Business 21C - Published by UTS Business

We’ll say it again, the world is changing, and the rate of change is speeding up. Be the future you want, for your business and for yourselves, writes Kirsten Lees. Infographics and research, Scott David and Andy Maynard.

The icecaps are shrinking, the temperature is rising, the global population is exploding, the local population is ageing. We have sequenced the human genome, cloned mammals and integrated artificial intelligence into our daily activities without even realising.

Changes over the next decade will render our culture obsolete as irreversible climate change, technological quantum leaps, an unprecedented energy crisis, and the global population explosion cause an economic and social shift least as dramatic as the industrial revolution.

It will be a time of great challenge and of equally great opportunity as we redefine how we work, what is meant by work, and even what it means to be a person. How we interact, how we do business and how we shape the future are up for grabs.

At Business21C we don’t believe we have the answers, or even that there are any. But we do know that debate and conversation help us reach for them.

Everyone's getting older

Global population growth and life expectancies, 1960 – 2020

Everyone's moving to town

Urban versus rural populations, 1960 – 2020

Everywhere's getting warmer

Average global temperatures, 1909 – 2020

Declining artic sea ice

Snow and ice melt, 1980 – 2020

Everything is getting smarter

Time taken to sequence HIV, SARS and projected viruses to 2020

Everything's going portable

Mobile internet versus desktop internet, 2010 – 2020

Nanotechnology's everywhere

Plastic solar cells, windows that generate solar energy, water filtration systems that could save billions of lives. Nanotechnology is changing the world.

Online censorship is becoming more common

The spread of internet censorship, 1980 – 2020

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