WHAT DO THESE 4 BIG TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR 2017 MEAN FOR PHILANTHROPY?

5 January 2017

The huge consumer tech expo CES 2017 is currently taking place in Las Vegas.

This has prompted the usual annual raft of articles identifying the main tech trends that can be discerned for the year ahead. (eg this one from Forbes, or this one from the FT).

Through Giving Thought here at CAF, we have been trying to think through some of the implications of various tech developments for philanthropy and the work of charities for the last few years. It was gratifying, therefore, to see that a number of the key trends identified for 2017 are things that we have explored before. (It does at least suggest that our judgment about these things isn’t wildly off!)

Here are four of the key tech trends for 2017 identified by the experts, and what we have had to say about their possible impact on philanthropy.

1 BLOCKCHAIN

Perhaps not as big a part of CES 2017 as some other trends, because it is more of an infrastructure technology, but still a given on most expert’s lists of major tech trends for this year. It is also the technology that we have done the most work on, having written three papers, produced a number of blogs, recorded explanatory videos and given talks at conferences.

You can find all our reports together with some short videos of me explaining the key ideas on blockchain.

You can also read the relevant blog posts, about:

• blockchain and the role of financial services companies,
• the possibility of creating charitable organisations on the blockchain, and
• the intersection of blockchain, Internet of Things and philanthropy.

There are also some earlier posts about the related issue of cryptocurrency:

• Giving a Bit(coin) - cryptocurrency and philanthropy
• Four opportunities Bitcoin presents for philanthropy
• Giving in the Digital Age

If you want to watch the video of a talk I gave at the inaugural Together We’re Better conference in 2016 on blockchain, the slides I used for the talk are available on Prezi.

2 THE INTERNET OF THINGS

This is definitely a big one for CES 2017: every object there seems to be smart in some way, up to an including a toothbrush. We explored some of the possibilities that IoT technology brings for philanthropy in our “Giving Unchained” report, and also in a blog post about philanthropy, blockchain and the Internet of Things.

We also produced a slightly tongue-in-cheek infographic about how a  philanthropic smart washing machine might work.

And we even mocked up some instructions too!