What'snext20by20

At the turn of the decade we decided to tap the growing Bright Pixel eco-system for a vision of the future.

Here are our picks for 20 trends in 2020.

Celso Martinho

Bright Pixel

If I had to choose one word for 2020, it would be "consequences".

We will see a slew of privacy-centric products hit the landscape, answering the demand that the post-Facebook fiasco era created. Privacy as a product feature is now a norm, and the smartest companies will incorporate the opportunity.

Likewise, the post-apocalyptic Blockchain era is coming. The crypto winter cleaned up the ecosystem, but the survivors, the resilient ones, have been hard at work in the backstage, solving many UX, security, and scalability problems. Next year maybe - just maybe - we will finally start seeing real-life products for the masses and the B2B.

IoT seems to be hitting the tipping point, but then again, we've been saying this for a decade, it's ridiculous, so what do I know? Either way, my now fully automated home has a staggering ~100 devices connected to Wifi and Zigbee and growing, so something magic is definitely happening. Interoperability is still an unsolved problem. I expect a lot of consolidation at both the hardware, protocols, and software levels and a lot of opportunities for disruptive startups. IoT security will be a hot topic. 5G may or may not act as a catalyst; big telcos tend to screw up, let's see.

Locally, founders in Portugal are maturing. We will finally see the serial entrepreneurs, those that built, thrived or failed, but got up, and tried again, and again, doing better and bigger on top of their invaluable experience and reputation. Great entrepreneurs gone investors will be a thing too, rightfully closing the virtuous circle.

Emerging technology buzzwords have bombarded us for the last three years, making us think we were on the verge of a cyber revolution. Still, it turned out that, like any other hype cycle, it was mostly about marketing and little about adoption. Fortunately, a lot of innovators escaped the spotlight trap and kept working hard. We're now leaving the valley of disappointment, and hopefully, 2020 will bring substance and meaningful applications using these technologies to light.

Joana Pina Pereira

Worten

2020 will be all about sustainability of businesses – not as a cool trend, but an irrefutable need for survival in an era of global retail-tech giants

2020 is such a “round number” that it seems to mark a special decade, prone to great predictions on the advancement of humanity. I do hope that is the case, but maybe due to my narrow astrological knowledge and limited access to blockchain powered algo-predictions, I can´t really foresee any truly new thing to dazzle you in 2020 specifically. Sorry about that.

Instead, I believe 2020 will be about finally bringing down to earth and massifying some of the “new” trends and techs we’ve been bored by repeatedly at last years’ conferences. And it was about time! I will be looking out for 2 of these in particular, and a + 1:

1. 2020 will bridge the gap between AI promises and its real adoption by ‘established’ businesses. For retail, in particular, this will happen in the form of supply chain algos, customer care bots, more sophisticated demand forecasts, among others, but foremost in deeper data-driven personalization of offers. As a backlash, this will bring about more intense concerns regarding not only privacy, but also questions on the effect of data-driven mass relevance and predictions on directing consumption and smashing true choice or novelty discovery.

2. 2020 will be all about sustainability of businesses – but this time around, not as a cool trend, but an irrefutable need for survival in an era of global retail-tech giants. It will be an imperative to combine (and sometimes replace) growth hacking with karma-friendly profitability models that enable businesses to thrive as (g)local champions. These champions must look out for their environmental and social impact, but also focus on internal sustainability with HR no longer being viewed as a cost, but as an investment. Investment on the retention of the most talented coveted resources and constant requalification of an increasingly aging work force.

The +1: of my list this is for sure THE thing I am most looking forward to in 2020 (besides generic happiness and health of course) and that is the Nasa Mars expedition. For all it means in scientific terms, but also for what it says of our ability as humans to look beyond 2020 and dream on!

AndréLourenço

Trojan Horse was a Unicorn

In the streaming war, independent producers & creators will have a greater chance to succeed.

Netflix, Disney, HBO, Amazon... This year, the streaming service industry got more competitive than ever, causing a strong demand for content and starting what I believe to be a new era for the creative industry.

In the streaming war, content is king. Companies need original material and people who know how to tell a story in a compelling way. They need innovative ideas that have the ability to break through all the noise and stand out from thousands of options. This means talent outside of the big studios will get more opportunities, and independent producers & creators will have a greater chance to succeed.

This disruptive period driven by intense competition will eventually sizzle. However, I anticipate that even when the bubble bursts, new creative talent will find its place and thrive.

