Tech that can change our future – and it’s bigger than the internet
These transformative pieces of tech are set to really change the world
By | David Walker | www.theceomagazine.com
Technologies change the world. In the past 40 years, three major pieces of tech have done so: the PC, the internet and the mobile phone. If you are to pick three technologies that will really change the world in the decades ahead, you will take several steps.
First, eliminate the tech that is already on the verge of changing it: autonomous electric vehicles, solar and wind power with battery storage, improved crop yields, artificial intelligence.
Discard, too, the tech that seems to have strictly limited application, like blockchain, and those that seem likely to change it only slightly: graphene, electrified air transport, zero-carbon building materials, small modular nuclear reactors, cancer vaccines.
Lab-grown meat could radically reduce human pressure on the natural world, while cutting water use and greenhouse gas emissions.
That leaves a small group of tech, of which three stand out. They represent, in turn: a huge leap in responsible consumption, a huge leap in manufacturing, and a huge leap in power.
Future tech: Cultured meat for food
The term cultured meat may seem a mere mouthful, but its effects may dwarf most others. We use half the world’s habitable land for agriculture, and more than three-quarters of that is used for livestock. As countries try to meet the demand for produce, for example China’s demand for Australia’s seafood, they are also denuding many of the world’s seas of fish.
The rise of lab-grown meat could radically reduce human pressure on the natural world, while cutting water use and greenhouse gas emissions (cows burp a lot of methane).
