No doubt that the last 200 years have been full of amazing technological breakthroughs that have transformed our lives: telephones; washing machines; cars; planes; nuclear power; the internet and so on and so on. Or is that, in fact, more or less it? After all we are still waiting for commercial nuclear fusion power. It’s been 60 years already. Let alone flying cars. Might it be the case that we’ve eaten the low hanging fruit and it’s going to be a) much harder to take the next step and b) more dangerous to do so in terms of the potential impacts of new technologies? Or will the 21st century see us soar into the skies like a space age Icarus?

Strand Convenors: Martyn Perks and Paul Reeves

Introduced by Paul Reeves, senior technology manager, Dassault Systèmes SolidWorks R&D; former senior researcher, International Automotive Research Centre, University of Warwick