WTF is 4IR?
You've all heard it. 4IR is here. Every business magazine, newspaper, or book is talking about it. You hear about robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, The Internet of Things, 3D printing, and autonomous vehicles. You have only the faintest idea about them. Terminologies are familiar for you've heard them a lot, but you have absolutely no idea how exactly they're applicable for you and your business. Your head is spinning. You're not alone: The whole world is spinning right now.
What is 4IR? You can't define it. You Google it. Then you're bombarded with a series of extensive and technical explanations about it. No one seems to have a simple and understandable answer to it. Why? You guessed it right. No one has a simple and understandable answer because there is no simple and understandable answer to it. Again, why? That's simple: No one has yet figured it out enough to give a simple and understandable answer.
Why do we need 4IR? We don't. It just is happening and will continue to happen â whether or not you approve of it, deny it, go against it, discredit it, hate it, or close your eyes on it won't matter. What matters is the fact that our leaders in business have invested enough in it, created products that change our daily lives, patterns, and habits, and put them into practice in every aspect of our lives â from medicine to computer games to ATMs to mobile phones to social media platforms to automobiles to shopping malls. You've already been using and even enjoying them for many years; you just didn't put a name on it. Well, now you do.
What's going to happen with your business or organisation in the 4IR era? Just think back on 3IR (the Third Industrial Revolution or the Digital Revolution â and yes, those crazy years of you had begun using the Internet for the first time with that crazy, scratch noise connecting your computer to AOL or MySpace were in the 3IR era). What happened to those who couldn't adapt to the changing current of that time? They're no longer here. Archaic, dinosaur-ous, and very dead.
But one thing is for sure. 4IR, just like 1IR, 2IR, and 3IR, is a human innovation evolution. And more than any industrial revolutions in the past, 4IR will focus more on our ability to imagine, fuse, revolutionise, innovate, and create. From small things in our kitchen to big things and beyond.
This doesn't take for you to go to MIT to study AI or nanotechnology just as other creative and innovative people in the past didn't have to reinvent wheels and light bulbs to be creative and innovative in their times.
It takes a single humanistic perspective or insight into the things in our lives that we've taken or accepted as normal, obvious, and absolute rules. Status quo is the absolute wrong answer in 4IR. Obviousness has no room in 4IR. There is no such thing as normal and absolute anymore.
In fact, 4IR can be a beautiful time for all of us. Everything we've imagined until now can have a breath of possibility of becoming real. Your business can be a vehicle of changes in this era.
The real questions are these: Are our imaginations and dreams beautiful enough to become real? Can they change our world for better? Can everyone in the world benefit from the changes they create? Can we preserve our humanity and its ideals through them?
Let's ask them together. A brave new world begins with brave new questions.















