What'snext21by21

F**k 2020.
All we can say is that everybody was wrong last time we've done this.
So we've decided to do it again.
Here are our picks for 21 trends in 2021.

Alexandre Santos

Bright Pixel

In 2021, we will undoubtedly have to tackle several challenges ahead of us and there is one thing I take for granted: our lives, for the better and for the worst, will become even more digital.

Nobody could phantom that 2020 would end to be one of the weirdest years of our lifetime… so far.
So, it is really hard to accept the challenge to think and write about what 2021 has in store for us.

What I write below is based on three underlying premises:
First, that the future is mostly already here.
Second, that we can all desire that next year will be hopefully a return to “normalcy”... but it's highly likely it won’t. The world will not be the same no more.
Third, we are all suffering and just grasping from the fact that the pace of change has dramatically increased and changed gears... right in front of us. We need to hold on… for the ride.

In 2020, we had to change how we live and all thought it would be just temporary… but, next year will we have still to adapt.
In several ways, I think we fast forwarded several trends that were already creeping around us.

In 2021, we will undoubtedly have to tackle several challenges ahead of us… and there is one thing I take for granted: our lives, for the better and for the worst, will become even more digital.
Namely, due to rising environmental concerns, health related issues, generational shifts and out of sheer and practical necessity... companies and people will do a lot more things in a digital realm.

Work, play, buy, sell, watch, share, collaborate, monitor and control - everything, increasingly online.

Finally, due to my role as an early stage investor, I have to try to have a stance on what might or not be a trend going forward.
For what it’s worth, here go my two cents about several key trends I believe will be picking up even more pace in the near future:

In the B2C world: digital entertainment is on the rise; online gaming and esports are becoming massive; we cannot keep up with pace of the vast array of sharing platforms that cater several niche interests; the way we buy everything is changing, and therefore, e-commerce is in constant flux; sustainability and environmentally driven decisions will impact more and more our daily actions - what we eat, wear, live and how we travel or commute; finally, above all, I feel that people are also a lot more focused on their physical and mental health and overall well-being…
(and all of this will be more and more mobile centric… simply because the zombie-like-neck-down human condition is here to stay, with everybody looking at a glowing device firmly held by one of our hands, whilst we walk pass everything around us…)

In the B2B world: “remotely-more, physically-less” working environments are here to stay; therefore, distributed cloud solutions to flexibly manage everything work process we have in our companies are on the rise; collaborative tools we be in also dire need; so will be cyber security products and services to protect ourselves and our assets from increased vulnerabilities and risks that we will all face; technology to handle contactless or unattended human interactions in customer facing services will be sought for in higher demand; hyper automation and extracting intelligence and decision making from the ever-increasing volume of accessible data is for sure an unstoppable trend.
Trends apart, on a ending positive note, 2021 will simply be what we will individually and collectively make of it!
“Every moment has to be complete in and of itself” (from Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness)

Francisco Pacheco

Replai

Short video will finally surpass Youtube as the main entertainment platform

Due to covid, 2021 is specially important to monitor: the industries which expanded faster than before (livestreams, gaming, entertainment platforms in general) will they leverage that growth to scale even faster? Will they slow-down? And on the other side the industries which faced such big challenges in 2020 will they recover fast enough? How's the adaption looking?

Analysing particular domains: 2021 will be again the year of video, with a nuance: short video will finally surpass Youtube as the main entertainment platform. This reality ignites the true challenge of content creation nowadays: how to produce unpredictable, constant and reliable content on a day-to-day basis. That could either take you hundreds of hours or you can streamline and automate your processes. Adapt or die.

2021 is also the year of AI: AI will keep its massive growth while unsupervised learning will become critical in the video space. Predictability disappeared w/ the recent gen Z massive online presence so new standards are needed to keep up with the pace. Tiktok show us daily the extraordinary, and completely changed the current content industry: recently one of our customers with 5,000 followers had several videos with millions of views. That would be impossible to happen some years ago. The future is bright for the ones you can put quality up there on social.

Pedro Ribeiro Santos

Armilar Venture Partners

I also trust that we will continue to see the Portuguese startup ecosystem developing very positively.