Alexandre Mendes

Startup Braga

History becomes a race between ethical Talent, Leadership and Technology

In 2020, 5G unlocks the adoption of hyped technologies as life merges with immersive and ubiquitous technology.

Finally, the long waited infrastructure for the next wave of disruption becomes real and the promises of IOT and its magical devices, blockchain and distributed trust, digital health applications, complementary realities offered by AR & VR and the many challenges of data-economy and AI automated solutions will offer our lives with a transformational experience.

Strong leadership will play a critical role defining the way, the approach and the trade-offs whereas technology can only be the ledger, the tools, the potential.

Let 2020 be the year of the end of innocence and technological dazzle and, yet, driven by ethical talent and educated utopia.

This new decade will be like a new season premiering and wether you’ll be sitting having your butter popcorns or dueling with the paralyzed regulation systems or just passively supplying your data, oh will you have a role!

Rui Ribeiro

Jscrambler

Security will shift from being a cost to becoming a major competitive advantage

Web applications are the center stage of most modern digital products and services. Every single Fortune 500 company is using JavaScript, yet most companies are still failing to protect exposed JavaScript against client-side attacks. This lack of client-side security is leading to some major data breaches, as companies still see application security as just another cost.

With highly disruptive startups entering the market and an increase of sensitive logic that is shipped through the client-side, we will see a significant increase in the cost of attacks. Data breaches are growing over 400% per year and the global cost of cybercrime could increase by over 70% by 2025. As a result, we will see investors and management becoming more aware of this key business threat and so securing web apps will become a major competitive advantage.

Paulo Trezentos

Aptoide

We’ll see phones without Google services being sold and a stream of innovations unleashed from mobile manufacturers.

In 2020, and the years after, I believe that two big changes will occur.

In the mobile industry, we’ll see phones without Google services being sold. These phones (called AOSP - Android open source) will leverage apps that don’t depend on Google, like WhatsApp, Instagram or TikTok, relying on the web version of Gmail and Youtube. This change will unleash a stream of innovations from mobile manufacturers (less dependent of Google) and bring new players to the ecosystem.

In the car industry, after self-driving, electrical and sharing economy, I think that the fourth big change will be connected cars. Being connected to the Internet (4G, 5G) will enable new use cases. For instance, a parking app installed in the car that starts and stops paying the park as the car enters and exits of a parking space in the street. Or enable you to select food, ordering and paying directly from the car, and the take-away restaurant will only needs to give you the food. The take-away restaurant may even know how much time you will take to arrive to keep the food warm.

Luísa Lima

Fyde

The new nature of work demands secure, reliable, private communications.

In 2020, remote work will become more and more prevalent. Adopting this philosophy enables companies to tap into a global, boundary-free talent pool. As businesses recognize that a distributed workforce delivers a competitive edge, we need to support employees with flexible work setups and schedules. Established communication technologies, such as broadband, online project management, remote chat and video tools were the first step.

The elusive, missing piece of the puzzle is secure access. Global organizations, including startups, still rely on 90’s technologies like VPNs that have not evolved with the rest of the IT environment. The new nature of work demands secure, reliable, private communications. Zero trust, the new standard in secure access, is the solution.

Alexandre Santos

Bright Pixel

Advances in how we manage our digital presence will be key for several other areas of our lives - from healthcare to education, mobile and immersive gaming to other types entertainment

What is a trend? A general direction in which something is developing or changing. Or, simply defined also as… a fashion. So, a trend can be fleeting or here to stay. You will never know. Perhaps the best way to try to predict 2020’s trends is to look back.

For example, 20 years ago, the first camera phones were launched (by Motorola) and now we know for sure that they are here to stay and take notice in any tiny detail of our increasingly less private lives, blurring today our assumptions of what is public domain and what is not. The year 2000 also gave us, unfortunately, our first successful reality show - The Big Brother - and that also redefined the boundaries of what is entertainment and of what could be shared with a vast audience. If we pick these few examples alone of our not-that-recent past, we can spend hours discussing how they evolved and morphed into new realities now.

A wide array of filters and gimmicks are now available for our collective and instant delight. A full set of businesses were born exploiting our digital presence, from short videos to snapchats and tik toks (the most valuable startup in the world, go figure...), from social media to influencers and other annoying ways to digitally share and supposedly interact with people 24/7.

Not all is bad in having an enhanced ability to digitally interact or define our digital self. We have more immersive ways of interacting (virtual, augmented and mixed reality, to name some new realities...) and engage with other people and entities in several contexts - companies like Didimo (one of the great portuguese startup examples) will help us have a better experience in several contexts of our lives.

