Future Shock

The last two decades has seen the emergence of technologies with disruptive potential on a planetary scale. As the pace of this technological development continues to quicken it challenges our ability to understand its impacts and its opportunities. Yet this innovation, driven by new modalities in multidisciplinary collaborative development, has given rise to surprisingly novel avenues of thought and it represents exciting new possibilities for mankind to live sustainably, to grow into more equitable societies and to address threats to our survival.

 

But it is the rate and reach of today’s innovation that defines the creative environment and the stage for future transformative technological advancement. With breakthroughs in nanoelectronics, AI and machine learning, quantum information sciences, restorative and regenerative biotechnologies, green-worlds tech, human-technology interfaces, and advanced manufacturing, we face a revolution in how we innovate and howwe create. This will reshape our world, transform our economies, and establish industries and communities that we could have never imagined. 

 

And as our technologies become more and more inextricably linked with who we are as people; the ethics and morals that have for so long served the human condition, will be pressed to evolve. How do we live and thrive in these new societies? How do we manage our lives within the technological marvel that is coming? Knowing this, is the key to success in tomorrow’s economies. That knowledge begins with the technologies themselves.

 

The If/Then World

If our community is to be relevant in this future world, if we are to generate the leaders of future economies and the citizens of future communities, if we are to lead in the marketplace of future ideas and future technologies, then we must be prepared to adopt and embrace a deeper engagement with the emerging frontier. Our educators, our researchers, our industries, and our government, must cease upon the new playing fields of frontier tech. 

 

A New Horizon

Wake Forest University has a significant resource for advanced scientific investigations into the promises of this revolution: the Nano and Quantum Technologies Laboratory. NanoteQ was born of the need to foster within our community, a deeper awareness and understanding of this world-wide re-alignment, its technologies and its impacts. Its purpose is create an ecosystem of innovation and discovery around rapidly evolving frontier technologies, bringing our campus and our region together to lead in the key technology areas of: Quantum Machines, Synthetic intelligence, Green Worlds, Restorative Biotechnologies and the Human-Machine interface. ​

 

At NanoteQ physical scientists and engineers, social and cognitive scientists, business experts, legal analysts and medical professionals can come together to form an understanding of how frontier tech will impact world societies, to demonstrate tech adoption in ways that are safe and beneficial, and to throw open the doors to a commercial promise unparalleled in human history.