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Many years ago, when I visited Singapore the first time, I took note as several business people described the strategic aim of Singapore as becoming “the Asian Switzerland”. That made sense: Switzerland had low taxes, great infrastructure, rule of law, minimal crime, lots of wealth, and virtually full employment. Furthermore, each of these characteristics reinforced the others. For Singapore, Switzerland was also a very relevant country to compare with, since both countries were small and had no military or political clout, and no important natural resources. They both had to be built on creativity, professionalism and good governance, and on that alone.

The human race (Homo sapiens) is somewhere around 200,000 years old, and for almost all that time we lived as hunters and gatherers. It took thousands of years before people had the idea to sharpen rocks on one side and use them as tools, and additional thousands of years before it occurred to someone to start sharpening them on both sides. And then again, it took thousands of years until they began attaching them to a branch to create axes.

Emerging biotech technology # 1: Genetic App Stores

Generally information technology gets cheaper, more powerful, more diverse and less centralized over time. The result is that it also tends to get available to more and more people. For instance, computers started as mainframes (“Master-slave”). Then came the more de-centralized client-servers, and then networked computing (the Internet), ubiquitous computing and clouds. Something similar has been seen in electronic media, which started with a few government-controlled radio and TV programs and evolved into thousands of private broadcast channels and then websites, chat, blogs and social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, and Linkedin, which means that today, anyone can communicate virtually anything to anyone else.

Which new IT technologies may have the biggest commercial impact over the next few decades? Below are my top candidates.

Emerging IT technology # 1: The Semantic Web

The semantic web is a modified Internet, where data is tagged with meta data that enable computers to better understand what the content really means. For instance, with a semantic web it will be possible to identify and screen scientific research about specific subjects among all the content that forms the web today. However, it can be used for any kind of content and should in many cases enable people to ask a question and simply get a clear answer (something that is already attempted with mixed success on some search engines such as www.wolframalpha.com) instead of just a link to a huge number of websites. This will bring it to resemble “the mirror on the wall” in Cinderella.

A semantic web may have another very desirable effect. It may form the basis for giving each individual a ”Daily Me” publication, which focuses on exactly the news that this person is likely to be most interested in.

Through the last century there have numerous predictions that we were about to run out of energy reserves. For instance, the US president Warring Harding established a commission to investigate the prospects for American oil and gas production, and after interviewing more than 500 experts, the commission reported that the production of gas had already peaked and that oil production would soon follow. That was in 1922.

It is important to be green.

At least, it is right now. However, when I went to school, most of my class maids were red – socialists or communists. Other colours were common when my parents were young. That was when the brown-shirts and the Nazis ravaged Europe. Brown and black. Oh, by the way, some of the radical Muslim movements actually also use the green signal colour.

Green, red, brown and black. Is there any way to predict what the next colours might be?

That we are in an age of story-telling is already an old story.

The business of story-telling in its purest form includes making magazines, radio, television and movies, or writing books and advertising-sponsored blogs. But there is much more to it, of course. What you write on a label of a physical product may or may not be a compelling story. And today we use social media to make videologs, podcasts, Facebook Groups, Twitter communities and LinkledIn networks etc. Its all about stories.

1. Volatility
1. Between 2010 and 2050 there will be 12-18 financial bubbles and crashes
2. …and 12-18 scares
3. …plus 1-3 global major property meltdowns, each followed by banking crises
4. …3-5 capital spending collapses
5. …,and 8-10 inventory cycles
6. ...and 3-4 new major lifestyle booms (such as hippie, yuppie, green, etc)

In my book Supertrends I make predictions (guesses, if you will) of how the world will evolve towards year 2050. That is 40 years ahead. Not easy. Just imagine that back in 1970 you were asked (if you were born then) to describe how you thought the world would be 40 years ahead – to describe how the world would be in year 2010. What would you have guessed then?