consultation exercise, that is SDGs, for a moment. Michael Green, a social progress expert, revealed an interesting perspective to terhadap The Global Goals in his talk at TEDGlobal London that was filmed in September 2015. Can SGDs really be achieved by 2030? He said that maybe we actually can achieve what has been The Global Goals targeting by 2030, but not with business as we usually do.
So, how can we measure success level of The Global Goals year by year until 2030? Well, we have to give a benchmark of where the world is today against the global goals and figure out how far we have to travel. We are going to use a tool called the Social Progress Index. The Social Progress Index rigorously measures country performance on a wide range of aspects of social and environmental, which are relevant for countries at all levels of economic development and also assesses a country’s success in turning into improved social outcomes with aggregate score from 0 to 100 so we can use it as a benchmark and we can track the progress over time.
The Social Progress Index basically asks three fundamental questions about a society that can we see in figure that is does everyone have the basic needs of survival? Secondly, does everyone have the building blocks of a better life? And the last, does everyone have the opportunity to improve their lives? So, let we see the Social Progress Index of every country around the world by 2017. Because there is no economic indicator there, The Social Progress Index can help us to understand the relationship beetween economic growth and social progress.
As we can see in the chart above, every point represents one country and here, we make regression line above this chart to get average description of the world social index by 2017. Regression line above tells us that as we get richer, social progress does tend to improve. However, as we get richer, each extra dollar in GDP is contributing less and less for our social progress. So, even ecomonic growth seems to solve poverty, but it doesn’t seems that economic growth will give big impact for our effort to achieve The Global Goals.
Charles F. Kettering, an American Inventor and Businessman said “We should all be concerned about the future because we will have to spend the rest of our lives there”(Schmidt & Cohen, n.d.), so, after some brief explanation about Industry development from 1.0 until 4.0 phase that is happening now, the globalization that won’t be separated when we discuss about the future, a quiet deep explanation about global workforce crisis by 2030, Millenium and Sustainable Development Goals (MDGs and SDGs), also Social Progress Index, we have to connect the dots beetween them to make us more concerned and getting ready for what will happening by 2030.
First, Industry development from water and steam power to cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) told us that technology growing and improving very rapidly for the last century. It means that every years, every month, every week even everyday could be etched new history for human race because of technology that has never been thingking before but the unthinkable could give much effectsfor the better world or unluckily the worst. Secondly, global workforce crisis maybe happening or not happening. It maybe happening because there will be so much regular jobs that replaced by AI, big data, automation also labor shortage, skill mismatch and cultural challenge and it maybe not happening because the constructive factor like there will be new jobs and new skill that was interesting to be learned, there will be no retirement age for human race, and work appreciation is growing much faster than the destructive factor as I told you before. Third, globalization that is very corresponding one each other with the future and now is getting more complex and today, it gives a huge opportunity to unleashing new invention and potentials. However, 2 Achilles heels will bloking us for find that huge opportunity and vast potentials. At last, Social Progress Index that really helps us to measure how possible we could achieve The Global Goals, what humanity want to be, that complete The MDGs has also its destructive and constructive factor. The destructive factor is we are the victims of our own success, the economic growth costs as well as benefits also the SDGs not as simple as just economic growth. On the other hand, the constructive factor is in Chart 3 itself, that there is actually lots of noise around the trendline that telling us GDP is not our destiny.
All of this connected dots is like the Infinity War, when one gets advantages, there appear disadvatages that those two things are fighting over each other and when all of this conditions has had a winner, there will be the future that will we undergo. So, it was truly right what Ian Goldin said that whether the future, says 2030, will be the best century ever because of the achievement or maybe the worst. All of the conditions in the future will depends on what we choose today. Michael Green has already told us about this that we have to do our business not as usual as we think, that we already have the solution for many problems that The Global Goals are trying to solve. Rainer Strack has also gave us enough description about what should we do woith his People Strategy. So, we will not absolutely and precisely know what will happen by 2030, but we already know what should we prepare to face the future obscurity and the most impontant is we can’t walk alone, we have to make our family, friends, and our society get together so that it becomes massive movement that implemented by all individuals, company, government and all countries around the world because the future is in our hands.
References
Deloitte. (2015). Industry 4.0. Challenges and solutions for the digital transformation and use of exponential technologies. Deloitte, 1–30.
O’Connor, R. (2011). Change of Pace. Best’s Review, (chapter 7), 61.
Porter, M., Stern, S., & Green, M. (2014). Social Progress Index 2014, 16. Retrieved from http://www.socialprogressimperative.org/data/spi
Schmidt, E., & Cohen, J. (n.d.). The New Digital Age; Reshaping The Future of People, Nations and Business. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Retrieved from www.aaknopf.com
United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 agenda for sustainable development. Https://Sustainabledevelopment.Un.Org/Content/Documents/7891Transforming%20Our%20World. Pdf, (1), 1–5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2
https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-gb/news/infographics/industry-1
https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-gb/news/infographics/industry-2
https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-gb/news/infographics/industry-3
https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-gb/news/infographics/industry-4
https://www.essentracomponents.com/en-gb/news/infographics/then-and-now
https://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/news/a7953/future-of-soap/
