Next Gen 2030: The youth’s vision for a tech-savvy, inclusive, sustainable future

BNP Paribas Cardif asked young people aged between 15 and 30 to imagine the world in 2030. From society to the environment, health to education, work to insurance: the result is a vision where technology will change everything, yet will be increasingly “human focused”

Published on 02 Dec 2021

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How will the world be in 2030? What changes lie ahead? BNP Paribas Cardif, in partnership with Eumetra MR, has asked young people aged between 15 and 30 with the Next Gen 2030 research. The results reveal an optimistic outlook – more than two out of three respondents (73%) are confident we are going to live better than now – with a deep sense of “humanism.” Technology will leap forward to transform many areas of our lives; yet young people dream of a tech society more “human focused”. 

Next Gen 2030: the future according to young people 

More flexible and inclusive work, smart healthcare and education 

Young people imagine a 2030 in which new technologies will revolutionize the world of work, with smart computers, voice assistants and systems to monitor the health and welfare of the employee (32%) and where smartworking will be for 52% alternated with the presence in the office, if not even preponderant (34%). Digitization will also lead to a reduction in working hours, which for many respondents (44%) will become 5 hours a day. But throughout this tech world, young people are confident that we will live in a society in which gender discrimination will be almost overcome (35%), physical appearance will no longer be fundamental in social relations (32%) and having a woman as President of the Republic or Prime Minister (26%) will be commonplace. 

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BNP Paribas Cardif’s research also underlined the importance of the efficiency of hospital facilities, which emerged during the Covid emergency, and in 2030 young people imagine hospitals equipped with smart operating rooms with virtual assistants and integrated technologies (31%), but not only. The expected change regards the whole healthcare sector, which, in the vision of the new generations, will manage to convert the effort for the research on vaccines to fight other diseases as well (46%). When it comes to school, however, as many as half of those surveyed (51%) believe that the subjects studied will change, in a model that includes some days in DAD (36%) and others in presence, but in American campus/college-style facilities (29%). Again, the leitmotif of artificial intelligence returns, which for 62% will represent the college course of the future. 

Smarter cities, but uncertainty about the environment 

For young people, a positive evolution of society seems, therefore, to be almost inevitable, with an impact also on the organization of cities, which will become more people-friendly, especially for the population with specific needs such as mothers, the elderly, the disabled (33%), and on mobility, with artificial intelligence that will manage road network also through smart traffic lights (24%). The same optimism is not always felt for the environment. If, on the one hand, many people imagine the discovery of new techniques to recycle and reuse products (41%), on the other hand, there is no shortage of pessimists who predict a worsening of global warming and pollution (31%). 

An increasingly cashless economy 

The digitization already underway in payments will then take another step toward the cashless economy, with 51% believing transactions will almost always be cashless. According to young people, e-commerce will become the dominant mode of purchase (40% believe everything or almost everything will be bought on the web) but the physical experience could also improve thanks to cashierless stores (24%) or home/office sales by prior arrangement (24%). 

The home of the future: entertainment and sustainability 

Let’s move on to the social, entertainment and home environments. What will it be like in 2030? According to almost a third of young people interviewed (32%), current social networks will no longer exist and will be replaced by others, and even more futuristic is the vision of those who believe that everyone will have their own social network, set up as they wish, to share with friends (23%). At home, they also imagine larger, thinner TVs to be stretched and rolled out on the wall (36%), with cinema giving way to TV on demand (35%). But there’s more. According to young people, our homes will become technological, thanks to home automation, present in all homes (43%), healthy, with air purification systems and noise reduction (37%) and sustainable, powered exclusively by renewable energy (36%). 

Next Gen 2030: new risks, new insurance protection 

A new world, however, ushers in new threats. Yet what are future risks for the Next Gen? The first place could not but be cyber risks (43%), such as digital identity theft, followed by damage caused by the malfunction of autonomous driving (32%) and new pandemics (27%). They imagine, therefore, an insurance scenario where emerging risks will correspond to innovative forms of protection, customizable according to lifestyle (30%), increasingly integrated with technology (28%), digital and enabled in few seconds (24%). The relationship with companies will also change, with a third believing that everything will be managed online (33%), but always with the possibility of meeting a consultant at home on demand.. 

Next Gen 2030: the video 

With the purpose of creating an emotional link with the young people the survey is addressed to, BNP Paribas Cardif has chosen to tell the results also through a video, a tool that comes closest to their style, with a fresh storytelling and starring three young people belonging to the Next Gen. The video, realized by Brandstories in partnership with Italiaonline, is based on a gaming logic where the three young people, gathered around a touch table, have fun “touching the future” with their hands, trying to guess what the world will be like in 2030. 

Next Gen 2030: un viaggio nel futuro tecnologico, inclusivo e sostenibile
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