Online education is going to blow up.
"Education
is at a major crossroads in terms of the exorbitant cost and the lack
of direct correlation to improved life outcomes," says Amish Jani of
FirstMark Capital in New York City. In other words, expect to see lots
of innovation in this space. Andy Hines, a futurist who teaches at the
University of Houston, sees opportunities in online programs for
professional certifications and in "catch up" degree programs for people
who started college but didn't graduate. "The percentage of people who
graduate has been flat for a long time," Hines says. "If we could reach
that huge body of people in limboland, we could see a nice boost."
24/7 personal health tracking will go mainstream.
In
2013, consumers will increasingly turn to digital tools to monitor and
improve their health through exercise, sleep, and diet. Sales of
wearable fitness-tracking devices like Fitbit are forecast to hit 90
million units in 2017, and the market for sports and fitness apps will
exceed $400 million in 2016, according to ABI Research. And increasingly
flexible and sophisticated sensors—embedded in clothing or shoes or
attached to the skin like bandages—will help speed adoption and enable
always-on monitoring. "This will explode in 2013," predicts Unity
Stoakes, co-founder of StartUp Health
Disruptive design will win.
Products
such as the Nest thermostat and the Plumen CFL light bulb are just two
recent examples of a trend we can expect to see a lot more of in 2013:
start-ups shaking up stale product categories through the power of
design. "Disruptive products are king, and innovative designs will
challenge the status quo in ways that previously wouldn't have been
possible," says Scot Herbst, of Herbst Produkt, an award-winning
product-design firm. "Being small and nimble and new can free a creative
mission from all of the antiquated standards that established players
suffer from."
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