Including Monday 28th October, there are only TEN Mondays left in 2024.

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Many companies use these final calendar weeks to document some Predictions for the coming year.
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At Future Horizon, we like to think – and do things – a little differently from the conventional; especially when it comes to Strategic Foresight and Futurist endeavours.
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So, we’re publishing our Top Ten Anticipations for 2025 – 2030.​
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Why Anticipations, rather than Predictions?
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Predictions often use historical quantitative data to forecast short-term outcomes.
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Anticipations come from using Strategic Foresight, the discipline of exploring and anticipating future possible developments to shape the preferable future.
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Today we Anticipate: The state of Quantum technologies come the end of the decade.
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You can read a previous explainer on Quantum here: https://lnkd.in/gNvz9rNj​
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By 2030, there will be tens of thousands of Quantum computers worldwide, with the expanding industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
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Having significantly matured, investment and the focus of its usage will be in three primary domains: cybersecurity, financial services, and life sciences.
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​Cybersecurity: protecting sensitive information from digital threats and providing ultra-secure communication channels to ensure privacy.
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​Financial services: optimising trading strategies to increase efficiency plus enhanced risk management due to elevated fraud detection.
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​Life sciences: a step-change in scientific research for accelerated drug discovery, genomics modelling, and personalised medicine.
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Two distinct "Quantum divides" exist: one between Asia and the West (symptomatic of a wider technical bifurcation), and another between organisations that can pay for Quantum, and those that cannot.
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All historical data, either unencrypted or secured by legacy security protection of RSA with less than 2048 bits, is exploitable by Quantum by 2030.
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Data protected by the likes of AES-256 remains secure (for now), with Fully Homomorphic Encryption (FHE) the contemporary de-facto standard for those that can afford it.
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For governments and significant multinationals to be competitive, Quantum will be of paramount operational importance.
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For normal citizens, its capabilities, implications, and visibility day-to-day will not have crystalised - though upwards momentum is clear.
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Quantum technologies in 2030 will thus make some aspects of life safer and more efficient - for those that have the means - but more work will be required for it to truly scale and transform much of daily life globally.
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By 2030, the Quantum economy and post-Quantum era are yet to come, with the likes of Quantum sensing yet to be realised.
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Second in our series of Top Ten Anticipations for 2025 – 2030 is titled "The 21st century is the Asian century" - which we'll deliver in HORIZON next week.

It can be flattering to have your work mimicked, but it may be flat-out copying, freeloading, or theft.

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When it comes to art - and in particular music - the accessibility of generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) means anyone can now easily create new beats.
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All AI systems rely on huge volumes of data in order to learn, from which they then mint fresh output such as pop, prose, poetry, or pictures.
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How to enforce your copyright - and cease AI from reproducing your creative work - is a growing challenge, but help may be at hand.
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Researchers have created a new tool called HarmonyCloak: it embeds a layer of noise that AI cannot tune out as it seeks to extract meaningful patterns (see pic).
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Imperceptible to the human ear, it helps musicians protect their work from being used by AI as the algorithm cannot work out which bit(s) to ignore.
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The smarts are that it’s not a simple additive noise or a hidden signal that can be easily filtered out.
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The protective layer is dynamically created, adapted to the characteristics of each individual piece of music.
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Ergo generative AI models cannot easily reverse-engineer or bypass the protective noise without knowing the specific parameters for each track (which is not impossible, but may be time-consuming).
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An unrelated app, Glaze, already offers something similar for images, adding "style cloaking" to fool the pattern-finding capabilities of AI tools).
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HarmonyCloak has been developed by a team from the MoSIS (Mobile Sensing and Intelligence Security) lab at the University of Kentucky​ along with ​Lehigh University​.
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Their goal is simply put: "...to ensure that artists retain control over their music, preventing AI systems from learning or mimicking their compositions without consent".
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AI services and automated generative tools offer exciting new opportunities to accelerate or amplify existing processes, especially finding patterns.
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Though this is focused on audio compositions, we will continually see more of this type of "poison the well" approach to secure data from unauthorised re-use (either deliberate or unintentional).
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More broadly, in the absence of effective regulation - which can never keep up with the pace of tech innovation - all risk-averse organisations must continually implement their own appropriate digital safeguards.
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Regardless of what line of business you are in, no senior leader can afford unauthorised use or exploitation of any original works such as valuable corporate intellectual property.
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Think of it simply as akin to an advanced digital watermark, ensuring that electronic assets are secured, managed, and controlled for the future.
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If you cannot now quickly answer the question "who is the one responsible for AI safety in our organisation?", then you need help today.

In the near future it could be much easier for those in glass houses to throw stones.

