HotSpots: Views of the Future

Kris Krug // Strategic News Service

By Nick Fritz

The FiRe conference famously brings many of the brightest minds together to discuss the future of our world. On day 3 of the conference, Ed Butler solicited the opinions of five of those minds to answer a simple question: What is your view of the future? David Engle, Thomas Curran, Mike Winder, Michael Bartholomeusz and Mark Godsy each answered the question in their own way.

Education was the first theme to emerge from the discussion.

“The model for education needs to change and needs to change dramatically,” said David Engle.

He elaborated that the current model is stuck in the industrial age, and reconstructing it would likely be too painful to be practical. The answer is to start a conversation about education by focusing on what we want out of our students and our communities in the 21st century, and creating a new education system from scratch. This model will require a revamping of the current digital infrastructure as a support system and potentially an interface for the students.

Speed is another critical factor that will shape the future. Automating software is rapidly changing the way that we think about computing applications. Additionally, the rapid increase in software development, as catalyzed by open source tools and massive collaboration, is significantly shortening the innovation cycle in the software space.

The convergence between silicon and carbon based organisms will be a crucial event in the near future. One rung in the ladder toward this convergence is the decoupling of silicon organisms from the environment. Technologies such as those offered by HZO are in development and can “coat” sensitive electronic products at the nano level with moisture resistant materials. This advancement in materials is but one sign post on the road to singularity.

The fourth and final theme that emerged from this conversation is the need to accelerate entrepreneurial development. The New FiRe Fund was announced during the session. They exist as an advisory board to entrepreneurs to assist in product development, scaling, and most importantly managerial practices that shift the focus from technology ownership to technology stewardship.
To discover more or read other articles from the conference, visit StratNews.com or our Medium blog.