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The Unborn World of 2037

Heidi Brausch



Lib 686 Emerging Technologies
Mary Bucy and Bill Hamlin
16 March 2014


















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Introduction
A look ahead 23 years in the future, to the year 2037, and we can foresee
many technological advances that will greatly affect our lives and our world.
Research in the fields of technology, science, economics, education, and health have
unearthed innovations that will change how we live, work, and think. Our everyday
lives will be vastly different, more convenient, and highly individualized compared
to our lives today.

Education
Education in the year 2037 will be highly individualized, with computers
helping us assess our students. According to IBM, computers will monitor how
students learn best by detecting their learning style and pace (IBM, N.D.). Teachers
will use the computer data along with their own knowledge and observations to
create a learning plan tailored to each child. The plan will then be implemented but
changes will be made when necessary according to the childs progress.
Digital assistants will begin to appear in classrooms. These assistants will do
basic tasks in order to lessen the load of teachers. They will complete duties that
dont require them to learn on their own, feel emotions, respond to open-ended
questions or hold a conversation.
Due to the delay of current technologies reaching elementary classrooms, by
2037 online learning will be fully established in all classrooms. Access to computers
will significantly progress allowing all schools to benefit from using computers.
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More people will graduate from college. This change will only occur if colleges alter
the format of school to better relate to students. Education that is integral and
applicable to life will be the new face of universities. The Horizon Report estimates
that over the next 12 years [there will be] a 25% increase in global higher
education attendance (Horizon Report, 2014). This increase will triple by 2037, not
only from higher access to computers but also free online classes and readily
available information. Education will continue well into adulthood due to the
information provided by experts in their field of knowledge. Virtual reality, 3-D
learning, robots, alternate worlds, and video games will all be incorporated into
education. Student learning will be enhanced through the use of these everyday
tools and through students constant access to information.
Education will change from being condensed to one room to something that
constantly happens across all facets of life. Education will be spread across a
students whole day. The term internship that we know today will be closely related
to the definition of school in the year 2037. Students will no longer sit in desks and
face the front of the room. Instead learning will be hands-on, student-led, and take
place in the field. Students will work together to solve real world problems in real
time. Their solutions will be applied to real life creating in them a sense of
responsibility for their learning that is absent in todays students.
Careers
Many of the careers of the future do not exist today. Therefore students will
be learning skills that can be applied to any field of work. Life and work
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environments require far more than thinking skills and content knowledge. The
ability to navigate the complex life and work environments in the globally
competitive information age requires students to pay rigorous attention to
developing adequate life and career skills, such as flexibility and adaptability,
initiative and self-direction, social and cross-cultural skills, productivity and
accountability, and leadership and responsibility (Partnership for 21
st
Century
Skills, N.D.). Skills like these will be essential to the success of students in the jobs of
2037. Because there will be a major increase in access to information, students will
also need to know how to filter through the mush to find relevant and truthful data.
Although many people argue that digital and robotic technologies will take
the place of human jobs, these technologies will actually make our lives easier.
Digital technologies will take over menial jobs allowing humans to concentrate on
in-depth, intellectual work. These sophisticated jobs will require advanced skills
that only people can deliver.

