Top 10 technological challenges for the next decade

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), June, 1997

"The bridge to the 21st century is under construction, and the only way we're going to be able to build it quickly and correctly is if we understand the technological challenges ahead of us," says Stephen Millett, manager of Battelle's Breaktrough Center and leader of technology forecasting for the Columbus, Ohio, research and development organization. "If we ignore those challenges, then we'll likely end up in the river." A team of Batelle scientists and engineers has compiled a list of the 10 most important technological challenges facing industry over the next decade. "These are market-driven challenges for industry, and anytime the marketplace challenges us, that's a tremendous opportunity for business growth up these new opportunities, and they're driving the development of new technology and products."

Affordable home-based health care. Market forces are shifting health care from hospitals and HMOs to private homes. Increasing home health care will help contain rising costs while serving an aging population and will provide people with the conveniences and privacy of taking care of themselves and their loved ones in their own homes. Home health monitors and treatments and linkages to professional care centers present a huge challenge and an enormous potential market for the health care industry. "We see a great need for simple, user-friendly medical equipment for the home," says Richard Rosen, vice president of Battelle's Product Development Group. "And they'll have to be effective and affordable to be successful. Technology developments are already leading to those products."

Renewed infrastructure. In the developed countries, the public infrastructure that provides transportation, bridges, water, and sewage is deteriorating with age. Many developing countries are without advanced infrastructures. Costs of major projects today are huge. New materials and construction methods will be required to renew the infrastructure with limited public funding. Needs will include traffic control and management systems that could reduce travel times, and clean, safe, and practical mass transit systems.

Protecting the environment and natural resources. Much of the economic growth of the Industrial Revolution was fueled by the easy exploitation of Earth's rich natural resources. Those easily accessible resources have become scarcer, so further growth will come from the smart management of remaining resources and the ability to use alternatives. Mankind needs the technologies to provide for the long-term sustainability of the natural environment, including air and water. Technology's environmental challenges will range from expanding and simplifying recycling programs to developing clean manufacturing processes. It also will be necessary to find ways to increase energy production and conversion.

Personalized consumer products. Many mass-produced products for mass markets will not be competitive in the 21st century. Consumers increasingly are better informed and harder to please. They will buy products that satisfy their tastes, rather than accept whatever stores present. Products in the future will have to be almost as varied as individual customers. This will force companies to be even more consumer-driven in designing and marketing their products. It also will require the sensors, controls, and computers to achieve highly flexible manufacturing of customized products.

"The mass production of identical products is being replaced by the flexible production of individualized products," Millet points out. "Getting into the head of consumers -- really understanding their motivations and behavior patterns, rather than just their expressed desires -- is the great challenge of consumer product development for the next decade. We see futuring as the way to anticipate customer demand and successful new products. All business leaders are going to have to be futurists."

Convergence of technology in the home. In the past, people separated their home life from work and from shopping. In the next 10 years, the home will be the place of convergence for private and public lives. Increasingly, it will be a place to work, shop, get an education, and enjoy entertainment. That does not mean people always will stay at home, though. They will continue to have offices and go to shopping malls, often for the social pleasures. They will have more choices to do what they want and when they want to. Work lives and homes lives will be more efficient -- and more closely linked.

The biggest technological change occurring in personal lives will be the convergence of telecommunications, entertainment, networking, education, information access, and computing power into the home. The technology challenge is how to empower and protect individuals their own homes. The home environment is perhaps the center of the greatest opportunities for consumer products in the next 10 years," notes William Burke, vice president of Battelle's Consumer Products Group. "The challenges involve new approaches to managing the total home environment with new products that will give residents better, simpler, and more personalized service."