Bold statements: can tech meet the challenge in 2020?

2020 is going to be another incredibly exciting year for everyone when it comes to technology. Our primary partner Microsoft has started it off by making an exceptionally bold pledge to remove “all of the carbon” from the environment that it has emitted since the company was founded in 1975! To achieve that goal by 2050; they have recognised that they will need to have gone “”carbon negative” by 2030. This pledge goes beyond Amazon’s own target who intend to go “carbon neutral” by 2040.

These pledges are bold statements and timely, the tech sector currently accounts by some estimates approximately 3.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions and in the next twenty years it is anticipated it could grow to 14%.

A little over twelve months ago Microsoft wrote a blog post which identified 10 tech issues for the upcoming year.  Whilst the environment featured as part of the top 10 it wasn’t classified as a major issue in its own right. Fast forward to today and every which way we go and look, there is some form of environmental issue being discussed, highlighted and spoken about. As a supplier to the UK market predominantly, we too have noticed that the environment is starting to feature more prominently with our prospective clients, who are becoming more conscious about their own impact on the environment.

Of the predictions made by Microsoft and many others in 2019, the vast majority of I believe will remain important in the year ahead and the foreseeable future:

• Cybersecurity
• Disinformation (#FakeNews)
• Sovereignty and protection of people’s privacy and data in a data driven world
• AI and the impact that is having on ‘blue collar’ workers

Looking closer to home at a slightly more granular level, the NHS is under ever increasing pressure to tackle some of its major inefficiencies. Whilst the new UK government has pledged to continue to invest heavily, they have made it crystal clear to NHS England that it expects to see some serious results and a return from its upcoming investments which do include: £40m to improve computer login’s; doubling down on the tech agenda to bring the NHS into the 21st century and the launch of NHS (driving healthcare improvements by driving digital transformation)

In terms of my own predictions, I fully anticipate with the applied pressure of a government with fewer shackles on it and a universal determination to improve our NHS this will be the year when we start to help relatives and loved ones live and enjoy a better quality of life for longer by leveraging the advantages of wearable technologies; we will improve Doctors and Nurses working conditions if they can access patients records remotely or on the move or be staffed with the right resource during peak times? It is my sincere hope that risual as a tech supplier to the UK eco-system will have helped play a part in this.

Cloud Transformation will be plugged non-stop by suppliers like risual, but fundamentally as the Sales Manager all I am interested in doing is helping our clients take advantage of our offerings which will help clients evaluate existing and future technologies; evaluate cloud versus on-promise options; identify sensible savings by assessing applications and take advantage of Azure etc to keep your data safe.

I would encourage anyone reading this to reach out and speak to us as we genuinely can help clients overcome some of the challenges facing us in this new decade and if they want to do something bold they should consider looking to take advantage of a bold partner like risual.cl

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