The RAND corporation’s research on the developing, combining and applying technologies suggest that some sectors that are either small or don’t exist at all at the moment could, in 2020, be employing many of us (as twenty years ago, no one thought that millions of people world wide would make a living from the special effects industry). Their examples include:

Personalised medicine and therapies
Genetic modification of insects to control pests and disease vectors
Computational (or ‘in-silico’) drug discovery and testing
Biomimetic and function-restoring implants
Embedded sensors and computational devices in commercial goods
Small and efficient portable power systems
Mass-producible organic electronics, including solar cells
Smart fabrics and textiles
Pervasive undetectable cameras and sophisticated sensor networks
Large, searchable databases containing detailed personal and medical data
Radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking of commercial products and individuals
Quantum based cryptographic systems for secure information transfer.

The current cohort of 11year olds will be twenty two in 2020. How will their secondary education make sure that they are fully equipped to contribute to, and lead across these fields and others that we haven’t yet imagined?