Space tour guides, weather modification police and avatar managers are just a few of the jobs our children could be doing in 20 years time if a new report is to be believed.

Tomorrow’s economy is likely to look radically different to that of today, and the report, conducted by future researchers from Fast Future for the campaign Science: [So what? So everything], painted a vivid picture of what that future could look like.

It outlined how the economy is likely to be driven by future trends such as population growth, climate change and the continuing digital revolution, leading to a whole range of new employment sectors and jobs, from climate change reversal specialists to waste data handlers who will dispose of our electronic mess.

The implications may sound mind-boggling and the stuff of science fiction, but the fact that a number of these jobs already exist, indicate they may not be as way-out as they may first sound.

But whether or not these predictions are entirely correct, we must recognise that to prepare for the challenges of tomorrow we must capitalise on the scientific and technological breakthroughs being made today.

One of Europe’s leading science and technology parks is based here in the North East so we are fortunate to be at the very heart of this revolution.

The North East Technology Park (NETPark) in Sedgefield is home to some of the most progressive, cutting edge companies in the country.

But to ensure that our region remains at the forefront of this technological revolution it will be essential to engage with and excite the next generation about the work being done there.

In the coming months NETPark will be increasingly looking to work more closely with local communities and schools to show the work that is being done on their doorsteps and show them ways they can be involved in its future.

With science and technology set to play a major part in our future economy, we must ensure the region is able to capitalise on its potential to develop in this sector. NETPark is a valuable asset that we must exploit if we are to feel its full benefit in our region.

So whether or not tomorrow’s job market will be filled with vertical farmers and memory augmentation surgeons I couldn’t really say. What I am confident about is that the North East will be well prepared for whatever the future has to throw at us.

Although Mr Brown is keeping the actual date a closely guarded secret, the opening shots of the election campaigns have been fired. As ever, this will be a hard fought contest but whoever emerges as the next Government will face challenges virtually unparalleled in recent years.

Perhaps more than ever the political parties will have to be circumspect about their promises, spending only on those things their party feels are absolutely essential. There will not be much money to play with.

And where will science and technology feature on this list of spending priorities?

At first it might seem less important when compared to the NHS, armed services or education, and yet science and technology is being used extensively in all of these areas and if substantial cuts are made in its funding, it will undoubtedly impact on these other core services.

It is essential that science is not forgotten in amongst the scrabble for funds. Not only is science playing an increasingly important role in our economic sustainability and future growth, but as global leader in a number of new technologies, the UK is attracting significant attention and investment from abroad.

A recent debate hosted by the Campaign for Science & Engineering (CaSE) in London heard from speakers from the three main political parties on their post-election plans for the science sector.

Lord Drayson, Adam Afriyie MP and Dr Evan Harris MP were all grilled on the commitment their parties would make to the science sector for the coming months and years.

All parties were keen to emphasise their backing for scientific research work but concrete pledges from any of the parties seemed to be in short supply especially when it came to funding.

It is essential the science and technology sector is given the attention and financial resources it needs if it is to tackle many of the world’s greatest challenges – from climate change, to security, to disease.

In the UK the science and technology sector is growing apace and in our region it has the potential to form a significant part of our economy in future years.

Not only do we have the North East Technology Park (NETPark), one of the UK’s fastest growing science parks, with PETEC, the UK flagship facility for the development of printable electronics, but we also have significant resources and expertise in the renewable energy sector that could mark the North East as a national and even international leader in some fields.

The build up to the General Election will inevitably lead to promises from politicians on all fronts, including those we care most about such as education and health. But I would urge people not to discount the importance of political commitment to science, both for the economic wellbeing of the country, for the reputation of the UK and its ability to attract funding from abroad, and to help us tackle so many of the other challenges we face.

2010 marks the beginning of the countdown. For those folks down in London who celebrated with such jubilation on that day back in 2005 when we beat Paris to carry the Olympic torch in 2012 the world must seem a different place five years on. Which indeed it is, in more ways than one.

For the next Olympics are likely to be different to all those that have preceded it, and not simply because of Boris Johnson! These Olympics are likely to be more dominated by technology than any others before them.