What a year in which to be making predictions! After what was probably the weirdest year in our lifetimes threw to waste any predictions anyone might have made around this time last year, the twenty-first year of the twenty-first century will, hopefully, gradually bring back some level of normality to our lives. But the normality will be different from what it once was. Work habits, social habits, travel habits, purchasing habits, have all indelibly changed. This global event has dramatically accelerated the digitalization trends that were already happening, and while there may be some throttling down, there’s no going back.

The tech world will naturally embrace this change. It’s not too hard to predict more and richer e-commerce plays in all areas of business - from products to services -, new offerings supporting remote work and collaboration, etc. But in a gold rush, you can either mine for gold or sell pickaxes. Critically important and maybe less evident, we'll also see a lot of innovation in the infrastructure that needs to support this evolution - the pickaxes. Larger volumes of online transactions will inevitably attract more and more innovative attacks and theft attempts; cybersecurity and fraud prevention technologies will evolve further and faster to cope. A more intensive use of things like streaming or conferencing services will put further strains in cloud infrastructure and in communications networks. A further reliance on software to conduct our lives will require more sophisticated software development tools to ensure quality and performance, and will fuel the continued rise of the “citizen developer”, on the back of the extraordinary movement towards low-code / no-code that we’ve been witnessing.

I also trust that we will continue to see the Portuguese startup ecosystem developing very positively. The significant newly added local investment capacity will continue to partner with more international investors to support our startups, at several stages of development, and we may start seeing successful startups going full circle, delivering substantial exits that add new capacity and produce more experienced entrepreneurs and investors.

But let’s also keep an eye on the risks. We seem to be witnessing the largest disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street that the world has seen - as economies suffer and brace themselves for a yet unknown depth of contraction and recession from the pandemic, the public markets have continued to thrive, with tech playing a key role. These things do have a tendency to eventually align. How fast and in which part of the spectrum the two ends will meet, is anyone’s guess. Ignore this at your own risk!

With all this, under the blanket of headaches and heartburn that the current global situation has laid upon us all, these are exciting times where everything we do and build seems to have gained a heightened importance and sense of purpose. Let’s all make the best of it. Stay positive, stay strong, stay safe!

Veronica Orvalho

Didimo

The way consumers have quickly adopted tech advances in 2020 proves that 2021 will only move faster...and everyone will be asking, how do I do more, easier, and with meaning?

There is an amazing quote from Brene Brown: "We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering." It is central to our mission and very important given our collective learning this past year.

2020 taught us a lot of new things, especially that we are capable of more than we expected and that really making a connection with people is at the core of everything important to us as humans. We are born to be connected with others and will continue to innovate ways to do that better, especially in difficult times. We believe that both of these will continue to be important drivers in 2021.

First, 2021 will be a year of focusing on meaningful relationships and interactions. In 2020, people have learned to value the interactions with friends and family differently and are clearer on the relationships that matter to them, and they are seeking more meaningful and personal engagement. Unfortunately, sometimes we can only use digital means to connect, using tools that quickly show their limitations, and create fatigue. We will see many breakthroughs this year that help people go beyond just having a 2D interface or a delayed digital response; rather, this is the year that remote collaboration and 3D sharing will breakout. Rich emotional connections will be paramount. Companies that put this at the center of their efforts will find more engaged employees, more effective collaboration, better design process, and more meaningful relationships and solutions with their consumers. For individuals, we will be seeing solutions that let them interact in 3D spaces and that empower true experiential engagement with others.

Second, in 2020 the physical world was scrambled a bit. And sped up. We work from home. We shop from home. We create at home. We live at home. All at the same time, intermixed. Additionally, now many workers may never return to a traditional office and if they do, they will expect much more from their office. At the core of these challenges is the need for digital solutions that better solve more real-world problems for people, and more personally. Does that chair look good in my living room? Do I look taller in those pants? Can we take our annual holiday picture when the whole family is in different locations? Is there a better way to learn a new skill like sign language? Companies that unlock solutions that address these real needs will win. Each challenge needs to blend digital and real-world elements to help people see, feel, and do more. It’s such an exciting time. Physical space is becoming less of a barrier; opportunities for creative minds are accelerating. We are just starting to see the creative solutions get unlocked, but the way consumers have quickly adopted tech advances in 2020 proves that 2021 will only move faster...and everyone will be asking, how do I do more, easier, and with meaning? How do I best represent myself in this exciting new world?

