Once upon a time, the world was neatly divided into prosperous and backward economies. Babies were plentiful, workers outnumbered retirees, and people aspiring towards the middle class yearned to own homes and cars. That worldâand those rulesâare over. By 2030, a new reality will take hold, and before you know it:
There will be more grandparents than grandchildren
The middle-class in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa will outnumber the US and Europe combined
The global economy will be driven by the non-Western consumer for the first time in modern history
There will be more global wealth owned by women than men
There will be more robots than workers
There will be more computers than human brains
There will be more currencies than countries
According to Mauro F. Guillen, the only way to truly understand the global transformations underwayâand their impactsâis to think laterally. That is, using peripheral vision, or approaching problems creatively and from unorthodox points of view. Rather than focusing on a single trendâclimate-change or the rise of illiberal regimes, for exampleâGuillen encourages us to consider the dynamic inter-play between a range of forces that will converge on a single tipping pointâ2030âthat will be, for better or worse, the point of no return.