Imagine a world where cars drive themselves, buses navigate without a driver, and drones deliver life-saving medicines to remote areas. That world isn’t decades away—it’s already here.
In this second edition of The Future Is Here series, we dive into the thrilling present and even more exciting future of autonomous vehicles and flying cars.
In the host seat, driving the show is the Executive Director of Australia and New Zealand Driverless Vehicle Initiative, Rita Excell.
Accompanying her on the autonomous journey is Greg Giraud - MD of EasyMile in Australia and New Zealand, Zac Kennedy - Head of Regulatory Affairs at Swoop Aero and Rocky Scopelliti – Renowned Futurologist.
Together they discussed their work, the current state of the autonomous vehicle industry and exchanged opinions on the kind of technological advancements we can expect to see in the next ten to fifteen years.
Opening the floor: Insights from Australia 2030
Rocky Scopelliti opened the discussion with thought-provoking insights from his book – Australia 2030 Where The Bloody Hell Are We? He recommends we look at the next ten years through a programmatic lens. He’s calling the 2020’s the programmatic decade.
Why? Because everything will be programmed and optimised through data. More and more ways to track and analyse data will become available.
For example, new connected devices mean ever-growing amounts of data to analyse. AI will help us analyse that data, give us new ways to optimise, and new ideas to implement.
Connect this with 5G networks, task-specific software, AR and VR, and before you know it, new life-enhancing possibilities pop up everywhere. New technological ecosystems will lead to exponential optimisations, increasing societies efficiency like never before.
Take self-driving cars; they can use AI to navigate the streets whilst 5G networks help them access the flow of traffic, allowing all vehicles to work as one to reduce congestion throughout the entire city. “Think about the collective power of these technologies” stated Rocky Scopelliti.
The future is in Australia
After Rocky set the stage, Greg Giraud shared his latest work proving the future is here. Renmark South Australia: the location of EasyMile’s autonomous, electric bus trial.
The trial is progressing well and has just entered phase two. The goal is to “create a blueprint for autonomous public transportation in regional areas”.
Greg brought our attention to the challenges regional areas face in the public transport space and how autonomous electric shuttles offer a solution. If you’re in Renmark, Greg invites you to jump on and experience the ride for yourself. He says once people give it a go, they quickly become advocates.
Look up and see the future
Zac Kennedy took us up into the skies, with his work for Swoop Aero.
They’re tackling the tyranny of distance and geography to save lives; providing on-demand healthcare with aeromedical logistics. In Africa, Zac’s team is opening the largest two-way aeromedical logistics network the world has ever seen.
Unfortunately, Australian regulations make drone delivery a bit more complicated. However, Swoop Aero is working with the regulatory bodies to shape the laws.
Final thoughts
Greg, Zac, Rocky and Rita’s insightful work on autonomous vehicles has inspired us to think about new possibilities emerging technological ecosystems could open up. So much potential. We can’t wait to see the differences their new technologies will make in peoples’ lives, all around the world.
Transport yourself into the details and watch the whole presentation here.
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