The Industries of the Future

Within 20 years, we’ll see robot suits that allow paraplegics to walk and new drugs able to melt away most cancers. But we’ll also see definitions of money blur the line between corporation and citizen and computer code being used as a weapon to destroy physical infrastructures halfway around the world.

Those are some of the predictions leading innovation expert Alec Ross, author of The Industries of the Future, claims will drive the next two decades of change in our economies and societies. With stories and analysis in fields as sweeping as cybersecurity, genomics, and finance, Ross asks: can rising nations match Silicon Valley as the next innovation hotspots? What global trends are affecting the way we live and work? And how can we adapt?

Alec Ross spoke with Open Technology Institute's Kevin Bankston and 1776's Rachel Haot on both the advances and stumbling blocks that will emerge in the future, and how we can navigate them.