The Biggest Tech Trends of 2023, According to Over 40 Ex

By Mark Sullivan

The DAWN team provides an abbreviated version of the article below - read the full article at: https://www.fastcompany.com/90827380/the-biggest-tech-trends-of-2023-according-to-over-40-experts

AGAIN THIS YEAR, I opened my Rolodex looking for the smartest and best-placed people in and around the tech industry to offer their 2023 predictions. I asked startup founders, Big Tech execs, VCs, scholars, and other experts to speculate on the coming year within their field of interest. In all, we collected more than 40 predictions about 2023. Together, they offer a smart composite look at the things we’re likely to be talking about by this time next year.

Ai And Robotics

Andrew Feldman, CEO and cofounder, Cerebras Systems

I believe generative AI is underhyped, not overhyped. With this technology, the problems of translating from any language, to any other language, will be completely solved. We’re going to be unable to tell the difference between humangenerated content and AI-produced content— across written content, video, digital art, and more. We see the AI market growing exponentially, and in 2023, we expect to see an AI company passing $50 billion in valuation.

Lama Nachman, director of intelligent systems research lab, Intel Labs

Next year, I believe there will be more focus on progressing generative AI, advancing human/ AI collaboration and responsibly developing AI technologies so they do not marginalize people, use data in unethical ways or discriminate against different populations. As thousands of companies across all industries continue to make AI breakthroughs, 2023 will be a foundational year for the industry to collaborate and transparently share learnings to mitigate risk and further drive innovation.

Diego Pantoja-Navajas, VP, AWS Supply Chain

We are looking forward to better, more predictive supply chains that can anticipate what customer demand cycles will be, as well as anticipating what likely supply chain risks will be and ways to overcome them. Advances in AI and machine learning move quickly, and we believe that supply chains will benefit from these developments in a very significant way in the coming years.

Ken Washington, VP & GM, Consumer Robotics, Amazon

In 2023, robots will evolve to play a more important and useful role in our homes and businesses. They will develop the ability to have more sophisticated interactions with humans thanks to enormous advancements in AI and machine learning, such as breakthrough multimodal abilities that enable robots to learn new things similarly to how we as humans learn. They will perform useful tasks, entertain, and provide companionship to their owners.

Virtual Spaces

Hari Vasudev, SVP, Retail Tech Platforms and country head, Walmart Global Tech

AR/VR will be a gamechanger in bringing personalized experiences, such as virtual try-ons for apparel, eyewear, or even scanning shelves to find items that match one’s lifestyle and diet. Over a period of time, voice technology will emerge as a natural part of one’s shopping experience and an important tool for retailers to reduce customer friction.

Jeremy King, SVP Engineering, Pinterest

[B]rands need to invest further in building out their AR technology capabilities to ensure they are set up to be inclusive of all audiences. It’s no longer enough to just offer one AR powered filter per item; instead brands will need to ensure that their filters are tailored for a diverse group of consumers from the outset. Consumers are not going to scroll through a list of filters to find the one that best matches their individuality.

Crypto And Web3

Lindsey Li, investor, Bessemer Venture Partners

Ethereum will maintain dominance of developer mindshare as Ethereum Virtual Machines (EVMs) continue to drive network effects amongst builders. We will also continue to see fallout from ecosystems with FTX involvement but this will not deter more alt Layer 1s from cropping up, cycling in and out of favor. We predict these trend cycles will get shorter as new L1s will not have access to the capital of bull markets past, thereby minimizing the size of potential ecosystem funds and marketing budgets previously used to attract tourists to the next shiny thing.

Kendrick Nguyen, cofounder and CEO, Republic

Tokenization will transform the relationship between companies and their communities. It will become the norm for companies of all shapes and sizes—not just “Web3 companies”—to offer their communities of customers, fans, and supporters upside in their growth via a token issuance.

Tokenization unlocks retail participation in private markets via liquidity, fractionalization, quick settlement, and transparency, which benefits both sides of the transaction.

Security

Tim Guleri, managing director, Sierra Ventures

Cyber criminals are feasting on the reactive way in which our most important applications are protected when they run on cloud infrastructure. As application workloads continue to move into the cloud and also from cloud to the edge, realtime cloud-native Application Protection software will become a requirement to thwart the rise in sophisticated and costly attacks by cyber criminals.

Leyla Bilge, technical director, Norton Labs

In 2023, we expect to see cyber criminals use advanced forms of AI technology, such as programs like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Stable Diffusion, or AI chatbots like ChatGPT to boost the effectiveness of their scams. These programs are accessible and easy to use, so cybercriminals can quickly create realistic images that add more depth and human touch to their scam. However, existing AI solutions are not perfect or foolproof, and it’s possible to be able to detect when they are used in attacks and scams.

