Jon Brewster addressed the topic on Jun 1, at Tecnopuc
Photo: Eduarda Pereira/PUCRS
A lecture delivered by HPE‘s vice president, Jon Brewster, brought dozens of people to the auditorium of Tecnopuc – PUCRS’ Science and Technology Park on Jun 1. The executive showed the world’s future technological megatrends. Several students, professors and IT professionals attended the event.
Mr Brewster, who joined HPE in 1977, started out with an introduction of himself. “I have always enjoyed every single type of technology ”, said he jokingly. Having established a very friendly atmosphere, he used a reduced version of slides showing the year’s trends and which are used in meetings with the CEO of HPE. “We analyze data such as these every year, and this helps us understand what kind of things have an impact on the world. We have strong appreciation for the technical aspects of the products, but the users’ experiences with the equipment are more important”, said he.
Among the reasons propelling the new world trends, Mr Brewster mentions rapid urbanization, demographic changes, hyperglobalization and accelerated innovation. These would be the causes of all changes we have been subject to over the recent years. Besides, he went on to introduce some concepts of the current generation. “They have different interests. They grew up with technology and know how to use the internet. They are more likely to start their own businesses and hire people instead of working for someone else. They want to have positive impact on the world because they care for it”, said he.
Brewster addressed some questions that will serve as foundation for the improvements over the next years. “How can we administer privacy with so much technology? In view of the increasingly popular phenomenon of autonomous cars, how should we go about traffic rules?”, ponders he. But, for him, these issues are not impediments for technological progress but opportunities.
At the end of his lecture, the vice president of HPE showed a video presenting the ambitions of his company for the future. The video showed technological systems that are even smarter than the ones today, such as the digital newspaper (glass “plates” with formatting and design similar to hard-copy ones, with the exception that the texts are updated throughout the day), computers that can capture the users’ feelings and show things that can keep them from thinking negative things, such as family pictures, and drones obeying voice commands.
“Our entire society is changing in very powerful ways. And we need to talk about this because we want these changes to have a purpose”. This is how Mr Brewster explains his desire to talk about the technological megatrends in places such as PUCRS.
