Top Technological Predictions for 2023

Summary: Global crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's war in Ukraine have shown the difficulty of predicting the future, but they've also demonstrated the crucial role technology has to play in solving these problems.

FREMONT, CA: Even though the technological bubble is more like the Silicon Valley bubble, recent layoffs at major tech corporations have sparked concerns about its deflation. The lack of qualified workers is a sign that the technology sector is still robust and will only worsen over the upcoming year.

Most businesses worldwide have been investing heavily in tech modernisation since 2020, which has resulted in a huge need for technologists. It has been an employee market for a while, and though rising wage demands are unsustainable over the long run, there aren't many indications that the supply situation will improve soon.

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The labour market is now essentially exhausted. Businesses were able to hire people from different backgrounds and circumstances because of the shift to remote working, including stay-at-home parents; nevertheless, the majority of those who expressed interest have only been hired in the past two years.

The labour pool may be shrinking as a result of rising nationalism and anti-immigrant fervour worldwide. For instance, in the US, the proportion of immigrants working in high-tech jobs on an H-1B visa decreased by nine per cent between 2020 and 2021, the largest decline in a decade. With layoffs affecting H-1B visa holders who are now required to return home, the decline could become even higher in 2022.

This has already happened in the UK in the wake of the Brexit decision, and so far, the government doesn't seem to know how to fix it. Technology is largely homogeneous in many ways, including gender, race, and socioeconomic status in particular, despite extensive debate in the field and society at large. Though there have been several significant exceptions, many of which Computing has lauded, technology leadership generally continues to be unrepresentative of the larger society, which has several unfavourable repercussions.

When confronted about their homogenous leadership teams, tech corporations frequently take the position that there aren't enough ladies studying STEM topics in school. While there is no doubt that this needs to change, doing so is also a very practical approach to escape accountability for consistently endorsing the same kind of candidate.

The share of investment raised by women-only founding teams has, almost unbelievably, decreased from three per cent to one per cent since 2018. In Europe, 87 per cent of all VC funding is still raised by male-only founding teams. There are currently no unicorns in Europe with an all-female founding team.

Additionally, founders from racial or ethnic minorities face discrimination. Only 1.4 per cent of unicorn companies in Europe were founded by a team made up exclusively of entrepreneurs from underrepresented groups, and they received just 0.7 per cent of all unicorn funding. 35 per cent of European IT companies have a programme in place for hiring employees from a variety of backgrounds. If for no other reason than the severe skills shortages that businesses are facing, this number ought to increase by 2023.

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The tech sector's history of diversity and inclusion is once direr. It is unacceptable that women are still not allowed to sit at the table. The tech industry has to focus even more on solving this pressing problem. More than 65 per cent of tech organisations lack a recruitment strategy to attract candidates from a variety of backgrounds. The private sector must take action to address this inclusiveness failure, and IT investors must show they are capable of doing so.

Technology has the potential to be very helpful in lowering GHG emissions and reducing some of the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, it is currently contributing to the issue as the carbon footprints of businesses are being increasingly impacted by a technology infrastructure.

However, as potential customers, investors, and workers demand more specific sustainability measures, vendors will be compelled to step up their game, and sustainability will continue to gain relevance among IT purchasers. This year, there has been a rise in the awareness of greenwashing, and the use of sustainability as a marketing tool is getting more and more criticism.

73 per cent of sustainability managers in the UK said their company's leadership treats sustainability projects as a priority. ESG factors are undoubtedly consistently given top priority by tech companies when they publish competitive tenders for goods and services.

This transformation is being driven by demographic changes and their effects on the labour and financial sectors. The average age of IT investors is getting younger, and younger investors tend to have values that are more in line with increased environmental sustainability.

According to many recruiters and employers, the most competitive labour market in decades has also boosted Gen Z's influence because this generation is far more values-driven than previous ones. With IT employers vying for talent, having a strong environmental strategy might help businesses stand out.

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These constraints acting together will make it more difficult for corporate technology to support greenwashing.

The year 2022 may have been a sort of death knell for cryptocurrencies, but the blockchain technology, at its core, still has a lot of promise. Web3 technologies and practices like blockchain and decentralisation continue to gain prominence and appeal despite the collapse of the Bitcoin bubble; after all, the problems they're meant to address, such as the extreme centralization of the internet in the Web 2.0 period, remain.

As the euphoria dies and blockchain's genuine potential is better understood, 2023 will be a year of considerable blockchain innovation. There will be more applications of blockchain in fields where it can truly provide value, such as bulk commodities tracking and smart contracts, as opposed to shoving it into industries and applications that it is not suitable for.