When I was a kid, ~the~ show to watch was ‘Beyond 2000’

Each week during prime time, they would explore the new technologies and innovations that would soon become available to everyone, and the promises of a better future that came with them. The optimism for the future was infectious.

As a student of technology, I was keen to study hard and enter the workforce to develop new tech, but by the time I graduated all that ‘tech’ meant was the latest app or streaming service - developing algorithms to extract value from people’s attention, or finding a faster way to arbitrage a financial market.

2000 had come and gone, the show had evolved into ‘Beyond Tomorrow’ and was eventually axed - everyone seemed to have forgotten about the future, and somehow what we ended up with was from the date 16 years before the promised one.

After decades of actual scientific progress, we now seem to rely on false growth - teaching computers to take over the control of our lives.

But the future we were promised is still out there.

There are still people building new technologies:

• those building autonomous tractors to better feed the world - SwarmFarm Robotics
• those designing new systems to electrify everything and power the planet - 5B, SunCable
• those who hope to develop medicines and cure ageing
• those building vehicles to one day take us to the stars - Gilmour Space Technologies
• those developing cellular agriculture to produce cruelty free, environmentally friendly meats - Cellular Agriculture Australia
• t̶h̶o̶s̶e̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶T̶-̶1̶0̶0̶0̶s̶
• and those researching the fundamentals of nature to allow the next wave of innovations - ANSTO

While it seems that it is inevitable that the online world will continue to take a great role in our lives, we need to remember that ultimately there is still a real world that is the most important.

These are the people and industries that we need to support and encourage for a diverse and vibrant economy of the future.

(Oh, and if you'd like to see real innovation on tv again, its still there every week on ABC Landline)