Yes, there is a lot of change and a lot to do. To us, change is always an opportunity for innovation and evolution. We couldn’t be more excited about this time!

João Gunther Amaral

Sonae

The next 10 years will be crucial and will dictate the future of our planet.

Goodbye 2020! A year that we want to forget quickly and that will be remembered forever! Throughout 2020, against all forecasts, the usual gestures of our daily lives were called into question and the freedom we take for granted was largely conditioned. We have become more aware of our (in) security, the importance of health and that the planet has finite resources that we must preserve and respect. We rediscovered that we are all human, equally fragile in the face of a common threat, and stronger if we are in solidarity.

The world has seen a significant acceleration of the impact of technology on the way we collaborate and stay connected, how we learn, how we buy, how we don't touch ... Because we were forced to stop, we artificially reduced the human impact on the planet. But, unfortunately, we have slowed down the conscious path of reducing that impact.

2021 will be a year of enormous unpredictability and uncertainty. The central theme will be the search for solutions to the health problem that humanity faces and to the giant economic challenges that lie ahead. However, 2021 will have to be marked by a strong acceleration in the implementation of the actions necessary to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement. We can't waste any more time. The next 10 years will be crucial and will dictate the future of our planet. At Sonae, we assume our responsibility and announce that by 2040 we will achieve carbon neutrality.

We are sure that we will all continue to innovate in the adoption of new technologies that will change our lives on many fronts. But the most noble, urgent and ambitious change is the change in behavior that will allow us to save the planet and deliver it to our children, at least under the same conditions in which we received it.

António Miguel

maze

Whilst these changes bring tremendous opportunities in terms of business model disruption and technology deployment, they also have widened inequalities in terms of access, affordability and adoption.

There is this quote stating that ‘the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why’. Our educated guess is that 2021 will be the year in which many entrepreneurs and investors will find the answer to the latter. We will be entering a decade of purpose, dictated by a shift in consumer behaviours that has been accelerated by macro events that are not exhausted in Covid19, but extended to other civic movements that have sustainability, climate protection, diversity, inclusion and equality as common denominators. Companies and investors will be rushing in towards purpose and impact-driven products to live up to their consumers’ expectations. After all, it’s not a coincidence that consumer brands are amongst the first movers in removing single-use plastic or including carbon offsetting options, since they face the strongest scrutiny from consumers.

As the pandemic hopefully becomes under control, we will likely witness structural adjustments of trends that 2020 propelled and are now here to stay: remote work, online learning, digital healthcare, amongst others. Whilst these changes bring tremendous opportunities in terms of business model disruption and technology deployment, they also have widened inequalities in terms of access, affordability and adoption. For entrepreneurs driven by sizeable problems and markets, picking up the cracks of these structural adjustments will represent a playbook to identify the next high-potential venture returns. In addition, we expect cash constrained governments in the recovery stage to mobilise more of their funding towards outcomes (rather than services), hence opening up opportunities for more private sector collaboration in solving growing challenges such as unemployment, up- and re-skilling, climate change, digital transformation, and many others.

Our hypothesis is that the collective awareness lived in 2020 will lead the next big opportunities to be found in solutions that generate profit whilst solving social and environmental problems. Time will tell, though our planet has no other option.

Gaspar D'orey

Dott

I believe that physical stores will have to reinvent themselves, focusing more and more on the store experience, especially now that customers have realized that they can buy everything online

After this year's roller coaster ride, 2021 will bring key initiatives with regard to ecommerce and retail in general. With the arrival of the various vaccines against Covid 19, the end of the confinement period will start to bring more traffic to the physical retail, but the ecommerce experience will be forever in the minds and habits of the Portuguese.

With this, I believe that brands and retailers have seen the true potential of selling online, and will increasingly adopt an omnichannel strategy, with the customer at the center of their decisions, and will increasingly make their products available on their own online channels as well as in various national and international marketplaces.

Marketplaces will also continue to improve their offer to the customer, creating more engagement and recurrence, in order to show them the advantages of these aggregators for their daily purchases.

