Emerging technologies has now become a hot topic in the ICT sector. MIT Technology Review publishes the top ten predictions every year. MIT defines the term Emerging Technology as “The technologies we believe will have the greatest impact on the shape of innovation in years to come”.
However, defining a technology as emerging is very tricky. Since one can state a technology is emerging but the other may disagree. One good example is ‘Apple Pay’ which was listed in MIT review 2015.
The review list consist many exciting topics that can shape up the world. Reusable rockets is the brand new topic in aerospace industry. This research is carried out by two American Aerospace manufacturing companies called SpaceX and Blue Origin.
They are trying to reuse the same rocket for many voyages and both test runs conducted by Blue Origon were a success. In the course if time you will be able to go on a trip to out of space in a rocket. Chinas’ Baidu search engine is researching on conversational interfaces. This concept will be the new era of user interface engineering. You can speak to the interfaces and expect them to respond as humans. It doesn’t matter which language you use or which accent you have. In the future you could have chat with the microwave oven while it heats your dinner.
Supercharged photosynthesis is an agricultural based emerging technology which is carried out by International Rice Research Institute (IRRl) in the Philippines. They are researching to introduce C4 photosynthesis to rice plant by gene editing to increase plants’ growth by capturing carbon dioxide and concentrating it in specialized cells in the leaves. The Google Loon that highlighted few weeks back was also considered an emerging technology in 2015. The major objective was to provide internet access to all from anywhere.
3D imagery
Magic Leap, a US startup business owned by Rony Abovitz has introduced a concept to create 3D imagery. They are using Dynamic Digitized Lightfield Signal that enables users to generate images from actual objects and then place those images into the real world. You are no longer required to wear wearable devices to experience the virtual reality, you will be able to see them with your naked eye.
Tellex’s lab in Providence, Rhode Island is trying to make robots that teach each other, so that humans do not need to program each and every robot. If you are scared of driving in busy streets, not to worry now, since Tesla company has introduced a software update that makes autonomous driving a reality.
Similar to the interesting topics highlighted, our undergraduate students initiate impressive ideas that have a high potential to become an emerging technology in future.
Many research projects have been carried out for efficient traffic controlling, green house monitoring robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI) based train tracking and accident prevention.
These concepts will make our daily life much easier. Many language translators have been proposed based on local languages, such as from Sinhala to Tamil and vice versa.
Those concepts are very similar to conversational interfaces mentioned above.
Many disaster warning and monitoring systems have been implemented for flood detection, land sliding and even as a solution to the war between man vs wild elephants.
Growth potential
Unfortunately, all these ideas will not bloom out and will not be implemented as commercial products or non-commercial services.
After graduating many individuals join the rat race of job hunting and earning money. Their innovative ideas die with the daily routine of working from morning to night.
The ICT industry in Sri Lanka has been recognized as a promising services export sector and now have a potential growth. It is the time for the ICT sector to focus on enhancing research and innovation.
At Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology (SLIIT) Convocation 2017, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe said as a country we have to diversify our export market and that we require competition and innovation.
We need to boost up innovation to develop the Sri Lankan Economy. It is high time for the Sri Lankan government and local pioneer IT companies to develop a framework to motivate and support young entrepreneurs.
They should seek possibilities of selecting and funding innovative undergraduate projects and give students a chance to initiate startup companies with new ideas.
In future Sri Lanka will be capable of producing new innovations and emerging technologies to the world.
Gayana Fernando
Member, Computer Society of Sri Lanka