The world in the next 15 years

"Mankind will evolve much rapidly than it did in last 100 years."

Humans as specie is still evolving, and it will evolve further, even now a part of our tribal days still exist within us. Future is taking shape right now across the world. What is shaping the future is similar to what created life; it started with Carbon, In the cosmic history carbon in the space collided with other elements which gave birth to us, in this era it's the knowledge of different things across diverse subjects which is colliding at much rapid pace than ever. Steve jobs mentioned about joining the dot backwards, however today human mind is joining the dot right in present and creating things that never exist. One particular influencing factor for this phenomenon is the amount of information that we are receiving today, across diverse subjects are playing a crucial role within our grey cells - making them collide must faster than ever.

By the time, I will be ready to retire; the world around me would have changed dramatically much like it has in the last 15 years.

Here's a list of things that I foresee:

Healthcare

I remember the days back in Delhi, when I use to visit the fully computerised railway ticket reservation centre near New Delhi railway station with my father every summer vacation to book our train tickets. Today we do it with our smart phone. Similarly the long queue at the hospitals today will disappear and by 2030, people will visit Doctors virtually as a subscribe service. Good healthcare will be available at home. Let's say it will be be new era of Service based E-commerce Industry.

Driverless Highways

With the rise of Transport aggregators like UBER or OLA, there's already a shortage of chauffeurs, and corporate giants like Google and Apple are all geared up for driverless cars. I am sure we will see dedicated highways for driverless cars. The best part however is some of the old cars will just get retrofitted so don't be in a hurry to sell off the car you love now.

The Education Business

I met a lot of young people, some of them are in schools, some are in colleges and some are working with me. One can see that the younger generations are learning thing much differently than how we have been learning, so its not so difficult for me to see that the biggest education industry will be a internet driven company, and possibly it may not have yet started.

Water Business

I sometimes wonder that, we do not get regular supply of water for our household, but we do get the tankers for the same, so where does the tanker get the water, while the underground fresh water is depleting rapidly, and some conservation project are work in progress, I can clearly see that in next 15 years we will have cities which will harvest water supply from atmosphere.

The Subscribed Life

It has already began, 30 years back, we never had the concept of cooking gas, people mostly burned wood, coal or cow dung to have the fire for cooking, but then we subscribed to LPG, and then cable TV, then mobile and all of these are the beginning of a subscription based life. I won't be surprised if certain apparel brand will have a subscription offer. Everything that we need will be available on subscriptions.

Versatile GenX

Like the book Battle hymn of Tiger Mother - Amy Chua, where in she ensure her daughter excel in more than one field, the availability of Information and open education policies will allow our future generation to excel in multiple fields instead of one. We will learn how to multi-tag an individual.

Some of my friends who are in the logistics business understand the extent of automation needed to keep up with the demanding business operations. By 2030 majority of the delivery systems will be automated, don't be surprised if in next few years you don't see a billing counter in a grocery shopping mall. IoT will connect the dots for you. Infact you should be able to preorder your stuff and your shopping cart will be ready. Every cart will have the power of AI that will guide you towards the next item you need to buy.

Security Services

Much like the movie minority report, where you are able to predict the crimes even before they happen, we will be adopting a whole new range of sensors and devices which will help us feel more secured. In most cities securities will be managed using drones, loaded with heat sensors and night vision it will be one of the big hits. You don't have to dial any number incase of an emergency, but just have to trigger a signal, which will be picked up by the flying drones. It will however have to follow a strict privacy policy but life is more important than privacy.

New Jobs

Imagine how it would have sounded that in 1976 if a 5 year old would have said that he grow up and write C++ and Java Script, imaging the expression of the grandpa who is listening to his grand son? But that's the reality today, 30 years back no one knew or heard of the work they are doing now. This will repeat again, and this time around the cycle of change will be much shorter. In next 15 years over 2 billion jobs will have disappeared, freeing up the talent for many new fledging industries.

Future is Wireless

The amount of cable lying my desk is annoying enough, there's a cable for everything and since these cables get entangled so frequently its really annoying to manage them. Just have a look behind your favourite home theatre you know what I am taking about or ask the datacenter manager. So in next 15 years, we will have a solution to this menace. We already have wireless charging solutions available.

What is Real and Surreal

I learned the word "surreal" when I learned about Salvador Dali, a painter who painted his dreams on the canvas. Today, at the pace in which real world colliding with the surreal is beyond imagination, in future it will be difficult to explain my grand children what is real and what is surreal. The development of AI and Visualisation will make it inseparable, I am sure you all have seen the academy award wining movie Her or you will have a "Jarvis" from the movie Ironman

Species Rebirth or Invented

In the book by Peter Thiel - Zero to One he has defined the word technology in holistic manner, as "Any new and better way of doing things is technology" it could be in any dimension of life. At one end we are talking about technology of artificial intelligence on the other end we are advancing in our life science - genetic engineering. Both of these technologies will enable us to create or revive specie. So don't be surprise if you see a humanoid shop.

Future of Organisations

In last 10 years most of us have heard the term lay offs more frequently than ever, Job Security is not actually a security, While a majority of the fortune 500 companies will dissolve, some will evolve further and we will see a different kind of organisation taking shape, which is in the form of a community. It will be somewhat like UBER an Aggregation of Talent, but mostly all independent. Making their own living, working collectively within a community. It has already begun; today we refer to this phenomenon as Intraprenuers.

Climate Change

Things that did not happen in 100 years have begun to happen. This has triggered many minds, survival is the biggest instinct every discovered by Ontology - the study of existence. These changes in climate will give birth to newer technologies that will allow people to survive the testing times or natures fury. Be it the floods, food crisis, tsunamis, radiations, in the next 15 years a majority of survival kits will be available for people to buy or subscribe to.

Urbanization and Agriculture will co-exist

In the last 3 decades, we have seen the rise of industries, cities and depleting green lands, but in recent future mankind will learn the ways to may them co exist. One of my own venture Green Factor is committed to making this change, where in families, societies will be able to grow their own green, even if they live in small apartments. Farming will happen on all building rooftops without soil with out mess, and mostly automated.

Space Tourism

I know of one man who has been dreaming of this for long - Elon Musk. We should be able to have tour of moon in the next 15 years, it will be expensive though, but eventually it will be affordable. Space colonies will also be taking shape in the next 15 years.

Global Families

As the world will be knitted more closely than ever, families will have their relative around the world; belong to different races and religion and strata of life. It will allow the human species to be much stronger. Swami Vivekananda has mentioned about this way long back.

Religion will Reinvent

Here's the most sensitive one, but the future generations will question everything and therefore religions will have to reinvent itself, reinvent the cultural systems to suit the future of mankind. It will revive the community living standards once again.

Future is old

The world is ageing and so are the people, although India today is a young country while rest of the world has already aged, in next 15 years, India too would move to the otherside. That implies that many entrepreneurs and intraprenuers will be planning to capitalise the Advance Age Markets.

I hope you are with me so far, and there's more to the journey of the future. At creative factor group we enjoy the company of forward-looking friends and talents, we are incubating a bunch of powerful ideas, because we firmly believe that the best way to predict the future is to create it. I hope to meet likeminded people and invite them to join us in this pursuit.

*Cover Image Courtesy Shutterstock.