scholarly journals The Fourth Industrial Revolution: Opportunities and Challenges

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 90 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Xu ◽  
Jeanne M. David ◽  
Suk Hi Kim

The fourth industrial revolution, a term coined by Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, describes a world where individuals move between digital domains and offline reality with the use of connected technology to enable and manage their lives. (Miller 2015, 3) The first industrial revolution changed our lives and economy from an agrarian and handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacturing. Oil and electricity facilitated mass production in the second industrial revolution. In the third industrial revolution, information technology was used to automate production. Although each industrial revolution is often considered a separate event, together they can be better understood as a series of events building upon innovations of the previous revolution and leading to more advanced forms of production. This article discusses the major features of the four industrial revolutions, the opportunities of the fourth industrial revolution, and the challenges of the fourth industrial revolution.

Cubic Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 150-165
Author(s):  
James Stevens ◽  

Nearing the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century many craftspeople and makers are waking up to the inevitable reality that our next human evolution may not be the same, that this time it could be different. Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum refers to what we are beginning to experience as the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Schwab 2017, 01). Schwab and his colleagues believe that this revolution could be much more powerful and will occur in a shorter period than the preceding industrial and digital revolutions. This revolution will cause a profound change in how we practice, labour and orient ourselves in the world. Rapidly evolving technologies will proliferate the use of robotics and personalised robots (co-bots) that can sense our presence and safely work alongside us. Digital algorithms are already becoming more reliable predictors of complex questions in medicine and economics than their human counterparts. Therefore, the gap between what a computer can learn and solve and what a robot can do will quickly close in the craft traditions. This article will engage in the discourse of posthumanism and cybernetics and how these debates relate to craft and making. Intentionally this work is not a proud manifesto of positions, strategies, and guidelines required for greatness. Alternatively, it is a humble attempt to reorient makers to the necessary discourse required to navigate the inevitable changes they will face in their disciplines. Thus, the article seeks to transfer posthumanist literary understanding to intellectually position craft in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.


2021 ◽  
pp. 407-412
Author(s):  
Dzulkifli Abdul Razak

AbstractThe year 2020 is mostly known to many as an inflection point. A metaphorical vision to look far ahead, with clarity, taking on the various “disruptions” that have been much touted, namely, the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Since its pronouncement, four years ago, during the 2016 World Economic Forum in Davos, the world of higher education has been inundated with demands to introduce the so-called ‘Education 4.0’.


Author(s):  
Odirile Sepeng

This article reflects on the possible future of labour law as a response to industrialisation, particularly the 4IR. First, I discuss the origin of the industrial revolution by reflecting on the first three industrial revolutions and the present 4IR. Second, I reflect on; 1) the possible impact of the 4IR on the employment relationship and 2) the new and/or adaptive skills requirements. Third, I present recommendations to respond to the fast-changing pace of labour and industrialisation suggested by the World Economic Forum (WEF). I thereafter conclude that the 4IR may be used as a vehicle to promote a socially affirmative interpretation of fairness in the labour context. This promotes a constitutional obligation to protect the interests of workers, in light of technological advancement, that have the potential to widen the income inequality gap.


2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 293-313
Author(s):  
Dušanka Jovović

An extremely complex nature of competition processes often makes the identification of the category of country competitiveness inaccurate and complicated to understand. This is particularly manifested in the era of globalization and the affirmation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution as two phenomena that shape contemporary developments in the world to a large extent. Globalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution have ensured economic prosperity to some countries, but at the same time, they have also caused increasingly prominent developmental inequalities at worldwide level. The same conclusion refers to the matter of the competitiveness level achieved by the countries. This is convincingly proved by the 2019 World Economic Forum data about country competitiveness, based on which the greatest number of the countries in the world are still far from the targeted "limit" of competitiveness.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weng Marc Lim

This article aims to offer a brief and quick dissemination on the potential impacts—in the form of opportunities and threats—of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the ASEAN region. It is in line with one of the programme pillars of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN, specifically ASEAN and the connectivity agenda. The author hopes that this article will stimulate further dialogues and investigations on how the ASEAN community can capitalize and leverage on the inherent opportunities and avoid and overcome the underlying threats arising from the Fourth Industrial Revolution.


2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 4
Author(s):  
Manuela Epure

Recently, the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting took place from 17-20 January 2017 at Davos-Klosters, Switzerland and then key topic was Global Governance and the related issues such as: Fourth Industrial Revolution, responsive and responsible leadership, restoring economic growth and global collaboration.[1]Important changes are expected regarding size, speed and scope of these transformations that Fourth Industrial Revolution generated.  The transformations consist mainly of new systems built on the infrastructure of the digital revolution. Also, this will fundamentally change the way in which we produce, consume, move, communicate and interact with one another.  Nanotechnologies and given new powers of genetic engineering will impact dramatically who we are and how we think and behave[2] . 


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Silvio Beltramelli Neto ◽  
Leandro Faria Costa

Este artigo pretende reconstituir os elementos que estruturam o conteúdo da expressão “Quarta Revolução Industrial”, tal como adotada pelo Fórum Econômico Mundial (FEM), e cotejar tal conteúdo com os propósitos da promoção do Trabalho Decente, nos termos difundidos pela Organização Internacional do Trabalho. Trata-se de investigação de cunho exploratório e analítico, para qual empregaram-se a metodologia dedutiva de abordagem e a metodologia bibliográfica de procedimento, com ênfase no exame de documentos oficias (estudos e relatórios) do FEM, editados entre 2014 e 2019 e cujo teor aborde mais diretamente os impactos da Quarta Revolução Industrial no mundo do trabalho, sobretudo nas dimensões estratégicas de promoção do Trabalho Decente preceituadas pela OIT. Ao final, conclui-se do quanto consta dos documentos examinados que, a despeito das aproximações aparentemente cogitáveis entre os objetivos estratégicos da promoção do Trabalho Decente e o tratamento dos impactos da Quarta Revolução Industrial no mundo do trabalho, tal se estabelece como artifício retórico, destituído de aptidão para atacar o âmago da intensificação da exploração da força de trabalho e da desigualdade social, agudizadas pelo avanço tecnológico sobre as formas de labor.


Author(s):  
Arlindo Oliveira

This chapter provides a brief review of the history of technology, covering pre-historical technologies, the agricultural revolution, the first two industrial revolutions, and the third industrial revolution, based on information technology. Evidence is provided that technological development tends to follow an exponential curve, leading to technologies that typically were unpredictable just a few years before. An analysis of a number of exponential trends and behaviors is provided, in order to acquaint the reader with the sometimes surprising properties of exponential growth. In general, exponential functions tend to grow slower than expected in the short term, and faster than expected in the long term. It is this property that make technology evolution very hard to predict.


Author(s):  
Erhan İşcan

The last two decades have witnessed unpredictable transformations in knowledge-related areas. The main reason for this change is the fourth industrial revolution, a knowledge revolution affecting fields like the bioeconomy. The third industrial revolution, which induced the use of fossil-based energy sources, created a major global problem. Likewise, the third industrial revolution introduced the problem of the excess usage of food, animals, water, and other resources. Industry 4.0 offers an efficient solution to excessive tendencies. This chapter aims to analyze changes and offer strategies in the bioeconomy framework within Industry 4.0.


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