At Tech Futures Lab we’re always seeking, learning and creating impactful futures alongside our amazing students, staff and of course, leading industry experts and advisors.
Undoubtedly, 2022 has been a big year of change & transition for many in personal, professional and a variety of unforeseen ways. For example; FTX crashing, Women in Web3 rising, Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover, international post-pandemic demographics shifting, national long-term insights into the future of business, regional tech ecosystem mapping, and construction starting on an unprecedented urban living sustainable future city in the middle of the desert; The Line, just to name a few.
We’re all looking forward to the end of the year for a much-needed break, but before then, we’re also looking to 2023 around the big (tech) trends to be aware of moving into the future! We posed a big question to the big brains of our TFL advisors, and here’s what they had to say:
"What will be the one big thing to keep your eye on in 2023 in your area of (tech) expertise?"
Cybersecurity will become more important for individuals (not just businesses) especially as we continue to #WFH. As we expand our use of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) we will need to consider privacy and security in all aspects of our lives. - Paula Gair, TFL Advisor and Founder of Deriskme.com
Decentralised Crypto Wallets go mainstream! Also, a combination of Deepfakes, Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) & Generative Pretrained Transformer (GPT3/4) in one Software as a service (SaaS) product. - Felix Scholz, TFL Advisor and Founder of StokeVentures
The emergence of new web3.0 use cases and business models will continue to accelerate during 2023. The one use case that will attract significant attention is the bridging of the physical and digital worlds intersected with web2.0 - web3.0 mapping interfaces - the new 'phygital' domain.
This also aligns to data capture in the physical world becoming more granular, concise and distributed. This will provide enhanced input contexts into the digital/ virtual worlds for mapping into various new AR/VR/XR and metaverse environments. IoT will play a crucial role in this physical world data capture with web3.0 decentralised/ distributed mechanisms overlayed at point of data collection.
With these new enhanced data inputs, innovative and disruptive phygital use cases and business models will gain momentum over 2023 and beyond. - Kriv Naicker, TFL Advisor and Managing Director, Synaptec NZ
FurRemote Patient Monitoring (RPM) & accelerated work in the space of the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) - Sylvia Hach, TFL Advisor, Senior lecturer healthcare, Senior research officer and Founder of Powerx2
Apple's VR/AR headset - finally. Interestingly, Apple isn't buying into the Metaverse hype, so it will be fascinating to see what they do actually bring out. Given the AR programming tools that have been available from Apple for a long time, I expect it will be a truly Mixed Reality experience. But, Apple doesn't generally do things by halves, so we can hope that they will redefine the AR/VR/MR space in new ways.
That said, the risk is that they will play it safe given they no longer have such a visionary as Steve Jobs at the helm, so it might be more of the same as already out by the likes of Meta and Vive.
Of course, you'll have to pair the Apple XR headset with the Apple phone and the Apple watch, and you'll need a macbook to write code for it!
- Roy C. Davies, TFL Advisor, Senior Technician, University of Auckland and Founder, Imesia: Smart Digital Lab
Is the use of AI from wearables to input into our daily health and well-being to personalise our routines. We are already seeing a lot of this from Netflix through to Google, but I believe there will be so much more to come in this space. Health has a long way to come in terms of joining the tech world so this is an area to watch
- Amy Chan, TFL Advisor, Academic Practice Unit Lead, University of Auckland
Tech Enabled Immersive Learning (AR/VR/XR) - flexible, personalised el-earning; micro-credentials.
- Hayley Sparks, TFL Advisor and Academic Director, Academy EX
Biotech, in two major ways 1) genomics (biological data) 2) ability to do easy targeted editing - Craig Hilton, TFL Lead Advisor, Former Academic Director, The Mind Lab & Tech Futures Lab
The rise of Women in the Web3 community will continue to grow, evolve and expand. There is huge potential in the next iteration of the internet, but it’s crucial that women are at the table influencing and making decisions, if we’re to fully realise the potential of social innovation and social impact of a better future.
- Jade Tang-Taylor, Tech Futures Lab Innovation Director, Innovation Consultant & Associate, Innovation Unit & Toi Aria
As you can see, our collective future is more uncertain than ever before, yet technology as an enabler and an essential tool is also more important than ever before in this VUCA world. The only thing we are certain of, is lifelong learning is here to stay. How we might learn, unlearn and relearn our way forward in these complex times, and create impactful futures together is up to you!
Interested in learning more about the big trends with us in 2023
Upcoming TFL Programmes:
Master of Technological Futures (MTF)
Postgraduate Certificate in Human Potential for the Digital Economy (HPDE)
Disruptive Technologies Microcredential (DT)
Entrepreneurship
Microcredential (ENT)
Understanding Software Development Processes & Tools Microcredential
(USD)
Product Management Short course (PM)
Sampler courses - self paced short course tasters