Fourth Industrial Revolution

The report, ASEAN 4.0: What Does the Fourth Industrial Revolution Mean for Regional Economic Integration?, analyses how emerging technologies will reshape South-East Asia, and identifies actions for ASEAN leaders to prepare for the deep transformations that lie ahead. The report acknowledges the many existing national strategies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as Thailand 4.0 or Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. But it argues that ASEAN must think at the regional level, not the national level.

Continuous learning lies at the heart of thriving in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The skills required for most jobs are evolving rapidly but our adult education and training systems are lagging behind. While 35% of the skills demanded for jobs across industries will change by 2020, at least 1 in 4 workers in OECD countries is already reporting a skills mismatch with regards to the skills demanded by their current jobs. Thus, enabling and empowering workers to transform and update their skills is a key concern for businesses and societies across the globe.

In order to create a robust and inclusive adult education and training system, leaders from across business, government and civil society need to start laying a common foundation through strategic and coordinated action. This White Paper lays out key pathways for change and illustrates successful examples of implementation to inspire broad-based transformation. It is the outcome of a Dialogue Series in the World Economic Forum’s System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Education, Gender and Work, drawing upon submissions by leaders and experts who engaged in the dialogue, as well as the latest thinking from international organizations, think tanks, businesses and other stakeholders.

Today, society faces the mammoth task of creating 1.5 billion new livelihoods by 2050 while at the same time exceeding the planet’s crucial ecological limits. With the start of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, human progress may either suffer through a catastrophic setback or experience a positive transformation. What will make the difference? Values.
The core values of human dignity, common good and stewardship have been widely endorsed over the centuries. Systemic change based on these values aims to meet people’s basic needs, with greatly reduced inequalities and in environments allowing individuals to thrive and live in peace. The required leadership and an understanding of the changes under way across all sectors are low demands compared to the need to rethink economic, social and political systems to respond to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. A common values-driven direction is clearly needed.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017 assesses the competitiveness landscape of 138 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity.
This year’s edition highlights that declining openness is threatening growth and prosperity. It also highlights that monetary stimulus measures such as quantitative easing are not enough to sustain growth and must be accompanied by competitiveness reforms. Final key finding points to the fact that updated business practices and investment in innovation are now as important as infrastructure, skills and efficient markets.
Switzerland, Singapore and the United States remain the three world’s most competitive economies.

The impending digital transformation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution holds the potential to redefine the very basis of our materials-reliant industrial economy. Enabled by the internet of things, a new model of growth gradually gaining independence from finite resource extraction is emerging. Can pervasive connectivity become the new infrastructure enabling effective material flows, keeping products, components and materials at their highest value at all times, thus enabling the coming of age of the circular economy?