Current focal topics

New Technologies and Business Models – current focal topics of the Future Network

 

Digital Transformation

Flexible infrastructures, cloud computing and edge computing, machine-to-machine communication and a growing “as a service” economy: digital transformation is multifaceted and concerns our society as a whole. According to the Capgemini Survey on IT Trends in 2021, IT enables business despite restrictions on contact: 87% of businesses and authorities have further expanded their digitalisation strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Digitalisation is the top priority for 2021.

Hybrid workspace

The workspace of the future has become a present-day reality: during the pandemic, those companies whose staff worked from home and could render services contactlessly have managed to maintain or even increase their turnover. Collaboration tools facilitate cooperation even for geographically scattered teams – with new challenges for innovative projects and business processes in organisations.

Secure systems

The security of infrastructures and product safety has become a key challenge of our times. Whether production safety and security, threats posed by IoT-enabled devices, or ransomware attacks on company networks: resilience and data protection are the mainstays of a functioning economy and society, increasingly supported by modelling tools and cybersecurity management systems as well as blockchain solutions.

Smart technologies

Ranging from the simplification of manual work by means of Robotic Process Automation to Artificial Intelligence, autonomous systems will bring the greatest transformation for humankind in the coming years. What are the opportunities and challenges caused by this development – on the economic, societal, ethical and legal level? According to Capgemini, AI systems will require specific IT architectures with powerful networks in order to process large data volumes at high speed.

New job profiles

The digital world requires new job profiles. Occupational images in IT are set to change massively in the years to come. Businesses as well as providers of education and training should prepare in advance for the new requirements and offer study programmes for data scientists, systems architects and AI trainers. In addition to sound technical knowledge, data scientists will need to have a high degree of coordination and communication skills, as well as a great deal of creativity.