First we had the controversial swimsuits made from 100 per cent polyurethane, which have since been banned by the swimming federation. But that was just the tip of the iceberg as technological breakthroughs are being made on a more and more regular basis that are helping athletes run faster, jump higher or train for longer.

In reality technological developments are more likely to be limited by the conservatism of the governing bodies than the vision of the scientists.

One Spanish research centre has developed new sensing technology that it hopes to integrate into new sportswear and accessories giving athletes the capability to monitor their heart rates, their speed or the impact they make. With athletes keen to do anything and everything that will give them an edge, this technology promises to play a significant role in 2012.

Another breakthrough made recently by scientists has enabled them to make ordinary cotton and polyester fabrics into batteries by dipping them into a special ‘ink’.

So called smart materials (materials that change in response to external factors such as temperature, moisture or electricity) are developing all the time and becoming ever ‘smarter’!

Printable electronics involve a relatively new technology using common printing techniques to print electronic circuits onto flat surfaces. With the capability of printing electronic circuits onto extremely thin, flexible and cheap materials, the potential of this new technology is quite mind-boggling.

You could soon be reading a magazine with a little animated screen built in, or else looking at an animated ad board in the street while wearing a shirt that lights up. And these are just a very few rather obvious examples of where this technology could be used; it has huge implications and potential in a whole range of sectors.

In County Durham we have the national flagship centre for this technology, the Printable Electronic Technology Centre (PETEC). Based on NETPark in Sedgefield the centre is set to capitalise on the explosion of this new technology.

Jumping forward just two short years to the Olympics, we could already be looking to a place we don’t yet understand. Technology is sure to play a massive part in the Games and offer huge opportunities to companies based right across the country. As yet we don’t know the full impact or scope of this technology. But it’ll certainly be fun finding out!

The recent white-out across the country has certainly shown Britain to be a nation of stoics proven by the amazing Sarah Hodgson who walked her 15 mile journey to work in four hours through deep snow from her home in Consett to Oldfield’s Restaurant in Durham City. Stories of people digging each other’s cars out of drifts, of marathon commutes in to work, of employees trekking miles from home to their desks have led to regular stories in the press praising the Blitz spirit we have all shown.

And yet if the cold snap taught me one thing it’s how technology has allowed us to continue our lives with some semblance of normality without the need to leave our homes much at all.

Those who were linked up and equipped for home working could sit smugly in their cosy houses armed with a cup of tea, while others fought snow, sleet, ice and whatever else the elements threw at them.

Facilities for remote working have been gradually improving as employers recognise its value, but we still have not exploited the full potential of the technology available to us to communicate and carry out our work from a distance.

And these issues of connectivity promise to dominate the tech headlines of this decade and transform the ways we interact in the 2010s.

Much of the talk at the moment is of the cloud – not a new weather phenomenon promising yet more snow – but a system that will bring new meaning to the concept of remote working.

Like a giant server the cloud acts as a place where we can save data and then access it wherever we are in the world or whatever kind of device we’re using. So if you’ve left that all important report at work when you jet off on your holidays it won’t matter as you can tap into it via your iPhone or your Blackberry.

Tapping into the cloud would, in theory, mean the computers in front of us require less storage and probably less power too, which would in turn allow manufacturers to build even more convenient devices in a variety of materials.

And as communication becomes ever easier, so the exchange of ideas, of information and of resources will help generate further ideas and breakthroughs.

NETPark Net, a virtual science park was set up to enable this kind of exchange to take place. It was designed to enable companies not physically located on NETPark in County Durham to access facilities and workshops remotely and also to share information and expertise.

Communities like NETPark Net are likely to become ever more important as we start this new decade and I’m sure we can look forward to many more weird and wonderful new devices to help us communicate and share ideas. So who knows, in the future we may end up doing all our work remotely and not have to make our way down those icy roads in to the office at all!

Looking back on the first decade of the 21st Century following the first weeks of 2010 feels like looking into a musty old cupboard that has been shut up for a long time.

Once the champagne hangovers had faded and our fears of being obliterated by a Y2K apocalypse had proved unfounded, we made our way back to our hefty desktop computers with their rather erratic dial-up internet connections, armed with clunky plastic mobile phone.

