Gadgets, apps, and tweets…oh my.
How many new gadgets have you added to your life in the past decade? Take a quick count—you may need to use your iPhone calculator to add them up. There’s no denying that technology is mushrooming all around us and, thanks to the microprocessor, getting smaller, faster, and smarter every day.
And while these advances have an immediate impact on our days—there’s an app for just about anything you’d need at any moment—it’s the ubiquity of these advancements that is changing our communities and will ultimately pose the biggest challenge as we make collective choices about our future.
The technology part is easy. Ever since man found a better way to light a fire, society has been on an increasingly faster invention curve. The real challenge is going to be deciding how we want to—or need to, or could, or should—use these advancements to shape our communities and institutions.
But as Tom Martin, editor of Winding Road magazine and one of this month’s partners, points out, we as a country are very comfortable and skilled with making choices about cereal or cars, but we’re not as comfortable with complex choices about where we want to head as a community or how to meet future demands.
There is really no denying that we will have to make choices and meet demands. By the time today’s middle school students enter the job market, there likely won’t be any job that does not require technological skills of some kind. In a globalized economy, if American workers do not have the skills a company needs, that company will be able to get those same services from someplace else on the globe.
To better understand the opportunities and demands, Forefront Austin has partnered with several unique Central Texas organizations to share their perspectives on how technology advances can improve our community.
Two partners are working to ensure that today’s young people are prepared to thrive in a technology-driven world. In Closing the Gender Gap [6], Girl Scouts of Central Texas discusses the myths surrounding girls’ drive and capacity to master technology. Their programs are employing technology to avoid a gender gap in not just science and engineering fields, but all professions. In Extreme School Makeover [7], Manor Independent School District Superintendent Andrew Kim spotlights the success of Manor New Tech High in using technology to drive student success and achievement.
Two other partners this month offer visions of the potential for technology to solve critical social infrastructure challenges. In Top Five Ways Technology is Improving Our Health [8], Patricia Brown Young, CEO and President of Central Health, discusses how electronic health records and health information exchanges are capturing, sorting, and analyzing data to improve healthcare and healthcare delivery throughout our community. And Tom Martin of Winding Road [9] offers a fascinating vision of how transportation advances—driverless cars, anyone?—could transform our urban and suburban settlement patterns and transportation infrastructure needs.
Finally, Forefront weighs in: our first ever article reviews how technology advancements have changed the way we communicate and connect with each other and with institutions. And we’re not just writing about technology—we’re opening it up for you to help us write the story. Read Gutenberg’s Killer App [10]and add your own comments, dates, and advances to our technology advances timeline.
It’s a fun, crazy ride out there with new technology. Thanks for coming along with us.