Thirty years ago, the Internet was a curiosity, China was in the early years of its economic ascent and India had just begun economic liberalization.  In the intervening years, emerging markets would come to dominate economic growth; and seven new companies would take their place among the ten largest in the world today, commanding a combined market capitalization of about $9 trillion.  When the pandemic struck last year, vast numbers of people in the world depended on the technologies these companies developed to communicate, work, and entertain themselves. 

The changes we will see in the next thirty years will surpass those of the last thirty years. Some of today’s emerging markets will have emerged by 2050, rising to become middle-income or upper middle-income economies. Scientific and technological advancements that are only now emerging will have matured, changing where and how we live and what we consume. Yet these positive changes are contingent on our ability to contain the effects of climate change and simultaneously provide enough energy, food, and other goods to sustain economic growth. They also depend on our ability to limit the destabilizing force of economic inequality, and the fissures created by ideological differences between the old and new world powers.

The objective of this course is to examine the changes we can expect between now and mid-century, assess their implications and identify opportunities for businesses. We will examine three types of opportunities: (1) those arising because a larger, richer, more urban (but still unequal) world demands more goods and services; (2) those created by addressing the three intertwined challenges of subduing climate change, transforming energy supply, and changing food production; and (3) those arising from transformative technologies over the next thirty years. Some of these technologies --- including biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and robotics --- are poised to bring about changes that sound as fantastical as hyperconnected pocket supercomputer did thirty years ago. Emerging technologies in biology are expected to allow, for better and for worse, much greater control over the genetic basis of life, allow treating many presently incurable diseases, and change the practice of medicine. Robots are likely to become a routine part of life, performing such varied tasks as assisting surgeons and interacting with people in social settings. Developments in vertical takeoff and landing technology are poised to allow electric “flying cars,” and hyperloop technology to provide dramatically faster travel within and between dense city clusters in which most humans will live by mid-century. And artificial intelligence, which is still in infancy, will likely transform almost every business and industry.  These and other technologies will change the way we live and work, create new industries, and propel global growth waves that include consumers and companies not only in the developed world but also in emerging markets that are on the path to convergence with the developed economies.

Rajeev Kohli

Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Business

Rajeev Kohli is the Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Business at Columbia Business School. His research interests are in mathematical models of non-compensatory choice, product design and recommendation systems. He has published papers in leading journals in marketing, operations research, discrete mathematics and mathematical psychology. He has also served on the editorial boards of leading journals  including Management Science

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