“Strange that the connection to AVA is taking so long today … I have been waiting for 15 seconds … hope we are not hacked again like yesterday!” – “Well, remember that AVA is on the moon, it can take a while! … Ahh, see, now we are connected!”
This is the beginning of a meeting between two companies, two universities and AVA – the avatar of worldwide data with all existing algorithms. AVA is an IT/AI device, a virtual super machine, which masters nearly all knowledge challenges by applying algorithms.
Today, solutions to emerging problems are solved directly and immediately between universities and companies with the involvement of avatars. However, these tasks clearly differ from the ones in the past – today universities are involved in all decision making processes in governments and companies.
The AVA is located on the Moon, because there it is (1) unassailable, (2) not subject to any national spheres of interest, (3) also because the energy is infinite and (4) the temperature is low. That is an ideal ecosystem for avatars. One company is based in Portugal, the other one in Russia. One University is based in the US and another one in Münster, Germany. These meetings used to run via the screen, but nowadays the actors sit in the form of perfect holograms together at a table.
Interestingly, the meeting participants are four women, which is logically explained by their competence of balance, fairness, networking, and factual performance which have proven to be superior versus men’s power and hierarchy mechanisms. The male members of humanity now attend additional education courses and craft camps, when they are not on the football field, in paintball, deep-sea fishing and in car races.
The discussion is about the serious problems with the blockchains that allow companies to utilise knowledge kits from universities in the form of individually tailored thinking services. Previously, in B2B consulting models, orders were organized accurately and in real time using blockchains. Today, science can rely on these mechanisms to deliver smart solutions, ‘Think Services’ and ‘Think Solutions’ via blockchains to companies.
In 2040, the big consultancies that used to be in the driver seat are struggling to survive. They are trying to save the last remnant of market assertion by hacking and changing the knowledge blockchains. But according to AVA, that will soon be over: the transaction validations will eradicate unfair entries. That is possible because AVA has all the data in the world at its disposal to generate answers and also the ability to make very accurate forecasts and predictions, which can be relied on in 91% of cases, far superior to the consultancies.
Management consultancies have failed to enter into or form strategic alliances with universities to renew their traditional business model of ‘consulting services’. Now the former ‘big money’ consultancies compete unfavourably with AVAs. Resultantly, like the banks were replaced by Fintech-Processes 10 years ago, nobody really needs consultancies anymore and therefore, they will more or less disappear from the scene too. All knowledge is available from an “Ocean of Knowledge”, which is free for everybody.
Smartphone-based dashboards and cockpits display all relevant information and report the situation in a real time. The problem fields are displayed and solution areas and partners are identified with a ‘red flag’.
Since everyone can manufacture their own products based on AI, using 3D printers at home (or in the neighbourhood or village service centre), business models have also accordingly changed. The majority of the people today have a lot of free time, except for the universities acting as the think tanks, and together with company management address the major difficulties and ‘remove obstacles from the way’ of living.
Companies like the ones that developed since the start of the industrial revolution barely exist anymore. The variety of technology and knowledge flows, which are made generally available through the Knowledge Ocean that is Internet 5.0, is far too complex for them. Instead AVAs are supporting and supplying solutions fitting all needs.
After a painful process of university consolidation, there are only relatively few universities. Today universities have branches across borders and manage their competence centres virtually and online, however, they have a focussed research and education profile and core competency of creating new knowledge in a field. The departmental structures and faculties were replaced by agile interdisciplinary teams of researchers and thinkers working on specific challenges across countries and disciplines.
The education role of universities, the so-called ‘first mission’, is now the overall responsibility of the “PoUCE Parliament of United Countries of Europe”, the organisation that replaced the European Commission after its demise. It tenders higher education throughout Europe and universities must apply for teaching in the advertised courses by submitting competitive offers. Since the 2020s, teaching is offered through validated MOOCs and VR events, rather than by local academics, provided by well-known professors in modern edutainment formats.
Interestingly, disciplines such as philosophy, anthropology, arts and humanities, which almost disappeared in the 2020s, have experienced a renaissance. New subjects have emerged, such as the development and strengthening of the personality, as well as individualised life planning. The sciences of nature, agriculture and the metaphysical forces are also strengthened alongside the religions, and values scaffolding of a society.
The logical and professions-oriented sciences that at the beginning of the process were substantially supported by AVAs, are now are almost completely replaced by AVAs. Logic can be done much faster and more accurately through AVAs. However, AVAs cannot capture or reproduce the human spirit – it is still very clear where the real capital and wealth of future mankind lie.
Interestingly, the organisational forms of companies now replicate principals of academia. High degrees of freedom in the work and thinking were formerly reserved for academic employees, while the profit-oriented companies had to be structured, disciplined and persistent. However, this rigidity and focus was fatal to those companies that had failed to open up to other organisational forms, business models and solutions. After all, creative innovations and problem solving are only possible outside existing organisations, processes and structures. Moreover, technology combined with AI was already outperforming humans in structured analytical work from the mid-2020s.
And this is exactly what the five-participant international meeting is all about: how can the four organizations, with the help of CoThinking and Knowledge-Pooling, generate solutions, that are not yet available to the ‘Ocean of Knowledge and Consciousness’ but have a potential to improve the situation.
Prof. Dr. habil. Thomas Baaken holds a position of a Tenured Professor in Marketing at Münster University of Applied Sciences. In 1998-2003 Thomas Baaken served as Vice President Research and TechTransfer. 2002 he founded the “Science-to-Business Marketing Research Centre”, which is creating marketing strategies and tools on how to market research (www. science-marketing.com) and how to undertake university-business cooperation (UBC).
The Centre has conducted several major surveys on Science-to-Business (S2B) and UBC including “The State of University Business Cooperation in Europe” in 2010/11 and “The State of European University-Business Cooperation” in 2016/17 (www. ub-cooperation.eu). It employs 25 researches from 12 different countries on Third Party funds. In total >eight Mio Euro have been acquired for the subjects of S2B and UBC so far. Thomas Baaken regularly lectures at a number of different universities e.g. in Berlin, Amsterdam, Cracow, Adelaide, Bangalore. He holds adjunct positions at The University of Adelaide, VU Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and IHI Zittau/ Technical University Dresden.