Mit Technolpgy Review The Innovation Issue 1st Edition Mat Honan by Mat Honan instant download after payment.

or the past 22 years, we’ve been publishing an annual list of the 10 biggest breakthrough technologies. In 2018, we defined a breakthrough as “a technology, or perhaps even a collection of technologies, that will have a profound effect on our lives.” That’s pretty broad! But it gets at the heart of what we try to identify: transformative, world-changing technologies.

I love digging through our back catalogue and perusing the lists from previous years because you can see that change happening. The lists are fascinating snapshots of the evolution of big tech breakthroughs. They document the progress we have made in many of the core areas at the intersection of science and engineering—energy, AI, biotech, quantum computing, and climate tech, to name a few.

But they are also snapshots of the times we live in. Last year I wrote that I would be pleased if we did not need to include anything covid-19-related on this year’s list. In the previous two years mRNA vaccines, digital contact tracing, covid treatments, and variant tracking had made the list—all grim reminders of the severity of the pandemic. But it was precisely this progression of technologies that helped us, finally, begin to beat covid-19 back to the point where we can live with some sense of normalcy again.

While we don’t have a covid-related technology on the list this year, there are other reminders of the monumental challenges we face. There is the ongoing war in Ukraine. Abortion access has been limited in many states and banned in several others. We continue to face headwinds as we try to make progress against climate change.