For although much of the technology we now rely so heavily upon was invented in the latter years of the previous century, such as the internet and mobile phones to name but a couple, it is the noughties that have seen their development accelerate so dramatically.

Perhaps the most significant development of the past ten years has been the advancement made in fast, effective internet connection.

As broadband connection became cheaper and quicker with the capacity to transmit more information, so users turned more readily to the internet to help organise their lives helping them do everything from shopping to banking to booking a holiday.

And it has also helped drive the development of other significant inventions of the decade such as the iPod, Google and Facebook.

But development of the internet has also created new challenges such as the question of how digital content should be licensed and sold, and how a new and increasingly well informed breed of fraudsters, hackers and cyber-criminals can be tackled.

Another major focus for technology over the past decade has been tackling security-related issues. Following the coordinated attack on New York’s Twin Towers in September 2001 and subsequent terrorist attacks or threats, efforts all over the world have been stepped up to tighten security.

The promise of full body scanners in all UK airports demonstrates the significance of the threat and the technology that will help tackle it.

A Durham company that is playing a very significant role in this security battle is Kromek, based in NETPark.

Kromek has already developed a number of security scanners including a liquid scanner which can determine the contents of a bottle of liquid without the need to open it – something that promises to play an important role following the attempts to blow up planes with liquid bombs earlier this decade.

So although technology presents society with new challenges as it develops and matures, it also offers us solutions and enormous opportunities. Far from being apprehensive and resistant to the challenges new technology can create, we must embrace it and use it to make our lives better for the future.

On this day back in 1066 Harold Godwinson was crowned King of England. On the same day a comet, now known as Haley’s Comet was seen. Taken at the time as a bad omen, it proved, in Harold’s case, to be absolutely right. He was shot through the eye, as legend has it, at the Battle of Hastings not long after.

Moving on several hundred years to 1610, on the nights of January 7, 8, 10 and 11, Galileo, ‘the father of science’, made some of the earliest reported observations of the moon, the stars and the moons of Jupiter through a telescope, ‘lately invented by him’ – his claim, not mine.

These observations were reported in his book ‘Sidereal Messenger’, the first scientific treatise based on observations made through a telescope, and arguably one of the most important texts in the development of astronomy.

And man’s fascination with the stars and the wider universe has only gathered pace since then. Nearly 400 years later, just before Christmas, the European Space Agency released stunning images taken by the recently launched Herschel telescope. It is hoped that these pictures will help scientists understand more about how galaxies and stars are created.

Not only is this the largest astronomical telescope to be launched into space, but its images are described as some of the most important images captured from space for decades.

And here in the North East we are well and truly a part of this investigation.

The Centre for Advanced Instrumentation (CfAI) at the NETPark Research Institute in Sedgefield works with observatories all over the world in creating some of the most innovative hi-tech astronomical equipment, capturing groundbreaking images that further enhance our understanding of the universe.

The CfAI is part of Durham’s University’s Physics Department, one of the highest ranking departments of its kind in the country which has specific expertise among others in the field of cosmology.

And the knowledge gleaned from the study of space can also now inform our lives here on Earth, for many of the techniques used have spin-offs into other scientific and industrial applications.

The technique of adaptive optics, developed for use in telescopes can also be applied to studies of the human eye, enhancing the work of ophthalmologists and even helping the early diagnosis of problems such as diabetes.

And so as we head into this new decade it is incredible to see how far our understanding of space has come. While once upon a time our interpretation of the stars and the cosmos was largely based on superstition, science has and will continue to help us uncover the truth about the universe.

Will the next decade really be one of One-ders?

That was the winning entry in a recent Australian online survey to name the decade, the judges citing the hope that in the 2010s there would be many scientific, humanitarian and environmental breakthroughs.

And, of course, the number one would feature in every year.
Can’t we do better than that, enquired the Guardian? What's wrong with the "tens" or the "teens" they asked – especially as the 1910s are rarely abbreviated in this way.
I wonder what kind of debate, if any, they entered into in 1909 as a decade approached that would usher in automobile assembly lines, new atomic theories and advances in radio technology.

