The 4th

The 4th Industrial Revolution will be built on the backbone of the 3rd Industrial Revolution, obviously.

The rise of “no code” and other technological enablers, together with the event of the global pandemic of Covid-19, will catalyze the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

A series of three technological and business revolutions have impacted humanity since the 1700’s, and moved the world from a mostly agrarian isolation of cultures to (sub)urbanization. Over a relatively very short time, co-location became the norm for most humans. Transportation technology has allowed people with means to travel to almost any destination on the globe. We commute to work, and go out for a drive. Communication technology has been elevated to extreme levels, and continues to evolve.

The 1st Industrial Revolution brought the steam engine and mechanization. People began moving to cities to work in factories, causing significant changes to cultures and societies, and was aided by the advent of trains and other transportation innovations. Work cultures changed along with employees banding into unions as a response to unfair treatment.

The 2nd Industrial Revolution was about mass production. New business and technological processes allowed people to have access to products they couldn’t access before, and access to things they didn’t even know they needed. Transportation became personalized with the advent of cars. In many societies, these changes accelerated the growth of a middle class, and a wider divide between those at the top and bottom.

The 3rd Industrial Revolution is the Digital Revolution. Starting in the 1950’s from early computing systems leading to the world wide digital internet. People are able to communicate with virtually anyone, and gain access to unlimited information. Business and manufacturing systems can be digitally interconnected, monitored, and remote controlled. Changes have come swiftly, and humans are still grappling with the psychological affects on politics and social dynamics.

in 2020, the new normal of decreased physical social interaction, along with more at-home time, is forcing most people to re-evaluate and change how they work, play, and educate. When possible, the workplace and classroom has moved into the digital space that is created physically from our homes, or some other semi-isolated location.

The swift impact on society from the global pandemic is an accelerator forcing a new way of living upon us. Enablers such as online cloud-based anywhere services and marketplace Artificial Intelligence tools are available to all. Elements are plug-and-play. These services and tools are treated as a commodity and a technical challenge, leading to improvements and (eventually) user-friendly UX. Critical to the 4th Revolution, communications options are being accelerated by massive connectivity from wireless communication technologies and the big data and actuators of the Internet of Things (IoT).

The technological ducks are lining up. As evidenced by the history of previous revolutions, a significant life-altering change on human culture is found to interact, impact and be influenced by, the inventions of the corresponding Revolution. As a response to Covid-19, our move into our home-space and the creation of a new way of interacting is applying an unanticipated force, pushing humans into the 4th Industrial Revolution.

Or is it? Maybe once all of this “blows over”, we will just go back to our normal 3rd Revolution digital evolution.