Reflecting on my poor predictions.

I wrote a blog in the beginning of 2017 and made two sets of predictions that will lead change this year.

1. Technologies
2. Markets

Technologies

The two fields that have matured in the background, that i believe will give way to some really innovative solutions in 2017 are Machine Learning and Blockchain

I wasn’t too off in this prediction, primarily because it seemed very obvious at the start of 2017.

However, this year we have indeed seen some major advances in blockchain. The ones that caught my attention were

1. First draft of Proof of stake protocol on Ethereum, Casper
2. Filecoin — building a monetization model on top of IPFS
3. Burst of exchange value of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies

Machine learning also saw some major improvements, my favorites being

1. Google’s announcement of TPUs — hardware optimized for ML using TensorFlow
2. General Motors taking position in the AV space, suggesting Autonomous Vehicles is now working.

Markets

FinTech : Primarily driven by demonetization
Governance : Due to Aadhar card API opening up and 100M new expected mobile users
Education : Due to 4G connectivity and growing mobile userbase
Health : Because, it is time.

I was wrong on all four categories. There has been no notable breakthrough in any of the markets. I will have to re-analyse what made me make such a poor prediction here even after having a good deal of insight about what was happening on the technology side.

I’ll try to make these predictions again for 2018. Not to profess, but to challenge myself to get it right.