Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1493016
168 I-CONNECT007 I REAL TIME WITH... IPC APEX EXPO 2023 SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE mous lawnmower might be employed with excessive frequency just because it's easy to do so. 4 DuBravac's fourth theme concerned how digital data captured from sen- sors has changed the way we interact with various services and environments. The trend has been to change the interface and how we access it; AI changes the experience and reconfigures the human relationship with that experience. Autonomous vehicles again provided an example: instead of driving them, we would simply ride in them. Another, rather humorous illustration of this phe- nomenon is an add-on for use on Zoom calls, which makes it possible to create the illusion that one's eyes are focused on the screen when in fact they are wandering elsewhere. 5 The final theme he identified consti- tutes probably one of today's biggest trends. He quoted Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock, who wrote, "Climate risk is invest- ment risk."1 DuBravac argued that, in a con- text of sustainability, this sentiment could be broadened to, "Environmental risk is opera- tional risk." The statement is about compa- nies aligning their businesses with the busi- nesses of their customers and clients, who in turn are trying to align their businesses with their customers' tastes and preferences. It isn't enough to have a really interesting tech- nology; it has to intersect with geopolitical issues and demographic shifts. A characteristic of the incoming younger generation is a preference for sustainable practices and social justice. "Every genera- tion wants to change something that a prior generation did, and this generation, at least for now, looks committed to offsetting some of the impact," DuBravac said. He believes the current generation is committed to setting aggressive goals for becoming net zero, one result being to the benefit of the electronics industry. He also believes that a consequence of the goal of sustainability means that every aspect of that experience has to change. Such a goal requires more than a change in technology; it calls for a societal and behavioural shift, a commitment to changing what we do, why we do it, and how we inter- act, which are all consequences of the shift from digitisation to datafication. "The trans- formation is upon us," DuBravac assured the audience, "and it has big implications for all of us." S&T References 1. "A Fundamental Reshaping of Finance," by Larry Fink, Blackrock.com.