The next
generation of technology infrastructures is Frontier Technoligies which
encompasses: Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data,
Blockchain, 3D Printing, Robotics, Drones, Gene Editing, 5G, Nanotechnology and
Solar PV. The collective are the rapidly developing technologies that will
define growth and innovation in the 2020s.
The decade
known as the 2020s was supposed to be the decade known as the second roaring
twenties where technology and innovation are primed to redefine businesses,
economies and quality of life across new indicators of growth. The global
pandemic however, have put a halt on the globe’s collective economic growth and
sustainability agendas. The World Bank estimated that the global economic
output shrank by 4.3% in 2020 as the globe’s leading economies suffered
setbacks amounting to trillions of dollars lost: the United States -3.6%,
Europe -7.4%, India -9.6%, Japan -5.3% Russia -4%. Around 120 million more
people in the world are pushed into poverty and it is projected that poverty
levels will increase within the next twenty years because of the pandemic’s lingering
effects on the economy.
In 2021, the
globe is focused in getting back their economic development on track and we
look at every angle or opportunity to generate better sustainability and
economic continuity. The biggest opportunities lie in technology and its
potential to reshape the world as a response to do better in the immediate
future as the World Bank stated that achieving a 4% economic growth in 2021 is
the key start in sustaining global recovery in the years to follow this decade.
New Grounds
for Economic Growth in Technology
In
rethinking and re-evaluating our economy, we must redefine economic growth and
reinforce the areas that were exposed greatly by the pandemic. One silver
lining from the pandemic year of 2020 was its spurned the growth of innovation
and technological development as the globe’s collective output banked on
technology for economic continuity. Once again, enter frontier technologies as
checkpoint for the frontier economics that the world will build around
innovation and technology. The United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD) published a report about the current valuation of these
technologies that stands at $350 billion and could grow to over $3.2 trillion
by 2025. The United Nations Development Programme highlights three major areas
where frontier technology could be harnessed to make the most meaningful of
changes:
1. Global
sustainability
2. Global
innovation
3. Social
Development
The Great
Reset is the call to thinking and call to action put out by the World Economic
Forum that encourages every leader, every organization, every business and
every person to rethink
their role
and footprint in the economy. The escalation of corporate citizenship and its
proven model of technological injection into local economic verticals are one
way to achieve transformation where sustainability, innovation and development
are the guiding principles. McKinsey & Company recognizes the economic
transformation and valuation of Asia through the injection of both emerging and
frontier technology through a period of rapid growth called leapfrogging: in
sustaining an annual 4% growth, technology needs to contribute 43% of expected
total growth in Asian GDP in the period of the 2020s to the 2030s which is
valuated to about $7 trillion in total. These areas include the development of
China’s AI industry worth nearly $150 billion by 2030 and Malaysia’s digital
free trade zones in which $65 billion of trades are expected to flow in the
period to 2025.
Blockchain:
Building Frontier Economies
The global
maritime trade plummeted by 4.1% in 2020 due to the pandemic. What was
justifiably seen as a major loss and a major contributor to the global economic
downturn, can be reinforced and reinvigorated through Blockchain. Recovering
from a crisis and near breaking point, the global trade and shipping is looking
at Blockchain to set the stage in innovation and sustainability moving forward.
Currently,
the global trade is valued at a $16 trillion market that includes the trade of
capital, goods, and services under the two categories of which 75% are the
various goods shipped on to freights and 25% are commodities of various
materials. The collaboration of Maersk and IBM in introducing a port and ship
Blockchain solution highlights the optimization of the overall process to
improve global cost-efficiency of shipping and trade. The result is TradeLens:
a Blockchain Shipping Solution where over 90 organizations have since joined
and featured over 154 million events were passed through the global trade
solution. Steadily, it was growing at a million transactions per day.
Hala Nasr
Abouzid ( Assistant Lecturer at Faculty of Business – Delta University- Egypt)
and Heba Nasr Abouzid (2 Phd Researcher – Commercial Sciences Menofia
University- Egypt) jointly authored a feasibility study of a global trading
platform that relies on Blockchain. The study takes an in-depth look at the
consequences of the pandemic on global trade and how Blockchain affirms itself
as a trade solution moving forward. The study encompasses maritime trade, road
transport, agriculture, aquaculture and energy trade where interoperability of
the many Blockchain patents are able to co-govern fairly, transparently and
dispel monopolies as that solution is turnkey for inclusive, sustainable and
efficient global trade.
PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) estimates that Blockchain can contribute as much as $1.76 trillion or
higher to the global Gross Domestric Product (GDP) in this decade. Citing a
tipping point in 2025 where broad adoption of the technology, Blockchain is
primed for growth at a valuation of $962 billion in the global supply chain
market.
Philippine
Frontier Technologies and Frontier Economies
The recent
UNCTAD publication: Technology and Innovation Report 2021 describes the
Philippines as an “overperformer” in frontier technology. The report highlights
a “country readiness” index of the developing countries to use, adopt, and
adapt frontier technologies than its existing per capita income. The UNCTAD
report on frontier technologies validates the nation’s flexibility and
willingness to become early adopters of technology. Over the past decades, ICT
technologies such as telecommunications, data centres and internet usage was
quickly adopted by businesses and organizations. In the 2010s, mobile
technology, cloud computing and virtual infrastructures was also adopted to
sustain business, commerce and key industry verticals such as BPO and ICT.