I believe that physical stores will have to reinvent themselves, focusing more and more on the store experience, especially now that customers have realized that they can buy everything online - above all, the physical store will have to create a very compelling reason for the customer to get off his couch and go there.

I believe we will see brands more concerned with the social and sustainable impact of their actions, a trend that had already started, but which I believe has slowed down in the last year due to the Pandemic.

Pedro Almeida

Fraunhoffer

I would expect to be amazed with significant and vibrant new ideas that will emerge from creative people that were confined.

2021, will be all about... “the new you”

After a pandemic that lead to the isolation and lock down of millions of people all around the globe, I would expect to be amazed with significant and vibrant new ideas that will emerge from creative people that were confined for too much time. It is clear that the way that we worked and lived before the pandemic will change dramatically and there will be a significant increase in the number of cloud-based applications that we’ll use after the pandemic. This will lead to a vibrant ICT sector, were more and more demand will be required by companies that survived the peak of the crisis and that are now fully engaged in long lasting digital transformation processes.

This “momentum” will generate billions and billions of bits and bytes of business information that must be stored, processed and mined to extract value, being this a million-dollar opportunity to all those organizations that invested and dedicate themselves to Data Sciences and that are now able to transform data in valuable information. Artificial Intelligence will be on the top of the most requested skills of ICT people and suddenly magic happens! Apps become more intelligent, all devices are connected (remember that old trash bin? Now it’s a smart trash bin…) and you are amazed with how much digital services have grown and the way the digital world interacts with you…

Last, but not least, just a final remark for another huge transformation that will occur in mobility and naturally in the energy sector. If you haven’t bought your hybrid or electric car you are about to do it and you realize that people in your neighborhood and/or city is grouping together in Renewable Energy Communities because they are able to buy electricity cheaper or they can get some interesting yields from investments in solar panels.

Well… I guess that by now you already realized that you are not the same person anymore! Maybe you haven’t noticed but the “old” you of one year ago was a completely different person, with different habits and different routines. You have changed, people have changed, and the world has changed with them, meaning that nothing will be as it was before! Maybe some giants will fall (who knows) and some new strong brands will emerge… As usual, in times of big changes some die and others grow and become stronger, so my recommendation is… take a big and deep breath, have a good look around, see where the best opportunities are and dive in new adventures. This is “the new you”, and I wish you good luck and I hope you get all the success that you deserve.

Eduardo Piedade

Sonae IM

Choices will be at our power, again. Optimist and living fully will be a reality.

Goodbye 2020. This has been an unprecedented year. We lockdown, pause, stop, suffer, bear, survive… Massive changes have been imposed to our lives. Real world economy suffered. Inequalities have dramatically increased.

We see 2021 as a fresh start. It will be time to (re)open, (re)start, (re)engage. Catching up fast. Bringing back strategic topics that were paused or explore new ones, but having a long-term lens as a priority. Choices will be at our power, again. Optimist and living fully will be a reality.

At Sonae IM, we had a positive 2020. But we see 2021 as the YEAR 1 of a new era. New forces will emerge from tectonic clashes of (i) recent “fast forwarding” trends; and (ii) expected “coming back to normal” readjustments. We are entering a new cycle. And, as an investor, we are thrilled to experience this new context and work hard to find exiting new investments.

João Aroso

Advertio

Some of the best ideas are usually born out of spontaneous interactions between peers and often come unexpectedly.

In 2020 we saw many companies adapting to remote work and changing their workflow to fit this year’s peculiar reality. It was a year where many had to rethink processes, try out different approaches and see how they could maintain normality while the entire team was working from home. Now, I question what impact will this change have on innovation. Will this be the year where we see a decrease in innovative solutions? Or will 2021 maintain the past years’ continuous growth in innovation?

Some of the best ideas are usually born out of spontaneous interactions between peers and often come unexpectedly, meaning that companies will probably have to make an effort to create opportunities for innovation. While there are many ways to build company culture working remotely, it is also true that there are fewer opportunities for spontaneous conversations. Brainstorming sessions have to be scheduled, so I wonder what changes will this shift in culture bring and which business areas will suffer a stronger impact.

Hugo Martins

Sonae Fashion

2021 will be about data.

