Later this month Lord's Cricket Ground plays host to Future World Symposium. The event is an opportunity to highlight innovation, discuss the challenges that lie ahead and determine the shape of things to come over the next decade.
Ten years is an incredibly long time in technology development and many things will change over the course of the next decade. One trend that we can confidently say will continue up to and far beyond 2020, however, is that an increasing number of functions will be integrated onto a single chip.
A very high proportion of the major building blocks for these integrated chips come from UK companies. And, new architectures are emerging to manage the complexity of these chips, requiring a re-appraisal of traditional architectures; something the UK has historically been extremely good at.
If we look at the industry dynamics it becomes clear that the future is in flexible applications platforms, and the UK leads not only in the electronics but in many of the key apps that are driving consumer uptake of these new products, from phones to tablets and from photo frames to printers
As connectivity and community increasingly underpin consumer behaviours then every category of device will change to reflect this. You can already see the first steps towards this with products like the PURE Sensia which uses connectivity to deliver not just tens of thousands of radio stations, podcasts and bespoke content but also access to social media like Picasa, Facebook and Twitter direct from the radio.
And whilst the economic downturn continues to be a challenge for every business and person, history tells us that future winners in our industry are those who design themselves out of a recession. The UK is a culture that thrives on innovative design and individuality
But if the UK is to continue to play an important role in shaping the technologies of the next decade then we need to take care of our talent.
We have a tremendous collection of highly innovative small start-ups in silicon, software and systems engineering that if correctly nurtured could make a significant contribution to the UK's future. Right now that nurturing is not there from the government. Instead it's left to private firms.
Many of the electronics technologies at the very heart of social, economic and political change are being developed here in the UK.
But, so much more could be achieved if the world-class UK technology industries are properly recognised and supported for their contribution to the UK and world economies.
Tony King-Smith (pictured) is VP of marketing at Imagination Technologies, a sponsoring company of Future World Symposium. Tony will present on the future of integration at FWS on 15th and 16th September.