I’m a sucker for year end reviews and am even a bigger sucker for future predictions.  Back when Back to the Future graced the silver screens and teased us with the possibility of flying cars and hover boards in the year 2015, 2020 surely seemed like a far distant reality.  And yet, here we are, a few days from 2020, a number that undoubtedly looks futuristic, without any flying cars and a Lexus hoverboard.

While Back to the Future was off on a lot of accounts, let’s take a look at what we do have today:

  1. Ridiculous amounts of information flying through the air
  2. Get anything delivered to you with just a few taps on a piece of glass
  3. Electric vehicles with partial self driving capabilities
  4. Re-usable rockets
  5. Agile robot dogs
  6. Super computers and professional grade cameras in our pockets
  7. Fake meat that tastes good
  8. Printable physical goods at home
  9. Free video conferencing for the world
  10. The ability to work from anywhere in the world
  11. Digital assistants that can respond to simple requests
  12. 75 inch flat screen TVs for less than $1k
  13. The birth of a global digital currency

I’m not sure if flying cars is ever going to be a reality, nor do I think it would be a safe thing to have in the sky, but it’s pretty remarkable to take a step back and see how far we’ve really come.  It’s easy to get lost in this era of abundance and lose sight of the progress and innovation humans have achieved.

So what’s next?  Nobody knows, but please allow me to take a humble stab at it.

In the year 2030….

  1. Digital Assistants will have a face and a body
  2. Full auto-pilot, self-driving cars will be the standard
  3. Humans will have a 25% longer avg. life span
  4. VR and AR will have its moment via contact lenses
  5. VR will be graphically indistinguishable from reality
  6. Bitcoin will be the world’s number one currency
  7. Space travel will be the next exotic vacation for the super rich
  8. Air travel will be 2-5x faster
  9. Online college degrees will be the standard
  10. Remote work will be the norm for companies
  11. eSports will dwarf the size of traditional sports
  12. Artificial intelligence will be the driving force that saves humanity
  13. No code tools will enable everyone to turn their digital ideas into a reality
  14. Brain computer interfaces will be available to the masses and in our pockets
  15. Digital screens will be embedded into everyday things
  16. Checkoutless shopping experiences will be ubiquitous
  17. We will all be 10 years older

Let’s see how this one ages.