Industries Of The Future is a must-read for anyone who is curious about the bleeding edge changes occurring in technology as we speak. While in mainstream media, the term “technology” has been reduced to the latest smartphone, I always knew there was much more to it — especially in the areas of healthcare, pharmacology, public health and so on.

I consider myself privileged to be in an environment where the new possibilities in computing — particularly limitless access to computing power through Cloud, ability to glean intelligence from very large arrays of data (Big Data), interconnecting and collecting actionable intelligence from billions of devices (IoT) — are ever-present in 8 out of 10 discussions I have with my clients and colleagues. But really, that’s all I knew about it — the technology aspect of it.

What real problems do they solve? This perhaps was my biggest learning from the book.

From driverless cars to genomic sequencing to find cure for, and to pre-empt health problems in human beings, sequencing animal DNAs so their body parts can be used in humans (xenotransplantation), de-ageing, moving on to areas more apparently linked to technology (cyber warfare and defense, Blockchain etc..), precision agriculture and so much more.

As for the book itself, there are 6 chapters, each focusing on one major theme, except the 6th. The last chapter read a bit like Why Nations Fail and then a bit like Half the Sky and lot about Russia and China. The summation section lays out skills needed for the generation that is still in school — this I thought was insightful, while not entirely surprising. While the book was extremely informative on the chosen topics, I felt the story telling was not as cohesive and compelling as it could have been. At any rate, this is a good and easy read.