Sharon Mandell, chief information officer, Juniper Networks

As organizations transition toward hybrid cloud models, companies still need to spend on tools to keep their existing infrastructure running the way it is—and avoid security pitfalls mid-migration. At the same time, there is a ton of pressure to satisfy government edicts for security as well as keep up resilience in the face of more ransomware. In 2023, CIOs will be forced to make this journey as cost-effective as possible by ramping up efforts to educate the biggest security vulnerability they have: their employees.

Startups And Investing

Mark Surman, executive director, Mozilla

[T]he last economic downturn produced a whole new crop of successful tech companies, like Uber and AirBNB. We should all be asking: what kind see page 96

Tech Trends 2023 from page 95 of companies are likely to thrive in this downturn?

We’re seeing a lot of founders taking a fresh spin on empowering users (think Firefox or Signal, but for the AI era). These companies have a real chance to grow over the next couple of years, which could in turn define the next decade of tech.

Dustin Robinson, cofounder and managing principal, Iter Investments (a psychedelics venture capital firm)

We are currently in a mental health crisis, and the current pharmaceuticals aren’t doing the trick. Meanwhile, there’s been an explosion of companies developing virtual reality programs to serve mental health. These fully immersive experiences have the potential to create a transcendent experience and allow people to overcome various mental health indications.

Hybrid Work

Nicole Herskowitz, VP of Microsoft Teams, Microsoft

Over the last two years, innovation in workplace technology has taken-off at light speed, with no signs of slowing down. Now more than ever we are seeing new patterns of work emerging that are asynchronous, interactive, and intelligent. My prediction for 2023 is that we will see more workplace tools span the full spectrum of work styles and take advantage of the convergence of productivity, collaboration, data, AI, business process, and work flow automation.

Noah Weiss, chief product officer, Slack

In 2023, organizations will find new ways to continue fostering the best parts of the old office, like candid conversations over coffee, while taking advantage of asynchronous tools and new digitally native forms of coworking. This will be the year we work together effectively, no matter where we are or when we’re working, while building teams that feel connected, inclusive, and agile.

Howie Liu, cofounder and CEO, Airtable

As every organization needs to move faster to meet customer demands, knowledge work is getting more fractured. Companies need a way to unify their teams and connect their data, enabling people to work autonomously, yet in coordinated fashion. We see a problem within enterprises where it’s not enough to just have individual apps. Individual apps need to be connected and allow the entire enterprise to share a source of truth.

Cynthia Stoddard, SVP and CIO, Adobe

[A] priority area for CIOs is creating digital-first employee experiences for the hybrid workplace. My team works diligently to develop and deploy the right environments, tools, and processes that enable employees to be productive and do their best work— from anywhere. As digital becomes the default, experimentation and investment are needed to explore cutting edge-technology and test collaborative workplace tools with a holistic and human-centered experience in mind.

Energy

Mariona Company, global head of sustainable packaging, HP

Sustainable manufacturing strategies will reach a tipping point in 2023. Winning in today’s market, where 77% of consumers say they would stop buying products from a company that had been found guilty of greenwashing, requires more action and less talk than ever before. Companies will need to rethink the way they make, deliver, and use products, as well as their packaging.

Neal Hansch, CEO and managing partner, Silicon Foundry

In conjunction with the ongoing and everincreasing adoption of electric powered vehicles, it’s important to emphasize that the charging infrastructure required to support these vehicles must continue to roll out at a rapid pace in parallel . . . designed to accommodate homes, corporate campuses, gas stations, highway stops, and more. Solutions to meet this demand continue to flow from both the energy majors, as well as pure play startups alike.

Zipporah “Zip” Allen, CMO, Strava

An active community inspires cities to invest in infrastructure and our trends in exercise, commutes, and other activity patterns ultimately impact city planning. We’re predicting a continued surge in e-bike usage similar to this year’s 26% increase compared to last year. The trend lines indicate that conscious and intentional movement is here to stay. With more people opting into human powered movement, it will lead to better outcomes for individuals and communities collectively.

Creator Economy

Sam Yam, cofounder, president, and CTO, Patreon

Creators are seeing how quickly trends are emerging and fading, and these rapid cycles will only continue to condense in 2023 as our collective attention span continues to shrink (with short-form TikToks, IG Reels, and YouTube Shorts!). During [the pandemic], we saw genres like crypto surge to over 100% earnings growth over two months, only to see that growth disappear within the next few months. Creators are so innovative, though, that they’re usually the first to surface these trends and shape the culture around them.

Marija Radulovic-Nastic, CTO, creative and development, Electronic Arts

[The] combination of AI and human creativity can give us quality and quantity far better/bigger than humans alone can do. For me, 2023 is going to be all about generative AI empowering the creatives to create faster and we will continue to see even more adoption of this technology, which will significantly impact the future of how content is created.

