Contributing Editor Jeanette IpapoTuason shares her learnings from EO Portugal University along with insights from three people we are featuring in

Key learnings and insights from EO University Portugal

An Oxford University research paper says that almost 50% of jobs will be obsolete in less than 25 years because of Automation. What is the significance of this information? This supposes that artificial intelligence (AI) will surpass human capacity in doing not just manual labor, but analytic work as well eventually. What does this mean for the future of businesses?

I am a learning junkie. In fact, in my Clifton Strengths Finder evaluation, Input is one of my strongest suits. So, for the past 5 years that we have been part of the Entrepreneurs Organization, we have been chasing all their once-in-alifetime learning experiences all over the world. The latest one we attended made a meaningful impact on me—EO Portugal University's education on New Horizons.

I asked Candy Corner Philippines' outgoing president Bubu Andres, the first Filipino woman to become the global chair of this worldwide organization of influential entrepreneurs, why they chose this theme. She said, “We are on the verge of the next revolution of the business world.”

And I agree with her. The business landscape is changing so fast that even I, whose core strength is Input, is overwhelmed with the amount of information available. John Sanei, the first South African to be a member of the Singularity University Faculty, author, and in-demand speaker, mentioned that 20 years ago, the invention of the internet paved the way for the business revolution; now we are feeling the disruption of social media and power of search. We see how it has affected not only consumerism but even the behavior and culture of millennials (25-39 years old) and Gen Z (4-24 years old).

According to Sanei, in the next frontier in Information Technology, we will never be offline. We all are outfitted with our personal Jarvis without the Iron Man suit. And by glancing at a bystander, a pop up of his LinkedIn profile will be available. Your Jarvis will tell you that the store beside you is where you need to buy your moisturizer which will run out in 2.5 days, and that the moisture level of your face is at 30%.

Other technologies at the dawn of this new age include editable DNA such as Crispr, which allows one to edit a genome sequence— removing a faulty or sick strain and giving a baby diagnosed with leukemia a new lease on life. Companies that are democratizing prosthetics via 3D printing allow kids who usually wait until adult age to be fitted with prosthetics because of its inhibiting cost.

Now they can choose from a Frozen- or Iron Man- themed prosthetic and would never feel incomplete at school again.

A young social entrepreneur, Jessica Mathews invented the technology to harvest and store kinetic energy while kids in Africa kick a soccer ball or jump rope; at night they can attach a light bulb to light their homes. She is set to change the old-fashioned electric grid by just putting a tile-like contraption that stores energy every time you walk on it or when a car passes by. Not only will this remove our dependency on greenhouse effect-causing fossil fuels, but it will also remove the capital-intensive power plants and lessen the cost of electricity.

Some countries have legalized drone delivery. Amazon and Google are in a head to head battle on this technology that experts are predicting the disruption on the home appliance business. There was a point in time that GE was the biggest company in the world before being surpassed by Microsoft and Amazon. With drone delivery, who would need a refrigerator or a cooking range if they can deliver healthy homecooked meals from Wholefoods market on demand? Imagine how much electricity and time we will save.

In my industry, the term “automotive” no longer captures the essence of what it will evolve into. Toyota, the biggest automotive manufacturer in the world, no longer wants to be called that. Instead, they call themselves a mobility company. Millennial behavior has caused the rise of ride-sharing platforms, they only want to go from point A to point B. They no longer see owning a vehicle as a priority, but as something that if they acquire, will tie them down to jobs they don’t want to stay in, in cities they don’t want to live in. Gen Z, the more realistic generation, however, will not purchase a vehicle because of its effect on the environment. I see that this age group will want to solve the problems the previous generation has failed to answer.

What kind of disruption will these bring forward? Big car companies that cannot adapt to these trends will close. More efficient mass transportation or on-demand driverless cars will come to play. Parking lots will close, and cities will have more spaces. Will more people flock into the city?

For me, the most unsettling is the rise of AI, maybe because I lived in the era of Terminator movies where

AIs are depicted as beings that can bring about the next apocalypse. But looking at it from a more rational point of view, what is the purpose of these inventions? Is it not to remove the human factor in all business processes? To make more efficient and cost-effective production lines? So, what will people do, now that technology is aiming to replace them?