Opinion

In the next 10 years, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors—information, energy, food, transportation, and materials—that underpin our global economy.

When Kentucky Fried Chicken launched Beyond Fried Chicken in Atlanta, it had an experience similar to that of Apple stores when introducing a new smartphone. Cars double looped the restaurant and stretched down the highway. And KFC isn’t alone. Customer traffic at local Burger Kings offering the Impossible Whopper has spiked with the Impossible Burger, now the most popular late-night delivery food in America.

Economics will drive the transportation disruption, but how these changes play out is dependent in large part upon the decisions we make today. City planners, community leaders and citizens should begin to plan for the cities they want in ten years time.

A historic photo taken on Easter Sunday, 1900, shows a street filled with horse-drawn carriages. If you look very carefully, you can pick out a solitary automobile. A photo of Easter 1913 shows the same New York Fifth Avenue scene packed with cars. If you look very carefully, you can pick out a solitary horse.

Jim Hackett, the newly appointed CEO of Ford, has the challenge of a lifetime. Ford right now is Nokia back when Apple and Google were building smartphones. Nokia was a world leader in mobile telephony but was disrupted by two Silicon Valley companies that had never built a phone before. Hackett’s challenge is simple: does Ford become the Nokia or Apple of transportation?