The internet and smartphone are just the latest in a 250-year long cycle of disruption that has continuously changed the way we live, the way we work and the way we interact. The coming Augmented Age, however, promises a level of disruption, behavioral shifts and changes that are unparalleled. While consumers today are camping outside of an Apple store waiting to be one of the first to score an Apple Watch, the next generation of wearables will be able to predict if we’re likely to have a heart attack and recommend a course of action. We watch news of Google’s self-driving cars, but don’t likely realize this means progressive cities will have to ban human drives in the next decade because us humans are too risky. Read More >

Following on from the Industrial or Machine Age, the Space Age and the Digital Age, the Augmented Age is based on four disruptive themes – Artificial Intelligence, Experience Design, Health Tech and Smart Infrastructure. Historically the previous ‘ages’ bought significant disruption and changes, but on a net basis the jobs were created, wealth was enhanced, and the health and security of society improved. What will the Augmented Age bring? Will robots take our jobs, and AI’s subsume us as inferior intelligences, or will this usher in a new age of abundance? Augmented age is a book on future history, but more than that, it is a story about how you will live your life in a world that will change more in the next 20 years than it has in the last 250 years. Read Less ^

Banks are in trouble. It’s not just the likes of HSBC, Deutsche and Citibank who have shrunk their branch and office footprint to a fraction of their previous glory. Every bank in the modern world that is dependent on branch revenue is in virtual survival mode, hoping for a miraculous reversal of emerging customer behavior. In countries like China, Kenya and 20 other countries in Africa alone, mobile payments far exceed those made using traditional bank accounts and artefacts. The most efficient credit risk models aren’t owned by banks anymore. The best investment advice is coming from algorithms and robo-advisors that can adapt your portfolio in real-time as markets shift. Assets, identities, and transactions are being transmitted on blockchains, tangles and hashes that make old payment networks look obsolete and unsafe. Banking has been blown apart. Read More >

The banking system of tomorrow is being built from first principles today – in the same way Elon Musk built SpaceX and Steve Jobs designed the iPhone. Just ask yourself, if we were building the banking system today, from scratch with all the technology and knowledge we have, would you end up with Bank branches that require a signature on a piece of paper before issuing you a passbook or a checkbook? No way. Bank 4.0 is about the banking system that we’re building today and why most banks won’t survive to see that day. Read Less ^

Technology, connectivity and globalization has produced some amazing societal changes and impact. We’ve reduced extreme poverty by half in the last 30 years, in fact, every day we reduce that number by 130,000 people. From 90% of the world being illiterate in 1800, today 85% of the world is literate. In 1800 45% of infants died before the age of 5, today that number is down to 4.3%. By 2100 there will not be a single child who doesn’t receive a formal education. These changes are as a result of increased capital flows, improvements in the standards of living, access to communications and financial systems, and a dozen other improvements across society. But technologies like Artificial Intelligence, Gene-Editing, Solar Energy, Autonomous Transport, and others could usher in a new area of not only abundance, but significant socio-economic changes. How will governments react to a time when technology promises to deliver the benefits of so-called socialism, at a fraction of the cost of the most capitalist, democratic governments today? How will governments react when it’s not immigrants we have to worry about taking our jobs, but robots? And how will society react when we can use technology to provide everyone with a basic income, healthcare and education, for less than the cost of building a political movement to explain why universal care is a bad thing? Read More >

The rise of Techno-socialism is going to be very difficult for some philosophically to adapt to, but once we do make the change, the world will be a better place for it. Read Less ^