How To Best Prepare In 2021 For Digital Reshaping From The GeoTech Decade

The GeoTech Decade is forecasted in the May 2021 released Report of the Commission of Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data (GeoTech Commission) by the non-profit GeoTech Center (GTC) of the Atlantic Council. The report is an important resource for your digital situation room/innovation center.

What to do?

With accelerated changes happening daily, driven by technology innovation, it is essential that leaders mine diverse and multi-stakeholder insights in their digital situation rooms – innovation centers piloting creative solutions.

Businesses require centers of innovation to stay ahead in integrating these transformations. These become Digital Reshaping Situation Rooms. The objective: actively monitor and detect signals for radical changes, anticipate and conduct experiments to integrate into planning and pilots.

From my insights sitting more than 100 global programs, the next ten years will bring more profound technological changes than in the past 10,000 years. These will have an impact on everyone. Not only on technologies and jobs, but on cultures, societies, governments, how we think, how our children grow up – all aspects of our lives will change. The major advancements will be the aggregation of the confluence of Internet of Things, 5G/6G to cloud computing, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, new 3D chips, quantum computing and much more.  You have seen a lot of this in the news, but it is going to accelerate, which means that businesses must plan for the implications of edge computing, the digitalization of the workforce / your consumers, of your interactions with government, other businesses and so on. An example is the rapid transformation of healthcare – changes expected in ten years, happening in one year.

Leading up to the GeoTech Decade — Global Changes Requiring Actions – embedded lessons, resources, tools, insights

Since 2016, we have experienced the 4th Industrial Revolution (World Economic Forum, WEF). Hallmarks were acceleration of innovation across the digital, biological, and physical domains.

This evolved across multiple areas of our lives with Society 5.0 (Japan) and Smart Humanity (KNVI, Royal Dutch IT society).

This is evidenced in a global inflection point where timelines are short guided by diverse insights. It is an unprecedented time of ecosystem shifts; generational, economic, cultural, and societal change. I term this A Triple C or ACCC which is fundamentally grounded on technology and alignment to global positive impact. This can be measured through ESG (environmental, social, governance) and UN Sustainable Development (SDG) goals.

This Digital Reshaping is catalyzed with the ACCC, happening now, with HYPER:

–Automation with the 40B IoT, embedded nanoscale sensors, AI understanding causation and the generalization of artificial intelligence

-Time Compression in new innovations executed daily

–Convergence in physical, digital, and biological existences and accelerated digital transformation post COVID

-Ubiquitous seamless Connectivity powered by unlimited, unbounded computational capabilities, universal accessibility, cognitive enhancements, and new compute paradigms

This Digital Reshaping spawns new: services, products, business models, governance systems, organizational models, operational re-engineering; economic, political, societal, and cultural changes.

Resources for your Digital Situation Room

CBInsights provides regular online downloadable reports. For example, their annual CBInsights AI100. Over the last three years, the CBInsights Game Changers annual reports have profiled 34 game changing trends with a sampling of startups leading the way. Examples are Quantum AI and AI on the Edge (2019); Photonic Chips and AI Transparency (2020); Intelligent Tutoring and Differential Privacy (2021).

WEF (World Economic Forum) produces their Future of Jobs Report. Their report in 2018 covered the period 2018-2022 including skills and job trends. What I found most valuable is the technology adoption survey results across all major sectors and more than 15 technology categories. Their report in 2020 covered the period 2020-2025.

Reports from major consultancies such as PwC, McKinsey, and government bodies including ones containing insights that can differ from your perspectives. Examples here are the National Intelligence Council Global Trends Report released April 2021 and the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence Report released March 2021.

CEO keynotes from the top companies for their seminal events.

Tools and resources from non-profit CEO organizations. For example, the non-profit, The Danish Management Society (VL), a community of more than 4000 business CEOs plus government leaders and notable experts who began this journey three years ago and now openly (freely) share tools and lessons:

-Materials to facilitate UN Global Goals workshops

-Use cases in UN Global Goals workshops

-McKinsey & Company SDG Guide for Business leaders 

-GGBN App (freely available in the Apple and Google app stores), Global Goals Navigator for Business Leaders

The management society began with: UN Global Goals – a competitive factor; this evolved to Responsible Business – a competitive advantage; in 2021, Digital Reshaping.

Reports from the more than 50 major think tanks. The recent example released in May 2021 are the continuing global revolutions now executing as The GeoTech Decade defined by the Atlantic Council (AC) GeoTech Center (GTC) Commission Report 2021 – Report on the Commission of Geopolitical Impacts of New Technologies and Data (GeoTech Commission).

Deeper into The GeoTech Decade – an overview

The report comes amid the “GeoTech Decade,” in which new technologies and data capabilities will have an outsized impact on geopolitics, economics, and global governance. However, no nation or international organization has created the appropriate governance structures needed to grapple with the complex and destabilizing dynamics of emerging technologies. As a result, new approaches are required for developing and deploying critical technologies, cultivating human capital, rebuilding trust in domestic and global governance, and establishing norms for international cooperation. The report’s recommendations are designed to ensure multinational-allied leadership in science and technology; ensure the trustworthiness and resilience of physical and IT supply chains, infrastructures, and the digital economy at large; improve global health protection; assure commercial space operations for public benefit; and create a digitally fluent and resilient workforce.

Key recommendations from the report include:

• Global science and technology leadership: Develop a National & Economic Security Technology Strategy
• Secure data and communications: Strengthen the National Cyber Strategy Implementation Plan and accelerate quantum information science technologies operationalization
• Enhanced Trust and Confidence in the Digital Economy: Demonstrate AI improvements to delivery of public- and private-services
• Assured Supply Chains and System Resiliency: Broaden federal oversight of supply chain assurance
• Continuous Global Health Protection and Global Wellness: Launch a global pandemic surveillance and warning system
• Assured Space Operations for Public Benefit: Harden security of commercial space industry facilities and space assets
• Future of Work: Create the workforce for the GeoTech Decade and equitable access to opportunity

David Bray, executive director, noted:

“The work of the bipartisan GeoTech Commission was 14 months in the making, representing the consensus of public and private sector leaders on practical steps forward for Congress, the White House, private industry, academia, and like-minded nations. The sophisticated, but potentially fragile, data and tech systems that now connect people and nations mean we must incorporate resiliency as a necessary foundational pillar of modern life. It is imperative that we promote strategic initiatives that employ data and tech to amplify the ingenuity of people, diversity of talent, strength of democratic values, innovation of companies, and reach of global partnerships.”