Health And Wearables

Sean Duff y, CEO and cofounder, Omada Health

As both patients and providers face broader financial constraints in 2023, and the cost of doctor visits, medications, and treatments skyrocket, it’s imperative that technology helps people simplify their long-term health choices and save money. Virtual care will become the bridge that allows people to not have to choose between paying for gas and paying for a doctor’s visit or medication.

Liana Douillet Guzman, CEO, FOLX Health

First, if the last few weeks are any indication, we’ll see ChatGPT continue to build incredible momentum. I’m excited by the potential this technology has for expanding access to equitable care, but we need to learn from the mistakes made with social media to ensure we are taking an ethical and thoughtful approach to creating virtual dialogue.

Gabriel

Mecklenberg, cofounder, Hinge Health

[As] we look ahead to 2023, equitable healthcare access means that AI-powered care experiences must work on low-end phones, for people of all shapes and colors, and in everyday environments. We must ensure AI is used to bridge the care gap, not widen it.

Tech Regulation

Marisa Tricarico, North America lead for Responsible AI, Accenture https://www.fastcompany.com/90827380/thebiggest-tech-trends-of-2023-according-to-over40-experts

We’ll be talking about more Responsible AI and AI regulation in 2023. Despite perceptions that it might stifle innovation, AI regulation provides organizations with clarity about the boundaries, so they can push innovation to the limit without destroying hard-earned trust built with their customers, shareholders and society at large. And companies are already preparing: Accenture’s latest research surveying 850 global executives found almost half of businesses (45%) plan to commit at least a fifth of their AI budgets to meeting regulatory requirements by 2024.

Image credit: miton.cz, paymentscardsandmobile. com, innovaprimarycare.com

NASA Postdoctoral Program Seeks Early Career and Senior Scientists for Prestigious Fellowships at its Locations Across the U.S.

From AFRO News

NASA INVITES BOTH early-career and senior scientists to explore fellowship opportunities in its postdoctoral program and share in NASA’s mission to develop advancements in science, technology, aeronautics and space exploration. The deadline to apply for this cycle of fellowships is March 1, 2023. Learn more or apply for fellowships in the NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP). ORAU manages the NPP for NASA.

“The NPP includes diverse scientific and technological fellowships offered at NASA and one-of-a-kind educational experiences that prepare future leaders for NASA and the academic community,” said ORAU NPP Program Director J. Scott Miller, Ph.D. “ORAU supports NASA’s goal to build an inclusive, collaborative, open, and innovative work environment that enhances work-life balance and encourages career development for postdoctoral fellows.”

This program offers unique research opportunities for highlytalented U.S. and non-U.S. scientists to engage in ongoing NASA research projects with top scientists at a NASA Center, NASA Headquarters or at a NASA-affiliated research institute. These one- to three-year fellowships are competitive and are designed to advance NASA’s missions in space science, earth science, aeronautics, space operations, exploration systems and astrobiology.

Eligibility

Scientists within five years of having received their degrees are eligible to apply as a postdoctoral fellow; scientists who have received their doctorates more than five years previously may apply as a senior fellow. After the first year as a postdoctoral fellow, scientists interested in management may apply to the postdoctoral management program at NASA Headquarters. NASA has re-opened eligibility to foreign nationals who are eligible for the Exchange Visitor J-1 visa status. See eligibility and requirements for more details.

Benefits

Stipend rates for these NASA postdoctoral fellows currently start at $70,000 per year. Supplements are provided for higher cost-of-living areas and certain academic specialties. The stipend amount for a senior postdoctoral fellow is based on the location of the appointment, experience (number of years beyond the doctoral degree) and career achievement, including academic rank and professional title. Available benefits include health insurance supplements, professional development resources, a research allowance up to $10,000 per year and relocation reimbursement.

Learn More and Apply

Learn more at https://npp.orau. org or email npp@orau.org.

https://afro.com/press-roomnasa-postdoctoral-programseeks-early-career-and-seniorscientists-for-prestigiousfellowships-at-its-locationsacross-the-u-s/

STARR ANDREWS WON a medal at the U.S. figure skating championships Friday, January 27th in San Jose, California, becoming the first Black woman to do so in over three decades

Andrews, who took fourth overall, was thrilled to share the podium with champion Isabeau Levito, second-place winner Bradie Tennell and bronze medalist Amber Glenn. She finished with 188.24 total for the two days of the competition, including a free skate score of 119.27, according to The Washington Post.

She fully understood significance of her pewter medal victory. Andrews was well aware that Debi Thomas’ victory — in 1988, 35 years ago — marked the last time a Black woman won a medal at a national competition in the United States. As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, Andrews was enmeshed in a