Although the
UNCTAD report was promising, the organization also warned about the possible
inequality brought upon by these technologies. Inequality includes job losses
due to modernization, skilled labour falling behind and regions falling behind
technological adoption. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was well
aware of both the benefits and challenges of frontier technologies. One of the
key response by the DTI is tasking its office, Competitiveness and Innovation
Group in keeping watch of the many frontier technology advances in the region
and globally. Among the many responses set by the government include the
partnership with the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PPCI) in
launching the INNOVATION HUB which will help train, nurture and incubate
possible local innovators, startups and young minds as well as conducting
training series in skills such as programming, IT and troubleshooting as to
prepare the Philippine workforce for the coming fourth industrial revolution.
The country
enjoyed a 6.3% GDP economic growth from 2009 and 2019 until it was affected by
the global spread of the pandemic where local cases in sporadic outbreak and
its resulting lockdowns have inflicted a 9.6% contraction of the GDP as
reported by the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). Looking
ahead, the country is faced with the challenge in growing its domestic output
by an average of 6.4% from 2021 to 2024, to get back on track for its economic
growth. Charting new pivots on global sustainability, business equity and
stewardship on social development. The futuristic emerging economies of the globe,
will be a by- product of frontier technology and it as an enabler for both
economic and business transformation. There are already seeds planted by the
government for economic transformation under frontier technologies but these
seedbeds need nurturing and further attention for it to prosper into an
economic bloom.
Stemming
from initiatives from the government, the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority
(CEZA) was established in the hopes of attracting Blockchain &
Cryptocurrency offshore companies into the region as a way to facilitate local
innovation, create employment opportunities for the local workforce to be
trained and qualified with Blockchain and Decentralized related skills. CEZA
also hopes to make the Cagayan province as the Crypto Valley of Asia as a
branding for promoting it as an investment destination as cryptocurrency and
digital asset trading is going mainstream.
Among the
most promising Blockchain development locally is the Authority of the Freeport
Area of Bataan (AFAB) in which it introduced plans to incorporate Blockchain
and Fintech processes into its economic and business zone by attracting
offshore investors who would establish operations and create employment.
Furthermore, AFAB stated that it has signed up Grand Innovasia Concept Corp. (GICC)
and its partner, Impero Consortium Management Corp. (Impero), as its marketing
arm and internal auditor to help facilitate companies that are interested in
acquiring Offshore Blockchain Financial Technology Services (OBFTS) licenses
from the AFAB.
One of the
most compelling use case of Digital Identity tying to Legal Identities for
inclusive and sustainable development is the Philippine National ID System
otherwise known as PHILSYS. The goal is to provide an irrevocable and indelible
legal identity to every Filipino – natural born or naturalized through a
national ID system and a biometric card that houses a person’s unique PHILSYS
code and their respective personal information as proof of identity. Working
with the concept of systems integration and Digital Identity Management
Systems, PHILSYS will be tied in to the government’s financial inclusiveness
program and banking enrolment for the once unbanked as PHILSYS ID holders can
open bank savings account to the state-owned LandBank. To date, over 25 million
Filipinos were enrolled to PHILSYS.
Frontier
technologies encompasses global agendas, national & regional development
and business agendas in an increasing concept of shared value among our stake
in economic and social development of our respective regions. Distilling and
filtering the unilateral agenda of the United Nations to the scale of local
economic development – stakeholders such as SME business leaders are empowered
to achieve innovation, discover new levels of efficiency, productivity and lessen
their imprint on the climate / economic imprint where they can turn imprint
into assets or proactive measures to promote sustainability across operations.
The idea is also to be able to participate in a rapidly changing
inter-connected economy of Southeast Asia and being able to keep pace with the
evolving digitised and frontier technologies market. Altimeter, a Prophet
company surveyed more than 600 key executives, which includes 100 in Southeast
Asia (SEA) under their Digital Transformation Survey and reported on the
following:
• 15% of SEA
executives said that they are accelerating digital transformation to seek
opportunities in the market, compared to 11% of the global respondents.
• 14% Pivot
to digital transformation to address immediate needs, compared to 17% of the
global respondents.
• 31% will
continue digital transformation strategies but will revise in the coming
months, compared to 27% of the global respondents.
• 27% of
transformation plans are continuing as planned, compared to 27% of the global
respondents.
• 13% said
that digital transformation plans are put on hold due to budget and disruption
factors, compared to 14% of the global respondents.
A survey
commissioned by Epson last year, in the middle of the pandemic year, revealed
that 55% of the Small- and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the Philippines
reported being at the
“very early
stages of digital transformation”; and more than eight out of 10 (86%)
identified that digital technology adoption as the way to improve their current
business processes, especially customer experience. Nearly three quarters (74%)
of the respondents have started their digital transformation geared at improving
marketing, sales as well as customer interaction and servicing parts of their
business process.
Frontier
technology sets about the point of change where economies and businesses must
achieve transformation in order to survive, remain competitive and chart their
growth strategies in the 2020s decade, not just as a pandemic recovery
portfolio, but as a business survival strategy.
DynaQuest:
Bringing Global Blockchain Transformation to the Philippines
DynaQuest,
an award-winning Blockchain solutions provider, which has been globally
recognized in the most prestigious Blockchain expo and forums is a Philippine
based systems integration specialist specializes in the adoption and
integration of frontier technologies into existing business and enterprise
systems. Armed with the expertise on change management, knowledgebase, resource
management and technical qualifications to guide businesses in their Blockchain
transformation journey. The company embeds a Blockchain-centric culture which
is conductive to enterprises for their business innovation, new market ventures
and decentralized economic participation.
For more
information, visit: https://dqtsi.com/
