abundance: the forces that are changing our world and businesses

an ongoing economic crisis, a burgeoning education crisis, healthcare turmoil, energy poverty, water scarcity—to name but a few of our fears.

So pervasive is our sense of doom and gloom, that those telling a different story can rarely be heard.

IT’S A BLIZZARD OF BAD NEWS OUT THERE:

AND THERE’S A VERY DIFFERENT STORY WORTH HEARING.

PROGRESS IN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, ROBOTICS, INFINITE COMPUTING, UBIQUITOUS BROADBAND N E T W O R K S , D I G I T A L M A N U F A C T U R I N G , NANOTECHNOLOGY, SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY, AND MANY

OTHER REVOLUTIONARY FIELDS WILL ENABLE US TO MAKE GREATER GAINS IN THE NEXT TWO DECADES THAN WE’VE MADE IN THE PREVIOUS

TWO HUNDRED YEARS.

ABUNDANCE FOR ALL IS ACTUALLY WITHIN OUR GRASP.We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet.

EXPONENTIALTECHNOLOGIES

FOUR EMERGING FORCES ARE CONSPIRING TO SOLVE OUR BIGGEST PROBLEMS:

THE DIYINNOVATOR

THE TECHNOPHILANTHROPIST THE RISING BILLION

ABUNDANCE FOR ALL IS ACTUALLY WITHIN OUR GRASP.We will soon have the ability to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet.

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITY:The true promise of abundance was one of creating

A WORLD WHERE EVERYONE’S DAYS ARE SPENTDREAMING AND DOING, NOT SCRAPPING AND SCRAPING.

EXPONENTIALTECHNOLOGIES

RIGHT NOW, ALL INFORMATION-BASED TECHNOLOGIES ARE ON EXPONENTIAL GROWTH CURVES—

MEANING THEY’RE DOUBLING IN POWER AND HALVINGIN PRICE EVERY 12 TO 24 MONTHS.

THIS IS WHY AN $8 MILLION DOLLAR COMPUTER FROM TWO DECADES AGO NOW SITS IN YOUR POCKET AND COSTS LESS

THAN $200.

This same rate of change is also showing up in networks, sensors, cloud computing, 3D printing, genetics, AI, robotics, and dozens of other industries.

• EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES •

BECAUSE OF THIS, AFRICA HAS SKIPPED A TECHNOLOGICAL GENERATION,

by-passing the landlines that stripe our Western skies for the wireless way. Mobile phone penetration is growing exponentially,

FROM 2 PERCENT IN 2000, TO 28 PERCENT IN 2009, TO 70 PERCENT IN 2013.

Soon, the vast majority of humanity will be enmeshed in this same World Wide Web of instantaneous, low-cost communications and information. In other words, we are

now living in a world of information and communication abundance.

ALREADY FOLKS WITH NO EDUCATION AND LITTLE TO EAT HAVE GAINED ACCESS TO CELLULAR CONNECTIVITY

UNHEARD OF JUST TWO DECADES AGO.

THE DIYINNOVATOR

DIY INNOVATORS ARE INDIVIDUALS AND SMALL GROUPS EMPOWERED BY EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES

AND DRIVEN BY THE DESIRE TO TAKE ON HUMANITY'S GRAND CHALLENGES.

• THE DIY INNOVATOR •

A DIY REVOLUTION HAS BEEN STEADILY BREWING THESE PAST 50 YEARS, BUT

LATELY HAS BEGUN TO BOIL OVER.

Today, backyard tinkerers has moved from custom cars and homebrew computers into once esoteric fields like neuroscience,

biology, genetics and robotics.

THESE GROUPS NOW HAVE THE ABILITY TO TACKLE PROBLEMS THAT WERE ONCE THE SOLE DOMAIN OF GOVERNMENTS AND MAJOR

CORPORATIONS AND NGOS.

THE AEROSPACE GIANTS FELT IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE, BUT BURT RUTAN FLEW INTO SPACE.

