Adjiedj Bakas

All major changes are preceded by chaos. Changes and innovations are often gradual, but once in a while they happen at breakneck speed. These revolutionary periods, such as the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, were preceded by a period of chaos. In Florence, for example, during such a chaotic period, a third of the population died of the Plague, while at the same time the city became a renowned center of innovation. Then the Renaissance began there.

The corona pandemic has since turned into chaos. Anyone who wants to organize an event or travel around the world finds themselves in a minefield of rules of what is and is not allowed. And any moment the rules can be different as the traffic lights change color.

Politicians dread the time when things have to come clean. Suddenly, the real challenges become clear again: mass immigration, Islamic terrorism, energy security, aging, adapting ourselves to climate change, the gigantic debt mountains around the world, the economic and political power struggle between the U.S. and China, the enormous inequality, the self-destructive crypto-communist Woke movement and Climate Church that daily sprinkle the media with subversive pornography, and the uncertain future of the EU and the euro.

Not only will the economy change structurally, but also the financial-monetary system, politics, healthcare, public administration and our lifestyles. The Losers of Progress, who are currently struggling so much in the housing market, will outnumber the baby boomers and bring about major changes in tax systems. Tax avoidance will be made more difficult, taxes will go up, because all governments need money. Profits taxes are going up, as well as those on income, wealth, estates and real estate. Intergenerational redistribution is coming. Already, agreements have been made within the G7 and G20 to create a global minimum tax on profits. That is only the beginning.

The cyclical effects of corona have been limited in retrospect, but the structural ones will usher in a new era. Welcome to the Age of Chaos!

There is plenty of energy for everyone, and that energy can be extracted in smarter ways in the near future, ushering in an era of permanently cheap energy. Thorium MSR Power Plants will soon provide spot-cheap energy, and tidal power and energy from seaweed and sea waves are also coming. Solar energy is getting cheaper, geothermal is going to contribute to our energy supply and is becoming more important, and energy efficiency is also improving. Cheap energy will bring about the end of old business models in the energy industry, but will also lead to the end of wind energy in its current form.

We are transforming into a new society with different time commitments, different power relations, different visions of property and health, and a different interpretation of the concept of solidarity. Technological disruptions force innovation. Technological progress has winners and losers. Adaptability, flexibility, empathy and the ability to quickly enter into collaborations largely determine whether or not someone is successful. Embracing and implementing new technology while keeping the human touch is a major challenge in this regard, especially in health care. Much is still unclear. What do hospital and physician practices of the future look like? That change goes beyond an instrumental approach where the desired outcome is, for example, an app. The impact of society’s digital transformation will also have to take shape in healthcare, guided by the so-called Triple Aim.

The Digital Transformation is really breaking through now. It is being used strategically by companies to make their operational organization more efficient, to improve their value proposition and to make customer satisfaction even more central. Only 27 percent of companies have a coherent digital strategy. Digital Darwinism, however, is becoming the norm: “change or disappear. The time has come when all major digital trends have reached their tipping point. Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) have all come of age, flowing into each other and mutually reinforcing: a nexus of forces. To these are now added Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Virtual Reality (VR), technologies that provide even more acceleration. They reinforce each other and form a digital storm that is sweeping across the business world with devastating effects. Old business models are disappearing, new ones are replacing them.

The countryside is reinventing itself and has the prospect of a new future. Already, the countryside is in demand by Internet start-ups and SMEs. In several European countries, young people are also moving, often for financial reasons, back to shrinking demographic areas, where house prices and the cost of living are still manageable. So on to rurbanization and e-towns. This lecture charts trends and opportunities for rural areas.

No farmers no food. The world population is growing at a net rate of 220,000 people per day. The challenge for the Farm & Food sector is to provide some 9 billion people with tasty and healthy food at a reasonable price and in a sustainable way by 2050, in accordance with COP21, the Paris Climate Agreement. More food will be needed in the next 40 years than in the past 4,000 years. Dutch farmers produce so efficiently that they are an example to the world. At the same time, fewer and fewer young people want to become farmers. What is the future of farmers? And how is the Farm & Food industry developing, also in light of current digitalization?

Society, that is us citizens together. And for every citizen to develop his or her talents to the best of his or her ability, there is a need for a government that facilitates citizens and does not function as a hindrance. In the participatory society that is now developing, groups of 150 citizens (“tribes”) will increasingly be able to organize themselves, just as they did 12,000 years ago, when we also lived in tribes. Most of the zoning laws we know today date from bygone eras, while a true revolution is now underway, that of Digital Transformation. In fact, all zoning plans should be released in the next five years, and then new zoning plans should be developed.

Money makes the world go around. It has and always will. But whereas in the U.S. entrepreneurs already borrow 80 percent outside banks, in our country it is only 20 percent. Still, because of Basel-III and soon Basel-IV, we are moving toward the American system of lending. Fintech is on the rise. Blockchain technology is bringing in new currencies. In Germany, you can already scrape together your mortgage via peer2peer banking. What will be the future of banks, insurers, pension funds, investment firms and private wealth managers?

Education must train children for the labor market of tomorrow. This means making full use of digitization to create personalized education, suitable for developing each child’s talent on a customized basis. At the same time, the human touch is becoming more important than ever. Only an inspiring teacher can captivate young people and instill passion for their subject. Future-proof education revalues history. After all, history always repeats itself, only the form in which it does so is different. How can schools and teachers prepare for this new era?

The population in many European regions is shrinking. And more and more people are living alone in single people society. Living alone is becoming more expensive, especially for seniors, as pensions start to shrink. So living groups and multi-generational housing are the future. Twenty-somethings who lived independently are returning to the parental home: the kangaroo children. As we are going to work from home more often, the home workplace must also be health and safety proof. But we are also going to work differently, the portable workplace is emerging. The blurring of real estate functions means that actually all zoning should be released for 5 years, to allow for the great transition in society. At the same time, the low interest rate (that will take another 40 years) makes investing in real estate and (agricultural) land more interesting. (Re)building is changing because of 3d printing, self-healing concrete and more news.

Over 100 years ago, we traveled less than 30 kilometers a year. Now at least 30,000 kilometers a year, excluding air travel. 7 And soon 9 billion people on the move, growing tourism and at the same time more virtual opportunities than ever before. Meetings via Skype or other video conferencing methods, virtual reality that makes you feel like you are in another region while just sitting at home. Self-steering cars and trucks, drones that take your home to your vacation destination, motorcycles that are also boats and even more recombinations of mobility forms. But will the hyperloop soon allow us to travel in extreme short time? Will there be new supersonic aircraft? How does the terrorist threat affect travel? And the mixing of bacteria from around the world, which are turning against humans. Will that make us travel less soon?