2021 will a year of major uncertainty: after the hyper-reaction of 2020 which brought extreme digitization to most aspects of our lives, it will be interesting to see, once the pandemic is controlled, what behaviors will revert closer back to what they were, and which will remain as they are now.

In terms of key trends I think this will be the year where many technologies that bring a digital experience to the physical world (especially at retail stores) will become prevalent and achieve mainstream status (and we’ll understand others are just a fad). I believe we’ll see a lot of solutions combining AR, RFID, smart scanning (where will LiDAR take us?), 3D modelling and virtual image generation for superior buying experiences, whether at the stores or at home in a “store-like experience”.

This will also be a most interesting year to understand the fundamental changes to our preferences regarding products and services.

But most of all, 2021 will be about data. In a few months, many small/medium companies have managed to collect years-worth of online growth and client & sales data that could now give them a fair chance of successfully getting data-based CRM programs running – still, they will need the appropriate solutions to capture this opportunity (a “shopify” approach to data mining and CRM?), as most of the existing platforms in the market will be either too complex or too expensive for them.

Francisco Ferreira Pinto

Bynd Venture Capital

It remains to be seen which new ways of working & living will consumers wholeheartedly adapt to, and which ones will ultimately become a vestige of the pandemic.

In the wake of the outbreak, everything from doctors’ appointments to schooling and workouts went online. As we move further into the digital space, it becomes increasingly hard to imagine people returning fully to brick-and-mortar alternatives. So, the question stands: what will Covid-19’s legacy be?

2020 showed us that we were doing it right - investing in technologies applied to Life Sciences, Education, and Marketplaces, throughout these years led us to the maturity we needed at the beginning of this year. Besides that, startups will also be key to economic recovery: they create most of the net new jobs and are especially more relevant now as our society becomes increasingly digital.

Covid-19 has not only accelerated existing trends and technologies, such as contactless payments and industrial automation, but also changed the course of entire industries by demonstrating to consumers the real value behind them, such as telehealth and online education.

At Bynd Venture Capital, we singled out five main sectors which we believe were leveraged by the pandemic but will remain with high levels of growth in the post-virus scene, namely, Last-mile delivery, Collaboration software, Gaming, Online education, and Telehealth.

While we anticipate these sectors will see continuous growth as the economy starts to regain momentum, there is always the possibility of a sudden shift in consumer preferences and a backlash against the norms that have been forced upon us amid quarantine. It remains to be seen which new ways of working & living will consumers wholeheartedly adapt to, and which ones will ultimately become a vestige of the pandemic.

Vasco Portugal

Sensei

I would say that one of the critical trends next year will be Automation.

2020 was wildly unpredictable. Confronted with the challenges of a global pandemic, companies were urged to rethink their business and relationships with customers. They had to test the limits of their agility and competence to adjust to shifting into digital companies instantly.

And that's the spirit that will mark 2021: companies have now fostered resilience, adjustability and obsession over customer UX. And the overall reflection of that they will be far more technologically competent companies. I would say that one of the critical trends next year will be Automation. Many of the manual and repetitive tasks have gradually been replaced by simple Automation, with 2021 this will dramatically accelerate moving from simple Automation into functional Automation with several automated processes at the level of their whole business ecosystem.

Retail is no exception (was even one of the most prominent industries in this challenging period), and at Sensei we work every day to give retail leaders additional tools and insights to get business back on track quickly. While it may seem evident that automating time-consuming tasks allows work to be concluded faster than ever and push productivity to new highs. Entirely accurate, but now functional Automation is a decisive advantage, mainly since it portrays a tremendous opportunity to attain new efficiencies, diminish costs, and strengthen the company's overall competitive edge.

Jorge Pimenta

Instituto Pedro Nunes

Sustainability is no longer an objective, it is a requirement.

2021 starts in the midst of uncertainty and Post-covid business resilience may revolve around 3 axes that stimulate innovation:
1) Technological transition
2) Sustainability
3) Customer experience

The technological transition of many sectors happened abruptly through the inevitability of digital transformation and e-commerce. But in many other sectors, this transition will lead to the adoption of solutions that make use of artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and extract full advantage of Big Data. We’ll see a transformation on the access, data sharing and distribution to, literally, at the customer's door.

