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The Elkington Report

Gen Alpha: Change the water, not the fish

The 'digital habitat' for the generation fated to be 'screenagers' is crucial to any hopes for sustainability.

我们中的一些人在可持续发展行业辛勤工作说,我们是为子竞彩足球app怎么下载孙后代做的,并希望他们能回头并庆祝我们的无私努力。但是,我们多久对我们旨在服务的人进行详细思考?

My recent travels have rammed home this question, surfacing an idea worthy of Mao Zedong: If you’re trying to change the world, don’t try to change the fish — change the water, the lakes, seas and oceans in which they swim.

Let’s start with the fish, our next generation of humans. Keen to gain an edge in tomorrow’s markets, analysts have dubbed them "Gen Alpha." As纽约时报2015年解释:

For professional trend forecasters, a generation (as in Generation X or Y) is less a collection of individuals than a commodity: to be processed into a manufactured unit, marketed and sold to clients. To get there first and define the next next generation is like staking a claim in a gold rush.

Generational researcher Mark McCrindle noted: "There are more than 2.5 million Gen Alphas born globally every week. When they have all been born (2025), they will number almost 2 billion. They start school next year and will be the most formally educated generation ever, the most technology supplied generation ever and globally the wealthiest generation ever."

Global experiment

Expand the spotlight to the family environment Gen Alphas will grow up in and there are clear patterns, in the developed world: "There is the age of parents (older), the cultural mix (more diverse), socioeconomics (slightly wealthier), family size (smaller), life expectancy (longer)." Then comes the really big unknown, technology:

Generation Alpha is part of an unintentional global experiment where screens are placed in front of them from the youngest age as pacifiers, entertainers and educational aids. They began being born in 2010, the year the iPad was introduced, Instagram was created and "app" was the word of the year, so they have been raised as "screenagers" to a greater extent than the fixed screens of the past could facilitate. For this reason we also call them Generation Glass.

接下来,缩小以检查阿尔法代代正在发展的更广泛的栖息地。在这里,我们正在进行更深刻的实验,将人口集中在越来越聪明的城市中 - 尽管在某些真正愚蠢的政策上,就移民和气候变化等问题而言。然而,除非大流行等重大逆转,否则阿尔法将越来越多地城市。因此,是时候探究下一代游泳的数字水域了。

除非诸如大流行之类的重大逆转,否则阿尔法将越来越多地城市。因此,是时候探究下一代游泳的数字水域了。
在巴塞罗那在11月发言Ship2b影响论坛, I visited Francesca Bria. She has led the development of Barcelona’s数字城市计划,作为首席技术和数字创新官。她提倡既增加数字化又提高了民主的增加 - 如果我们的数据继续受到亚马逊,Facebook和Google等人的控制,她认为这一结果会严重危害。

尽管大多数人都集中于技术的“推动”(供应)方面,但她强调了“拉动”(需求)方面,主张数字创新,以确保公民决策中的集体智慧。正如她告诉布鲁斯·斯特林(Bruce Sterling)Wired采访说:“我认为我们将朝着混合模式发展,其中公民将拥有一种自治,并直接参与诸如分配预算,做出决策和管理项目之类的事情。”

The same mindset inspires our project with英国创新,英国的创新机构。自2007年以来,它承诺了超过21.2亿美元的创新,与合作伙伴和商业资金相似。在此过程中,它帮助8,000个组织的项目估计为英国经济增加了超过188.4亿美元,创造了近70,000个就业机会。

我们正在探索如何将联合国可持续发展目标标记的机会视为“从未来购买订单(PDF)”对于企业和城市。具体而言,我们正在调查城市如何培养创新的中小型企业,从事解决关键城市挑战的解决方案。

Shortly before I visited Barcelona, Volans and Innovate UK ran a workshop in Nottingham focusing on emerging solutions to air quality problems. The companies presenting ranged from giant automaker Nissan, turning a new leaf with its electric vehicles, through to火焰,一家早期的公司从事从根本上改善骑自行车者的福祉。

数字化对于大多数提供的解决方案都是关键的,包括旨在在峰值污染事件中自动将混合动力汽车转换为电推进的计划。这将是后来关于阿尔法将军祖父母和曾祖父母提出的衰老挑战的事件的核心新城堡, and on the future of the built environment, to be held in London in the spring.

对于许多参观诺丁汉的游客来说,抽奖是罗宾汉和他的快乐男人。但是,对于我们的代表来说,一个关键的吸引力是Robyn ScottApolitical,政策创新的在线平台。正如他们所说:“无论我们喜欢还是不喜欢政府,喜欢政府或绝望,我们大多数人都可以同意,政府在解决邪恶的问题方面起着关键作用 - 从难民危机和城市化的压力到气候变化,网络安全,并适应一个算法正在追逐您的工作的世界。”

非政治解释说:“在世界各地,在政府工作中工作的成千上万的男人和女人都在解决类似的问题。通常,他们发现的解决方案可以共享。但是,随着公务员在紧张的时间压力下工作,经常在筒仓中工作,好主意通常仍然局限于一个国家或一个部门。这导致重复的努力,浪费纳税人的钱和为公民服务较差。”

To misquote Churchill, first we shape our technologies, then they shape us. If Gen Alpha is to prosper and be merry without crashing the biosphere, massive investment is needed to ensure that citizens, cities and corporations align in pursuit of sustainability. The evidence suggests that adapting our digital habitat will be at least as important as schooling billions of Gen Alpha small fry.

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