Leisure
In 2037, home life will be digitally convenient for everyone. Digital assistants
will manage day-to-day tasks all by the sound of our voice. All aspects of the home
will be digitally connected. Any device in your home that uses electricity can be put
on your home network and at your command (Edmonds & Chandler, N.D.).
Gaming will be a major part of living. A point system will be used in every
home to increase the standard of living. People will accrue points based off of
amount of exercise, healthy eating habits, and other activities they complete.
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Rewards will be given for good behavior and points will be taken away for
unwanted behavior. With the current achievement of Google glass, virtual
technology of the future will be fully established in our every day lives. We will
receive information at a faster pace through the use of miniscule computers that will
link images we see straight to our eye.
Finding lost items in the future will become easier. GPS devices will allow us
to locate any item in our possession. These GPS dots, or minute tracking devices, will
be used everywhere in the world and allow us to search our possessions
(Humphreys, 2014). Convenience will be the name of the game in 2037. Our privacy
will lessen as we accept these technologies, but our lives will no doubt change
immensely.
In the field of health, personalization will be at the center. Personal genomes
will be available for doctors to diagnose patients conditions. Each persons personal
health information will help doctors find proper combination of medications that
dont cause allergies or have side effects for the individual patient. Tests will be
done in lab settings to analyze the affect certain treatments have on a patients
genome. Petrie dish testing will solve the problem of unwanted side effects and
other problems patients face with medication. Cloud based systems will speed up
treatment solutions to a matter of minutes (IBM, N.D.).
Gene therapy will allow prospective parents to create designer babies
based off of their desirable genes. "As technology advances it is possible that any
number of human characteristics in part influenced by genes could come under
human control. Right now there is an enormous amount of research being
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conducted to correlate specific genes with specific characteristics (CNN, 2008).
Parents will be able to choose certain genes they want their child to have. This
advancement will reduce the amount of diseases and other genetic illnesses.

Tools
The information of our lives will soon take a solely digital format. Paper
copies will only be available as a backup to the digital copies, and even then paper
copies will be scarce and only for large global databases. All information will be
available in a digital format from any device, at any time, anywhere in the world.
People will be constantly connected to others across the planet. Computers will
allow us to communicate even more instantly than we do today. Collaboration with
experts and amateurs will happen instantaneously. More databases like Wikipedia
will exist on varying scales. Anyone will be able to publish, create, share and sell
items. People will be so connected it will be as if they are in the next room.
Along with digital information, clothing and accessories will also take on the
same format. Watches, glasses, t-shirts, and sneakers will constantly collect
information about the wearer. Information will be transferred about weather,
terrain, environment, and health. Clothing will be able to monitor our heart rate and
overall health multiple times a day.
Driverless cars will be everywhere. Driving accidents are the number one
cause of death for young people. Almost all of those are due to human error (Thrun,
2011). The universal usage of driverless cars will prevent millions of deaths
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worldwide. Traffic jams would not exist. People would gain over an hour a day
instead of sitting in traffic.

Conclusion
The unborn world of 2037 has great changes in store for everyone. Our
everyday lives will be vastly different, more convenient, and highly individualized
compared to our lives today. The acceleration of these technologies will be upon us
soon and we will then see the affect they have. As we look to the future, many are
thinking, We were born too soon. The best is yet to come (U.S. News and World
Report, 1967).







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References

The 5 in 5. (n.d.). N.p.: IBM. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from
http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibm_predictions_for_future/ideas/inde
x.html

NMC. (2014). Horizon Report (Higher Education ed.). Retrieved March 16, 2014,
from
http://online.wou.edu/pluginfile.php/144394/mod_resource/content/4/2014-
nmc-horizon-report-he-EN.pdf

Steere, M. (2008). Designer babies: Creating the perfect child. N.p.: CNN. Retrieved
March 16, 2014, from
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/science/10/30/designer.babies/

Chandler, N., & Edmonds, M. (2008). How Smart Homes Work. N.p.:
howstuffworks.com. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from
http://home.howstuffworks.com/smart-home7.htm

21st Century Skills. (n.d.). Framework For 21st Century Learning. Tucson, AZ:
21stcenturyskills.org. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from
http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/P21_Framework.pdf

NPR. (2014). Will GPS Change Our Standards For Privacy? N.p.: TED Radio Hour.
Retrieved March 16, 2014, from
http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=2
19325617&m=219327440&live=1

U.S. News and World Report. (1967). The Wondrous World of 1990. Retrieved March
16, 2014, from http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/press-past/2013/01/30/the-wondrous-
world-of-1990-a-look-at-past-predictions-of-the-future

Thrun, S. (2011). Google's Driverless Car. Long Beach, CA: TED. Retrieved March 16,
2014, from http://www.ted.com/talks/sebastian_thrun_google_s_driverless_car