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Innovative 3D-printed glass masonry, not unlike bricks from LEGO, have been developed with a strength comparable to concrete.
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The interlocking glass bricks are printed in a figure-eight design, which allows for curved structures (see picture).
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3D-printing in construction was recently explored further here: https://lnkd.in/et75i3pR
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Made from molten glass, the bricks are not only strong but also able to reused many times over.
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As of 2018, the construction industry constituted 39% of the world’s carbon equivalent greenhouse emissions.
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Development and implementation of circular building elements - those that can be disassembled and reused at the end of the life of a building - is one effort to reduce embodied carbon.
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Glass has been identified as a construction material with favourable reclaimability, recyclability, and high strength characteristics for a circular building material.
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Making glass from bamboo was previously unpacked here: https://lnkd.in/es2YhaCF​
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Creating a circular construction component requires replacing the adhesives currently used in glass construction to avoid glass contamination and support deconstruction for reuse.
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Advanced manufacturing techniques, such as Additive Manufacturing (AM), are another approach to create more mass- and material-efficient structures that decrease overall waste and emissions.
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In comparison to traditional glass casting, glass AM presents an opportunity to increase design flexibility and reduce tooling or molding costs for producing structural building components.
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Three production methods using AM were developed (Fully Hollow, Print-Cast, and Fully Printed), with a masonry unit designed and fabricated using each.
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After testing each of their performances, Fully Hollow units were observed to yield the highest load to failure, the shortest production time, and the most accurate and repeatable manufacturing process.
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It was noted, however, that with more development, the Fully Printed process could be a longer term, circular solution for an all glass building element.
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Another possible path could be printing with post-consumer recycled glass products, opening the door to upcycling waste that might otherwise go to landfill.
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As long as it’s not contaminated, glass can be recycled almost infinitely.
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The paper, titled "Additive manufacturing of interlocking glass masonry units", can be found in the journal Glass Structures and Engineering.
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Learning about this, is your glass half-full or half-empty?

Many might naturally fight fire with fire, but in the near future we instead will fight fire with...robots.

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Firefighting is a dangerous profession: physically demanding, unpredictable, emotionally traumatic.
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This is especially true for scenarios such as performing rescues in hard-to-reach areas, or putting out a blaze in extremely hazardous conditions.
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Given the risk of smoke inhalation, burns, building collapse, and potentially being exposed to dangerous substances, being able to reduce exposure of these brave souls to harm's way is desirable.
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Though still nascent, around the world the technology is developing fast.
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Some are small, light, and manoeuvrable - focused on finding survivors - whilst others are heavy-duty to carry equipment payloads in or provide a "water wall".
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Many are powered by diesel engines, whilst they can also be fully electric.
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Some are autonomous, or may be controlled by an operator in comparative safety up to several hundred metres away in an urban environment (more in open areas).
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On-board equipment may include real-time video cameras for monitoring (or control), thermal cameras to detect heat, gas detectors, as well as advanced navigation sensors such as LiDAR to manouvre through smoke or debris.
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In Japan they have "the Dragon firefighter", an innovative flying drone which hovers at around two metres and features eight adjustable water jets.
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The Ukrainian military is making use of enhanced Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to tackle fires on the battelfield, with either foam or pressurised water.
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Developed from a civilian design, it makes use of tracks (similar to a tank) for tackling undulating terrain; it has also been enhanced with rugged hardware such as a reinforced underbelly.
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These example robots can currently handle a range of scenarios, from basic cooling to hazardous three-dimensional fires, preserving personnel for critical tasks and maintaining readiness.
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For departments with limited personnel, robots can already enable quicker scene clearance and lower firefighter exposure.
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Especially for stations in rural or remote areas with only on-call volunteers, robots could increase overall operational efficiency and safety.
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Whilst it's exciting that autonomous firefighting robots could revolutionise future emergency response, there are naturally some cautions.
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Development and deployment will be expensive, they might not prove to be sufficiently reliable in dynamic situations, and like with any automation cyber security must remain front-of-mind.
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When it comes to life-threatening situations, we must balance innovation with reliability and safety.

Digital Assets are being spiced-up, desi-style.

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Despite a tough stance from the government, India led the way in global adoption of cryptocurrencies for the second straight year.
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This is according to recent analysis from blockchain analytics company Chainalysis​.
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The report tracks adoption across four sub-categories in 151 countries; next in line came Nigeria, Indonesia, USA, and Vietnam.
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The Indian government has long eyed cryptocurrencies warily, viewing them largely as contributing to money-laundering risk and challenging the central bank’s monetary authority.
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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI)​ remains firm in its stance that digital assets like Bitcoin could pose risks to the country’s economic stability.
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Though the >1.4 billion citizens are not banned from putting money into crypto outright, investing in them is not a smooth process - plus there is a 30% tax on gains from cryptocurrency.
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Authorities governing the most populous country in the world may now be taking a harder stance, perhaps banning crypto whilst simultaneously pushing adoption of their own Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).
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Many Indian regulators believe their own CBDC has huge potential to solve the financial inclusivity problem of the nation without compromising economic stability.
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The retail Digital Rupee (also known as "eINR", or "E-Rupee") has already existed for quite some time, but uptake has been slow.
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Issued by the RBI, the tokenised digital version of the Indian Rupee was proposed in January 2017 and the pilot launched in December 2022.
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Challenges to adoption include consumer privacy, wallet security, data management, system scalability, as well as lack of awareness and thus acceptability have all contributed to friction.
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Innovations like Unified Payments Interface (UPI) - a digital payment system that since 2016 allows users to send money, pay bills, and manage accounts through a mobile app - already provide what many people need.
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As well as having a large and diverse population, India is one of the largest economies in the world - and has been a net exporter since 2020.
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According to Statista, as of 2024 there are over 35 million Indians living outside of India, making up the world's largest diaspora - another factor when cross-border payments are taken into account.
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With such scale, truly successful CBDC adoption in India may shape what robust and inclusive financial infrastructure may look like in the forthcoming digital asset era across all of the future real world - watch this space.