The speed of technology changes and innovation in today’s world is hard to underestimate. Although innovation in the tech landscape is nothing new, heightened interest and willingness to adopt innovation is creating even more demand on technology innovators to bring new capabilities to users and early adopters. In recent years, we’ve seen a significant increase in development of new AI capabilities to the Internet of Things (IoT), quantum and other technologies. These technologies promise huge benefits to government and industry but also pose key challenges and risks such as workforce readiness, information security and data privacy. The talent, knowledge and expertise needed to manage, shape and lead changes may be in short supply unless government, industry and academia work together to further develop the skills necessary for our current and future workforce to succeed.

In addition, the promise of these technologies and growing public needs are pressing both government and industry to transition to more agile and stronger infrastructures, increasing the use of data for predictive analysis and strategic decision making, and underscoring the need for better and more effective communication.

Organizations need to ensure that they aren’t only investing in new technology solutions that will enable their teams more efficient and effective, they need to ensure that the technology is being applied in an ethical, responsible way. Everything from how data is collected and stored to how companies invest in these solutions needs to be rethought.