Sustainability is no longer an objective, it is a requirement. This crisis exposed layers of environmental damage that need to be reversed, opening opportunities to rethink logistical chains, product life cycles and platforms for common sharing/use.

Finally, changing consumption habits opens the way for the creation of more immersive and personalized experiences. The need for evasion in tourism and leisure, even if digitalized, enhances digital content such as eSports and Video, but also wearables/Internet of Bodies (IoB) that expand the possibilities for interaction.

The new business models will take advantage of these opportunities even in the face of legal restrictions, fears, and uncertainties. In these changing times, companies need to redesign themselves to take advantage of behavioral changes, using technology to respond to the new paradigm: Remote / Digital.

Miguel Fontes

Startup Lisboa

With a lifestyle increasingly oriented towards well-being, the sacrifice of consumerism and convenience for sustainability will be increasingly evident.

With people working from home and restrictions on short-term tourism, a new group of digital nomads and remote workers is growing for whom the boundaries between work and personal life are becoming increasingly blurred. This is forcing us to redefine working methods, to reinforce focus and communication, as well as to increase the importance of adopting strategies to balance work and personal life.

With a lifestyle increasingly oriented towards well-being - from individual health, to the sustainability of local communities to the care of our planet - the sacrifice of consumerism and convenience for sustainability will be increasingly evident. Consumption becomes increasingly dependent on transparent communication about the value chain and impact of the businesses we support, giving more space to leaders who bet on diverse teams, with the ability to create solutions to the problems of not only the majority, but also minorities.

Benjamin Junior

Bright Pixel

Beyond all infrastructure technology, speed and efficiency, 2021 will be about people and data.

Disruption is the hallmark of 2020, with COVID-19 impacting the world in ways no one could have predicted. Companies succeeded by employing technical agility and deep customer understanding. Lessons in adaptability, creativity, and resilience will continue to serve companies as they navigate through 2021 challenges.
The pandemic signaled (and reinforced to some) how essential the cloud is, as it was necessary for the services, tools, and apps that enabled companies to allow workers to work from home and maintained global supply chains or shifted entire industry business models in just a matter of weeks. The global public cloud infrastructure market will grow 35% to $120 billion in 2021 according to Forrester. The technological / development is being disrupted as we dive in a multi-cloud experience. In this context we will become more familiar with Cloud Native technological terms like:

Containerization: It has become a major trend in software development as an alternative or companion to virtualization. Gartner projects worldwide container management revenues to reach approximately $950 million in 2024. These repositories are the most utilised cloud native capabilities because they transport workloads, data, applications (including databases), and microservices wherever they’re needed: between clouds, at the edge, and on-premise.

Orchestration Platforms: Automation platforms for container management solutions like Kubernetes, OpenShift, Google KE or Amazon EKS mask the complexity of operating containers at scale to run on different cloud providers and on-prem hybrid setups that bring flexibility, as more and more companies adopt this multi-cloud approach.

Serverless Computing: An execution model where the cloud provider is responsible for executing a piece of code by dynamically allocating the resources. Serverless is becoming increasingly popular paradigm as developers don’t have to know anything about the hardware or operating system. It’s all taken care of for you by a service provider.

Nevertheless, beyond all infrastructure technology, speed and efficiency, 2021 will be about people and data.

Gartner called it "People Centricity" and craft terms like "Internet of Behaviours" - where technology "captures the “digital dust” of people’s lives from a variety of sources, and that information can be used by public or private entities to influence behaviour" or "Total experience" - concept that "combines traditionally siloed disciplines like multiexperience (MX), customer experience (CX), employee experience (EX) and user experience (UX), and links them to create a better overall experience for all parties".

This will also lead to major concerns about how people manage privacy, and probably the rise of Privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) representing a new, emerging category of technologies, that are increasingly being used to protect data privacy while enabling data use.

As investors, both in Bright Pixel and SonaeIM, we are vigilant to these tendencies and reinforcing ou investment strategy in Digital Infrastructure, Cybersecurity and Retail Tech, as the world becomes more interconnected and complex.

Rui Costa

Eat Tasty

In 2021, even more companies will develop and launch products focused on food-as-medicine and brain food, such as products with L-Theanine, caffeine and cannabinoids.

