George Takei was in Austin, Texas at SXSW2014 asking a lot of questions last March. I had the opportunity to weigh in with him on one conversation about the future. Trend spotting and predicting are two of my favorite past-times and George, well he is a legend. He and I were among a large group of early adapters and travelers in Austin who were asking whether the greatest tech advances are in health today. I listened to wellness entrepreneurs, management heads of Assisted Living Facilities, start up founders, medical doctors, VCs, students and researchers, among others debate this question. They all seemed to agree that the greatest tech advances had been in health.
What I know is that for the first time in the developed world, growing old is not unusual.This suggests indeed that tech advances in health are the greatest. By 2015, according to Dr. Laura Carstensen of the Stanford Center for Longevity, there will be more people over 60 than people under 15. More importantly, Carstensen believes this increase in life expectancy should be used to create improvements for all of mankind.
In 1994 I visited Mali for the first time, captivated by images of the Dogon cliffs that I’d seen in National Geographic. What a beautiful place on earth and to think, people had lived on these cliffs. I was shocked to learn the life span of the average Malian woman was 40 year old. I was already pass that age. Well I am happy to report the female lifespan is now 53 years of age in Mali versus 81 years in the United States. And the first centenarians, like my grandson, have already been born.
So I would answer a resounding yes to George Takei’s question of whether tech advances in health have been the greatest. What about you?
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