In a recent Article via the World Economic forum, author Saemoon Yoon identified 17 ways that technology could change the world by 2025. While the current pandemic exposed our vulnerabilities, it also shows what is achievable through collaboration. While efforts to collaborate globally must improve, a heightened visibility to the issues combined with an appreciation for the power of science and technology is a step in the right Direction. Here are snippets from the article that captures insight from 17 experts related to the world of 2025.

MANUFACTURING

Anna-Katrina Shedletsky, CEO and Founder of Instrumental: By 2025, ubiquitous streams of data and intelligent algorithms will enable manufacturing to continuously optimize towards higher levels of output and product quality – reducing overall waste in manufacturing by up to 50%. As a result, we will enjoy higher quality products, produced faster, at lower cost to our pocketbooks and the environment.

ENERGY

Steve Oldham, CEO of Carbon Engineering: The creation of a sustainable, net-zero future will be built through a far-reaching energy transformation that significantly reduces the world’s carbon emissions, and through the emergence of a massive carbon management industry that captures, utilizes and eliminates carbon dioxide.

Thomas Laurent, CEO of Akselos: The rapid development of digital twins – virtual replicas of physical devices – will support a systems-level transformation of the energy sector.

HEALTHCARE

Thomas Monz, Co-Founder and CEO of Alpine Quantum Technologies: Right now, the development of pharmaceuticals and performance materials relies massively on trial and error, which means it is an iterative, time-consuming and terribly expensive process. Quantum computers may soon be able to change this. They will significantly shorten product development cycles and reduce the costs for R&D.

Jim Flatt, Co-Founder and CEO of Brightseed: After the pandemic of 2020, consumers will be more aware of the importance of their underlying health and will increasingly demand healthier food to help support their natural defenses. Armed with a much deeper understanding of nutrition, the global food industry can respond by offering a broader range of product options to support optimal health outcomes.

Sizhen Wang, CEO of Genetron Health: Technology drives data, data catalyzes knowledge, and knowledge enables empowerment. In tomorrow’s world, cancer will be managed like any chronic health condition – we will be able to precisely identify what we may be facing and be empowered to overcome it.

Rahul Dhanda, Co-Founder and CEO of Sherlock Biosciences: Inextricable links between health, socio-economic status and quality of life will begin to loosen, and tensions that exist by equating health with access to healthcare institutions will dissipate. From daily care to pandemics, converging technologies will alter economic and social factors to relieve many pressures on the global human condition.

Brandon Suh, CEO of Lunit: AI is that new tool that will enable us to extract more insights at an unprecedented level from all the medical ‘big data’ that has never really been fully taken advantage of in the past.

Jessica Green, Co-Founder and CEO of Phylagen: new insights will not only help us avoid and respond to pandemics, but will influence how we design, operate and clean environments like buildings, cars, subways and planes, in addition to how we support economic activity without sacrificing public health.

CONNECTIVITY

Maha Achour, Founder and CEO of Metawave: WiFi can’t scale to meet higher capacity demands. Sheltering-in-place has moved businesses and classrooms to video conferencing, highlighting poor-quality networks. Low latency 5G networks would resolve this lack of network reliability and even allow for more high-capacity services like telehealth, telesurgery and ER services.

RETAIL

Jose Aguerrevere, Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Takeoff Technologies: Grocery retailing will no longer look the same. The use of robotics downstream at a ‘hyper local’ level (as opposed to the traditional upstream application in the supply chain) will disrupt this 100-year-old, $5 trillion industry and all its stakeholders will experience significant change.

EVENTS

Tugce Bulut, CEO of Streetbees: The line between physical space and virtual will forever be blurred. We’ll start to see capabilities for global events – from SXSW to the Glastonbury Festival – to provide fully digitized alternatives, beyond simple live streaming into full experiences.

CONSTRUCTION

Meirav Oren, CEO and Co-Founder of Versatile: Construction will become a synchronized sequence of manufacturing processes, delivering control, change and production at scale. It will be a safer, faster and more cost-effective way to build the homes, offices, factories and other structures we need to thrive in cities and beyond.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Jan Wurzbacher, Co-Founder and co-CEO of Climeworks: A scale up of negative emission technologies, such as carbon dioxide removal, will remove climate-relevant amounts of CO2 from the air. This will be necessary in order to limit global warming to 1.5°C.

David King, CEO of FogHorn Systems: as a result of increasing digital transformation, carbon-heavy sectors will be able to utilize advanced technologies, like AI and machine learning, using real-time, high-fidelity data from billions of connected devices to efficiently and proactively reduce harmful emissions and decrease carbon footprints.

MONEY

Atish Davda, Co-Founder and CEO of Equityzen: Artificial intelligence is improving at such a speed that the strategies employed by these financial advisors will be accessible via technology, and therefore affordable for the masses.

PRIVACY

Ellison Anne Williams, Founder and CEO of Enveil: Five years from now, privacy and data-centric security will have reached commodity status – and the ability for consumers to protect and control sensitive data assets will be viewed as the rule rather than the exception.