Perspectives — digital & 4IR technologies

In a world characterised by complexity and exponential change, it is incumbent on leaders to interrogate and anticipate the nature and risks of the wave of new technologies ushering in the fourth industrial revolution, and to consider the role their organisations play in harnessing their potential for the benefit of our resource-constrained planet and societies. 

In a digital, globalised world, with all the concomitant concerns of authenticity, biosecurity, financial security and money laundering, blockchain technologies are set to enable rapid, cost effective identity management, asset tracking, compliance and certainty of transaction completion.

3D printing is ushering in a new atomic model for physical objects and a new era of pan-industrial competition. Any factory anywhere can potentially manufacture not just parts, but complete products for any number of industries, continually iterate and hyper-personalise these at low cost in response to market demand.

As both consumers and organisations struggle with cognitive overload from the rapidly escalating volume and velocity of data from ever more connected devices, AR offers up a much-needed panacea. Where current internet technologies place access to the right information at the right time at our fingertips, with AR, we will now have it in plain sight.