If making predictions for the following year is usually a risky challenge, after the year that we are living in, it will be difficult to predict what will happen in the next quarter. Still, I am sure that 2021 will be a year marked by the anxiety and uncertainty inherited from 2020. We are experiencing the World War of this generation and, as in other notable moments in human history, resilience will determine success.

EatTasty exists to make life easier and free up time for what really matters. We simplify the process but don't forget the taste. We believe that food should be simple, tasty, convenient, and affordable. For this reason, we collaborate with the best restaurants in the city and combine the useful with the pleasant: good food and ease of choice. I believe that in 2021 consumers' eating habits will continue to change, which reinforces our Mission - which consists in making good food accessible to all who want to reconnect with the small pleasures of life.

In the last decade there has been a trend that has been increasing from year to year which we may call cooking-as-a-service - paying for others to produce what we eat, whether it is pre-prepared food or in restaurants. A trend that will continue in the coming years, but I believe that with consumers spending more time at home and going less to restaurants, there will be a growing demand for solutions that represent an alternative to having to cook every day, without the high cost of ordering through on-demand services. Solutions at a fair price, with the potential to become a habit for the daily consumption of meals and that do not compromise neither the quality nor the taste of the food.

Bolder (or not) is my next prediction.
In times of uncertainty, mental health is even more relevant, so more and more consumers should look for products that help them stay focused, concentrated and fight anxiety. In response to this demand, in 2021, even more companies will develop and launch products focused on food-as-medicine and brain food. Products with L-Theanine, caffeine and cannabinoids will be one of the trends of 2021.

Celso Martinho

Cloudflare

I'd like to believe that the advertising and user data monetization business will finally start its sharp decline, and personal data sovereignty will be the new default.

Take what I'm about to write with a big grain of salt. Add tequila if you want. It's the only way you can take me, or honestly, anyone trying to predict next year, for that matter, seriously. I'm aware that trying to display wisdom about the future after 2020 is frankly borderline offensive to you.

The truth is, believe it or not, I'm doing this against my will.

I want to avoid prophesying how the way we work and collaborate will change forever and how everything related to better tools to help us do our jobs remotely and online will thrive. It seems there's a world of opportunities in vertically integrating and humanizing what is now a disastrously mishandled environment of multiple platforms for different functions. The new virtual or hybrid workplace will not tolerate this mess.

I'm inclined to think that we're near the beginning of a new Internet: ultra-secure and privacy-preserving by design. That we, the users, will demand it. I'd like to believe that the advertising and user data monetization business will finally start its sharp decline, and personal data sovereignty will be the new default. A perfect storm of increased public perception and regulatory changes is about to hit and will fuel this change, it seems.

Something tells me that edge and serverless computing are heading exponential growth next year, too and that we'll see tons of innovation, first from the challengers but then also from the cloud incumbents. They aren't sleeping. If they are, I'm sure some shopping will fix it for them. Infrastructural paradigm shifts create new software tools. Things like WASM, Rust, and "no-code" IDEs will keep hitting the headlines, now outside Hackernews, probably.

But who knows if any of this will stay true? Not me, I can promise you.

The only thing I'm entirely sure of is that we're all better cooks, plumbers, makers, and handcrafters. I'm sure we now understand the importance of work-life balance, family, friends, a team meeting in an office room with a whiteboard at work, and mental health like we never did.

GPT3 did not generate this text.

Oh, and please, for the love of God, don't start a new podcast next year.

Sara Proença

The Square

Positive emotions should dominate communication. We will want to learn about heroic moves and signs that the future will be bright.

2021 will probably not surprise us as much as 2020 did, but, just in case, we should be prepared for it. At The Square, we ask ourselves when and how should one communicate in 2021? Whilst being attentive and reacting fast will always be the best policy in a very hectic environment, we can already guess different moments of the year through information currently available. Here is how we see it:

Winter: “Schizophrenia”. Heavy restrictions coupled with a tense environment marked by heavy death tolls, and vaccines that take too long to spread through the population. Restriction fatigue burdens people, who understand their importance but also feel their psychological impact. Brands will want to talk about solidarity, while bringing some constrained positivity and creative solutions to mitigate isolation effects. Digital options will want to ensure that what they’ve built over the last 12 months can stick and stay for long.