CRAIG VENTER BEAT THE MIGHTY US GOVERNMENT IN THE RACE TO SEQUENCE THE HUMAN GENOME.

RIGHT NOW, HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE USING THE TOOLS OF SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY TO COMPLETE

REAL WORLD PROJECTS THAT RIVAL THE OUTPUT OF MAJOR BIOPHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES.

THE TECHNOPHILANTHROPIST

TODAY THERE ARE MORE THAN 1,400 BILLIONAIRES AND 93,000 "ULTRA-HIGH-NET-WORTH" INDIVIDUALS.

MANY OF THESE ARE YOUNG, ENTREPRENEURS WHO HAVE MADE THEIR MONEY IN TECHNOLOGY AND ARE INTERESTED IN USING THAT

WEALTH TO SLAY SOME OF THE WORLD'S GRAND CHALLENGES.

WE CALL THESE INDIVIDUALS

TECHNOPHILANTHROPISTS.

• THE TECHNOPHILANTHROPIST •

WHILE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION FOCUSED PHILANTHROPY LOCALLY, THE HIGH-TECH REVOLUTION INVERTED THE EQUATION.

IN THE PAST, THINGS THAT HAPPENED IN AFRICA OR CHINA, YOU DIDN’T REALLY KNOW ABOUT. TODAY YOU KNOW

ABOUT THEM INSTANTLY.

EVERYTHING FROM CLIMATE CHANGE TO PANDEMICS HAVE ROOTS IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE WORLD, BUT THEY AFFECT EVERYBODY.

OUR PROBLEMS ARE MUCH MORE INTERRELATED AS WELL.

IN THIS WAY, GLOBAL HAS BECOME THE NEW LOCAL.

“AS SOME OF THE SMARTEST PEOPLE LOOK AT WHERE TO FOCUS THEIR ENERGIES NEXT,”

says PayPal cofounder Elon Musk,

“THEY ARE NOW ATTRACTED TO THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS FACING HUMANITY, PARTICULARLY IN AREAS SUCH AS

EDUCATION, HEALTHCARE, AND SUSTAINABLE ENERGY.”

THE RISING BILLION

THESE ARE THE POOREST PEOPLE ON EARTH, THE SO-CALLED "BOTTOM BILLION."

WE HAVE RENAMED THIS GROUP THE "RISING BILLION" BECAUSE, THANKS TO THE EXPONENTIAL SPREAD OF COMMUNICATION AND

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES (LIKE THE SMART PHONE),

THESE PEOPLE ARE COMING ON LINE FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME.

• THE RISING BILLION •

Aided by these technologies, the Rising Billion are beginning to

P U L L T H E M S E LV E S O U T O F P O V E R T Y.

THEIR VOICES, WHICH HAVE NEVER BEFORE BEEN HEARD, ARE SUDDENLY

JOINING THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION.

FOR THE FIRST TIME, NOT ONLY ARE THEIR VOICES BEING HEARD, THEIR IDEAS— IDEAS THAT WE’VE NEVER HAD ACCESS TO BEFORE—

ARE JOINING THE GLOBAL CONVERSATION.

What will these people desire? What will they create? If for no other reason than the law of large numbers and the power of their potential, this puts the Rising

Billion in the same category as exponential technology, the DIY’ers and the Technophilanthropists: as a potent force for abundance.

ACTING ALONE, EACH OF THESE THREE FORCESH A V E E N O R M O U S P O T E N T I A L .

BUT ACTING TOGETHER, AMPLIFIED BY EXPONENTIALLY GROWING TECHNOLOGIES, THE ONCE UNIMAGINABLE

BECOMES THE NOW ACTUALLY POSSIBLE.

Where there is vision, the people flourish. The impossible becomes the possible. And abundance for all becomes imagine what’s next.

VIEW ON AMAZON MORE FROMSTEVEN KOTLER