• Since the dotcom chimera burst back in 2000, technology has radically transformed our societies and our daily lives.
  • From smartphones to social media and healthcare, here'southward a cursory history of the 21st century's technological revolution.

Just over 20 years ago, the dotcom bubble burst, causing the stocks of many tech firms to tumble. Some companies, like Amazon, quickly recovered their value – but many others were left in ruins. In the two decades since this crash, technology has advanced in many ways.

Many more people are online today than they were at the commencement of the millennium. Looking at broadband access, in 2000, merely half of Americans had broadband access at home. Today, that number sits at more than 90%.

More than half the world's population has internet access today

More than half the world's population has cyberspace access today

Prototype: Our World in Information

This broadband expansion was certainly not just an American phenomenon. Like growth can be seen on a global calibration; while less than 7% of the globe was online in 2000, today over half the global population has access to the internet.

Similar trends can exist seen in cellphone use. At the start of the 2000s, there were 740 one thousand thousand jail cell telephone subscriptions worldwide. Ii decades later, that number has surpassed 8 billion, meaning there are now more cellphones in the world than people

At the same time, technology was also becoming more personal and portable. Apple tree sold its first iPod in 2001, and half-dozen years later it introduced the iPhone, which ushered in a new era of personal technology. These changes led to a earth in which applied science touches nearly everything we do.

Technology has changed major sectors over the past 20 years, including media, climate activity and healthcare. The World Economic Forum's Applied science Pioneers, which just celebrated its 20th anniversary, gives u.s.a. insight how emerging tech leaders have influenced and responded to these changes.

Media and media consumption

The past 20 years have greatly shaped how and where nosotros consume media. In the early 2000s, many tech firms were even so focused on expanding communication for work through advanced bandwidth for video streaming and other media consumption that is common today.

Others followed the path of expanding media options beyond traditional outlets. Early on Tech Pioneers such every bit PlanetOut did this by providing an outlet and culling media source for LGBTQIA communities as more people got online.

Following on from these commencement new media options, new communities and alternative media came the massive growth of social media. In 2004, fewer than 1 million people were on Myspace; Facebook had not even launched. By 2018, Facebook had more 2.26 billion users with other sites also growing to hundreds of millions of users.

The precipitous rise of social media over the past 15 years

The precipitous rise of social media over the by 15 years

Prototype: Our World in Data

While these new online communities and communication channels have offered great spaces for alternative voices, their increased use has likewise brought issues of increased disinformation and polarization.

Today, many tech start-ups are focused on preserving these online media spaces while as well mitigating the disinformation which tin can come with them. Recently, some Tech Pioneers have besides approached this issue, including TruePic – which focuses on photo identification – and Ii Hat, which is developing AI-powered content moderation for social media.

Climate modify and greenish tech

Many scientists today are looking to technology to lead us towards a carbon-neutral globe. Though renewed attending is being given to climatic change today, these efforts to find a solution through applied science is not new. In 2001, green tech offered a new investment opportunity for tech investors subsequently the crash, leading to a boom of investing in renewable energy beginning-ups including Bloom Energy, a Technology Pioneer in 2010.

In the by two decades, tech get-go-ups have only expanded their climate focus. Many today are focuses on initiatives far beyond clean free energy to dull the affect of climate change.

Dissimilar commencement-ups, including Carbon Engineering and Climeworks from this twelvemonth'due south Technology Pioneers, have started to roll out carbon capture engineering science. These technologies remove CO2 from the air directly, enabling scientists to alleviate some of the damage from fossil fuels which have already been burned.

Another expanding area for young tech firms today is food systems innovation. Many firms, like Aleph Farms and Air Protein, are creating innovative meat and dairy alternatives that are much greener than their traditional counterparts.

Biotech and healthcare

The early on 2000s also saw the culmination of a biotech blast that had started in the mid-1990s. Many firms focused on advancing biotechnologies through enhanced tech research.

An early on Technology Pioneer, Actelion Pharmaceuticals was ane of these companies. Actelion'southward tech researched the single layer of cells separating every blood vessel from the blood stream. Like many other biotech firms at the time, their focus was on precise illness and handling research.

While many tech firms today all the same focus on affliction and treatment enquiry, many others have been focusing on healthcare delivery. Telehealth has been on the rising in contempo years, with many young tech expanding virtual healthcare options. New technologies such as virtual visits, chatbots are beingness used to delivery healthcare to individuals, peculiarly during Covid-19.

Many companies are also focusing their healthcare tech on patients, rather than doctors. For example Ada, a symptom checker app, used to exist designed for medico's use but has now shifted its language and interface to prioritize giving patients data on their symptoms. Other companies, like vii cups, are focused are offering mental healthcare support straight to their users without through their app instead of going through existing offices.

The past two decades have seen healthcare tech get much more personal and utilize tech for intendance delivery, not just advancing medical enquiry.

What is the Earth Economical Forum doing about the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

The World Economic Forum was the first to draw the world's attention to the Quaternary Industrial Revolution, the current period of unprecedented modify driven by rapid technological advances. Policies, norms and regulations accept non been able to keep up with the step of innovation, creating a growing need to fill this gap.

The Forum established the Centre for the Quaternary Industrial Revolution Network in 2017 to ensure that new and emerging technologies volition assistance—non impairment—humanity in the future. Headquartered in San Francisco, the network launched centres in Communist china, India and Japan in 2018 and is rapidly establishing locally-run Affiliate Centres in many countries around the world.

The global network is working closely with partners from government, business, academia and civil society to co-design and airplane pilot agile frameworks for governing new and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous vehicles, blockchain, data policy, digital trade, drones, internet of things (IoT), precision medicine and ecology innovations.

Larn more than almost the groundbreaking work that the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Network is doing to gear up united states of america for the future.

Want to assist us shape the Fourth Industrial Revolution? Contact usa to discover out how yous can become a member or partner.

In the early 2000s, many companies were at the starting time of their recovery from the bursting dotcom bubble. Since then, we've seen a big expansion in the mode tech innovators arroyo areas such as new media, climate change, healthcare commitment and more.

At the aforementioned fourth dimension, we accept too seen tech companies rise to the occasion of trying to gainsay issues which arose from the offset group such equally net content moderation, expanding climate change solutions.

The Technology Pioneers' 2020 cohort marks the 20th anniversary of this community - and looking at the latest awardees can give united states a snapshot of where the adjacent two decades of tech may be heading.