For example, our digital self will be able to do a lot more online in several retail environments, that for professional reasons I tend to follow closely. Who would believe in the year 2000 that buying clothes, shoes or almost anything that you can think of online… would become the norm? Or that we have today people paying absurdities for digital-only clothing? And that perhaps make-to-order retail models that promote a more personalised retail experience whilst reducing inefficiencies and, hopefully, other eco-conscious trends will start to pick up more and makes us a bit less fast consumer oriented over time.

Advances in how we manage our digital presence also will be key for several other areas of our lives - from healthcare to education, mobile and immersive gaming to other types entertainment (where the content wars will be on the rise) by the way, between the deep-pocketed streaming services, that are killing our once beloved traditional content providers and distributors (TiVo was born in the 2000’s!).

Our digital existence also brings us other tremendous challenges in 2020 and years to come… how should we manage and protect our data? To what extent should we explore the power of AI in analysing our data and what are the ethical implications around everything that we will do and have sitting around in our digital worlds? Cyber Security, Artificial Intelligence are just two taglines for a full array of trends around this existential issue of having this new resource to explore, protect and manage - our digital oil, called data. All of the companies within our portfolio are exploring in some way this brave new world around our digital oil. They are the oil prospectors of the 2020’s.

Then, looking back, we also had the hype of the blu-ray discs in 2000… Is 5G our 2020 blu-ray equivalent? Or perhaps blockchain will also prove to be our digital blu-ray perfect example… we will always have fleeting fashions for our collective satisfaction. Enjoy 2020 while it lasts.

Nuno Loureiro

Probely

Security Testing will finally live in the Software Development Lifecycle

As the stakes for security and risk management become higher and higher from the increasing number of massive breaches and regulation, such as GDPR and the new CCPA, we’ll see more and more organizations taking greater responsibility when it comes to building a cybersecurity-first culture. On the other hand, companies have an ongoing demand for moving faster, embracing speed as a competitive advantage. These two requirements clash, which will challenge organizations to adopt solutions that can automate security testing in an efficient way, as well as integrating these solutions into development processes such as CI/CD pipelines.

JoãoGunther Amaral

Sonae

In a time when the pace of change has reached levels never seen before, agile, well-experimented, tech-aware, data-aware people and organizations are the best placed to succeed.

We live in a time when the pace of change has reached levels never seen before. This change is accelerated by the emergence of new technologies and their combination with the availability of huge data volumes and almost unlimited processing, storage and communication capacity. It is in this context that studious, collaborative, agile, fast-decision-making, well-experimented, tech-aware, data-aware people and organizations are the best placed to succeed.

I anticipate that 2020 will be the year when companies will continue to adopt more agile work models ensuring faster innovation processes, will be bolder in exploiting the information at their disposal through artificial intelligence algorithms and sensors will continue to impose even if shyly awaiting the disruption that will happen with the entry of 5G. We won't see on our streets self-driving cars, drones carrying goods, cyborgs, chip-augmented humans, cryptocurrencies in heavy use, or many of the other promises that we see daily in the media.

We are going to see a world where we will all be much more aware of the impact of climate change without all of us working hard to tackle it tho.

Lino Santos

Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança

Overcoming the challenges raised by an increasingly digital context requires a human-centered approach

Cybersecurity is no longer an unfamiliar term. In some kind of abruptly way, it entered the lexicon of our society, being part of the speech of managers, politicians, columnists, technicians and citizens. To a large extent this is due to the difficulty that individuals and organizations have in managing risk and adapting to live in an increasingly digital context, a context over which we seem to have very little control. Overcoming these difficulties requires a human-centered approach, as opposed to the traditional information-centered approach, and the challenge is nothing less than providing the whole of society with digital skills, thereby reducing individual and collective vulnerability.

At the geopolitical level, on the other hand, we are witnessing a fierce struggle for technological supremacy as a factor for economic growth, but also for the affirmation of a digital sovereignty essential for the well-being of society. Securing Europe's digital sovereignty means that the demand for cybersecurity talent, products and services will continue to grow at a faster rate than the available supply, creating challenges but also opportunities for our companies in the industry to develop innovative solutions and assert themselves in the European landscape. In this sense, the Horizon Europe Program and the Europa Digita Program, aiming at research and innovation and capacity building respectively, aim to improve Europe's competitiveness in the global digital economy and increase its technological autonomy.