Spring: “Guilty freedom”, most likely with heavy restrictions starting to be lifted. Some relief comes to families with vaccinated elders, and families that were hit by deaths mourn the pandemic. Consumer brands should know how to enter customers’ minds as they define new routines but be careful with reputational risks. Tourism related businesses need to start positioning for recovery in a very competitive environment during Summer and influence how people plan their holidays.

Summer – “Freedom, at last!?”. Numbers should come down, and the most vulnerable should now be vaccinated. Hopefully, all goes well with the process. Sun cream and ice creams will be needed again, and people will want nature and freedom. Crowds will still be scary and spooky, and we will slowly start to learn how to hug again. Positive emotions should dominate communication. We will want to learn about heroic moves and signs that the future will be bright. Shops, restaurants, and businesses will slowly start to be rebuilt, but the travel and event industries will understand that it will take years to come back to normal.

Autumn – “Question mark”. This is where all the undefinition is right now. Is the pandemic over? Is it controlled to slowly become part of the norm? Or is it still strong, killing at high rates in poorer countries and making richer ones panic as it spikes every other week? Shall we be vaccinating everyone again? Are restrictions still coming back and forth? Let’s all hope not, and expect that recovery continues strong throughout Autumn and into Christmas and New Year. This is also the time when we will understand, after a lot of speculation, if the years 2022-2025 are of growth or prolonged recessions. All will depend on how well we all prepare for the future over the coming 12 months.

These times ahead will continue to challenge our creativity, our patience, and our courage. And only those with strong nerves, solid positive confidence and good communication choices will come out with a stronger brand, reputation, and business after the storm.

Mário Alves

Taikai

Open and collaborative environments are what will set your company apart and make it thrive in this new remote world

Even if we had a crystal ball last year, we hardly would have guessed what was in-stored for us in 2020. If on one hand, we are living unprecedented times that are completely changing our habits, we are on the other hand witnessing the acceleration of the digital transformation we had foreseen in previous years.

How we do business today is very different from 2019 and it will change again in 2021. Speaking about the future of work is no longer a long term super-futuristic vision, as it is happening today! Companies are changing the way they solve their challenges or build products, understanding that openness and collaboration is the key. Finding talent, in this new remote context, is no longer defined by geographical constraints, but more by skillset and motivation. Teams no longer need to be in the same room to achieve the best performance. And although the pandemic is not here to stay, this movement is.

All of this opens a whole new scenario, in which virtual collaboration tools and platforms like TAIKAI will play a significant role in what's to come, for 2021 and beyond.

Robert G. Church

GPT-2

The emergence of AI.

The technological trends for 2021 are being shaped by the changing global economic environment. The key focus of the year is the rapid growth of technological services and the rising role of global finance institutions in the global economy. Technological services will be the driving force driving the pace of innovation and the emergence of new business models, especially as the new digital services ecosystems develop around the world.

2021 will surely be a year that looks to redefine how we think about the future and how we develop our society and economies. Technology wise, the new technologies we are likely to see are autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing and cyber-physical technologies.

Autonomous vehicles will lead to the widespread adoption of automated transportation services, such as ride sharing, auto-hailing or delivery, that will create a new, safer, more efficient and sustainable model of mobility.

The emergence of Machine Learning and AI will undoubtedly have an effect on the labour markets and employment opportunities in different sectors. GPT-3 from Open AI (which is already being tested) will see new ways of making decisions and creating wealth that were previously unattainable by humans.

As for 3D printing, we will see more applications of it on different products and processes and in a broader range of industries. This will likely lead to the creation of a more robust and diverse supply chain, and perhaps to the development of a new way of managing large scale production.

Finally, cyber-physical technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality, will change the way we think about physical objects and the way that we interact with them.

This text was generated by an AI, which you can test in this link. And this is GPT-2, the new model (GPT-3) can write your emails for you, write poems about Elon Musk or translate requirements into code.
In case you're wondering, no, the person on the photo doesn't exist. It was created by a GAN, as you can see in this link. And yes, the name and background of this fictional character was also generated online (a male, resident in the US, in the Kentucky state, that drives a 2010 hyundai).

Brave new world indeed.