Domingos Bruges

Habit Analytics

We'll be creating new space based solutions at an infrastructure cost of a bag of rice.

Low Earth Orbit isn't yet to be discovered. It's in the process of being democratised and over-the-top value will soon start to be created and a race for value will start. The term (space) race stands for speed and competition; prices will be dramatically reduced as infrastructure widespreads and requirements to implement LEO based solutions would be made of off-the-shelf software and hardware components.

We're starting to observe new space connectivity solutions that will compete or cooperate with terrestrial broadband internet. Other niche solutions, new products, one-off projects and new business models will arise. In 2020, we'll start to observe the first wave of entrepreneurial space explorers.

Inês Santos Silva

Women in Tech & Aliados Consulting

Companies, entrepreneurs and innovators will be made accountable for their actions and those actions need to reflect the fragile interdependence between people and planet.

2020 will be the year of the Earth-centred organisation. Companies are going to start taking into consideration, not only the human needs and desires, but a much broader and complex set of needs and demands. If, in the past, everything has been built and designed for a better human experience, now we will see a demand from consumers and regulators for planet-friendly products and services.

Companies, entrepreneurs and innovators will be made accountable for their actions and those actions need to reflect the fragile interdependence between people and planet. With this, 2020 will be an action-oriented year, with plenty of white space for entrepreneurs and innovators, to use the latest technology to create a regenerative future.

Mário Alves

Taikai

The future of work will be the ability to work for SpaceX one day and Google the next!

We are living in a world where more and more people seek for job flexibility and tasks that really challenge them. In a global survey conducted by LinkedIn, 37% of respondents said their current job does not fully utilize their skills or provide enough challenge.

What seemed to be the future, the gig economy, composed by ridesharing and delivery drivers, freelancers and others, became a mid-step for what I believe in: the concept of work 2.0, a future where highly specialized individuals can look for challenge based opportunities, from different industries.

That's where Taikai wants to be in 2020, our open innovation social network will act as the facilitator. This is our vision and 2020 will be a step closer to that future.

Veronica Orvalho

Didimo

Every human being will be able to create an authentic digital representation of themselves.

Throughout history, we have seen barriers be built, only to be torn down again. Today, in our internet-driven world, we have more opportunities to connect than ever before.

Yet, when communication is intermediated by technology, we often lose the humanness of that connection. While billions of virtual interactions occur every minute across our digital ecosystem, these interactions are still missing core human elements such as emotion, empathy and nuance.

We believe the next era of computing is to break down the barriers between the physical and digital worlds, helping humans transport themselves across that divide. Becoming possible, to return humanity to our digital world through the creation of high-fidelity digital human, capable of moving and speaking in any language to bridge the gap between countries and invisible cultural frontiers.

Everyone will have the chance to use technology based on the image we know best – our own. And this advance will allow for world-wide education through peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing. Because, the opposite of education is not ignorance. The opposite of education is isolation.

Gaspar D'orey

Dott

It is crucial to inspire not only retailers to use environmentally friendly packaging, but also to motivate the customers to recycle their used packaging.

2020 will be an important year for Dott as a young company with only 7 months of activity, and above all it will be guided by the great trends of recent months that are expected to continue for the next ones.

The main one will be Sustainability but, even more, the circular economy, that is, about thinking about how we reuse the goods and materials we consume daily. For e-commerce this is a very relevant topic as, on the one hand, it reduces the ecological footprint of thousands of people traveling by car to large areas, but on the other hand, it may sometimes use some less desirable packaging with too much plastic and non-recycled materials (always with the positive aim of protecting the product). For us it is crucial to inspire not only retailers to use environmentally friendly packaging, but also to motivate our customers to recycle their used packaging.

The second topic is having causes aligned with our clients. Initiatives such as our Solidarity Wishlists, in which we invited over 2000 associations to create their wishlists so that everyone can offer something that really contribute to the daily lives of these volunteers and the people they help, and other than an impersonal bank transfer. During 2020 we will continue to focus on thinking differently and doing things "out of the box".

The third major theme is the growth, not only of Dott, but of e-commerce in Portugal. With just 7 months, we must grow, and that inspires the whole team. Grow in product offerings, the ranges we offer, delivery modes and the number of customers we meet every day, and earn your trust to come back a 2nd, 3rd and 4th time. Grow in Dott's ultra-personalization, so that e-commerce is as personal as going to our neighborhood grocery store, and so we can complete our mission of Digitizing Portugal, and there’s still a lot to grow in this area in our country.

Nuno Gonçalves Pedro

Strive Capital

Physical and hardware tech will no longer be a “son of a lesser God” and start receiving significant attention and resources

2020 will bring us a year of readjustment, namely we will see private company valuations - from mid to late stage rounds, earlier in the year to earlier stage rounds, later in the year - come down significantly in the aftermath of the IPOs and attempted Tech IPOs of 2019. These increasingly rational valuations in a relatively “bubbly” private market will not only obviously benefit investors, but will also benefit founders, who can now pursue more attainable growth rates and sustainable business models.

On the areas of investment that I am most bullish about, I predict that the consumer software space will again become cool with gen Z consumption becoming fully mainstream and divergent, productivity and consumerized enterprise will become overheated, and physical and hardware tech will no longer be a “son of a lesser God” and start receiving significant attention and resources from all key investors, including more generalist ones.

Finally, I predict we will see a few more notable private company/start-up implosions in 2020, AI/ML/DL becoming “uncool” - only to become more material and significant in terms of investing opportunities, as well as one more Portuguese start-up joining the Unicorn club.

Ernesto Pedrosa

Automaise

5G will mark the beginning of true widespread interconnectivity between all things.

In 2020, we will continue to see the evolution and proliferation of some emerging trends in recent years, as well as the fulfillment of promises to date, and it is obviously anticipated that there will be others that cannot survive the hype. Thus, we will have repeaters and newcomers.

In the repeaters we will certainly include AI and, more specifically, the evolution of its application in the area of “intelligent automation”. This evolution will happen through the combination of AI with tools and technologies such as RPAs, integrating and flow platforms, conversational assistants, among others. We will also include Blockchain technology here, which is still looking for confirmation, and although it is currently mistakenly synonymous with crypto coins, I believe we’ll increasingly see the application of this technology to multiple scenarios and industries, not just experiences and pilots.

In newcomers I enhance 5G as an enabler/magnifier for a repeat trend, the IoT. The 5G is still in a pilot phase as license auctions are still ongoing. With the first commercial rollouts to take place during the year 2020, 5G, which will enable lower latency and higher speed connectivity, will mark the beginning of true widespread interconnectivity between all things.

I also believe that Quantum Computing will be a big trend in 2020. The race is hot between many players with different approaches, and while there are those who already claim “quantum supremacy” for themselves, there is a long way to go to apply technology to concrete problems of humanity.

I cannot forget, although in a less technological but obviously technology-supported record, the transparency and traceability as a critical topic that will remain on the organizations agenda for 2020 given the concern and demands imposed by society, customers and employees on processing, use and storage of your data. I also believe that 2020 will be the year when society will demand concrete measures to fight fake news and other deep fake content.

José Epifânio da Franca

Instituto Superior Técnico

There is a transformation underway fed by the boldness of those who have the ambition of the world and the courage to carry it out.

There is a transformation underway, that started at the beginning of the decade that now ends, less than 10 years ago. It has lived high moments and low moments, has overcome mishaps and celebrated successes, has soul and has energy, dreamed the dreams of those who live it with passion.

It is a transformation that is the scene of foreign direct investment on a scale that few sectors of our economy can afford. What feeds it is the boldness of those who have the ambition of the world and the courage to carry it out, what guides it is the confidence of solid, internationally recognized, competitive abilities that were built here.

I know what I am talking about because I see it happen and I know many of those who do it. I speak of those who transform the knowledge. It is a generational transformation of millennials, Z’s and those to come. It is transformation for the future, forever, for all. It is a transformation for the economic valorization of knowledge, from where we are to the world, that benefits Portugal and the Portuguese people.

To this transformation and the transformers that bring it to life, I hope that in 2020 and in the decade that is now opening you will face fewer mishaps and celebrate more successes and that the soul and energy that catalyzes it will take you to the top of the world.

Miguel Fontes

Startup Lisboa

The tendency is to strengthen the humanization of organizations and technology.

The future of 2020 is already here. There is a growing separation between “pure and hard” business and environmentally sustainable and socially responsible business. We are beginning to see more and more businesses clearly embodying these dimensions while scaling and achieving competitive results in the same startup ecosystem.

In the future, there will be no room for business models that do not rely on full transparency about their impact on society, the environment and the economy. The tendency is to strengthen the humanization of organizations and technology, to put them at the service of people and not the other way around.

A technology trend for 2020? The voice. It will definitely be the year of technologies that will make voice our most common form of interaction, as they respond to what is probably the most natural mechanism of our communication as human beings.