And the almost unimaginable horrors of World War I. The War was the catalyst for enormous technological and scientific change, and not solely confined to creating more efficient methods of killing our fellow man.

Plastics, rayon, cellulose acetate and aluminium alloys all found more peaceful and positive applications in peacetime.

1910 itself witnessed some historic developments. New Year’s Day saw the opening of Henry Ford’s Highland Park factory and its innovative production methods.

January also saw an aviation competition in Los Angeles and 1910 was the year that Romanian aviation pioneer Henri Coanda built the world’s first jet aircraft.

The availability of electricity in houses in the US generated a huge demand for washing machines and by December of that year there were more than seven million telephones in use in the US.

A significant year too in the history of antibiotics. German Paul Ehrlich, the man who coined the term ‘chemotherapy’, discovered Salvarsan during a massive survey of hundreds of newly-synthesized organic arsenical compounds. Salvarsan was also known as 606, because it was the 606th compound he had tested.

We’ll draw a veil over what it was a cure for!

Florence Nightingale died, Mother Theresa was born and Dr Crippen was trapped in mid escape by the wireless telegraph.

And 1910 also saw the Terra Nova leave Cardiff on the ultimately ill-fated British Antarctic expedition under the command of Captain Scott.

In a year that began and ended with General Elections (what goes round, comes round) France joined the home nations to form Rugby Union’s Five Nations.

Other sporting news saw Aston Villa capture the League title, while Newcastle carried off the FA Cup following a replay against Burnley.

So as we enter a new decade, let’s hope that anyone looking back in 2109 thinks that whatever we achieve in the 2010s was positive and life-enhancing.

It’s good to talk

So said an old BT advert and it’s true.

Where we used to need semaphore, heliotropes, telegrams and even writing letters to communicate at a distance, now we can text or e mail or leave a voice mail.

When it comes to communicating is it just to avoid accusations of prolixity or is it the influence of text and email that so often makes us want to keep it short?

We’ve got slang, professional jargon and OMG where would we be without the TLA.

I suppose flying really got us used to the three letter acronym. Funnily enough the destination codes were set by IATA, a fine example of what the Jargon File would describe as an ETLA.

From AAA (Anaa in French Polynesia) to ZZV (Zanesville, Ohio) we watch our luggage disappear hoping someone recognises the difference between Aberdeen, South Dakota (ABR) and the Granite City (ABZ).

Unless, of course, we’re operating under ICAO rules where Anaa becomes NTGA, Zanesville is KZZV and Scotland’s third most populous city puzzlingly becomes EGPD.

The USA has the FBI and CIA, while we mix and match with MI5 in the UK (is the UK a two letter acronym or just initialism?)

We daily CTRL+C, then CTRL+V, we press ESC. We look forward to attachments in whatever format they arrive, be it PDF, JPG, GIF or TIFF.

When someone mentions RSS, we instantly think ‘Really Simple Syndication’ rather than ruminating on the 175 year history of the UK's only professional society devoted to the interests of statistics and statisticians.

And new forms of social networking usher in their own neologisms. As ‘Twaffic’ increases (not all of it ‘twitterific’, if we’re being honest) you might need to observe ‘twettiquette’ or seek help from a ‘tweetorial’.

But in science, the TLA comes into its own as part of a specialised vocabulary. ?4U. Which would you opt for given the choice between saying ’polyphenylene vinylene’ or PPV?

In a specialised world accuracy is as vital to clear communication as it is to the scientific method. In science there’s no such thing as almost the right word - if you’re willing to settle for roughly right, it’s all too easy to suddenly find that you’re precisely wrong.

But @TEOTD whichever way we communicate, especially during the festive season, let’s keep talking.

Ah well, BTW! Enjoy the break and, to quote a song that first topped the charts in December 1973, “Look to the future now, it’s only just begun”.

This December doesn’t seem to have brought much festive cheer for many people.

News of the mothballing of the Corus plant in Teesside will have a devastating impact on the people and the local economy.

Followed by a Pre-Budget Report (PBR) that made grim reading for some and annoyed others for its lack of clarity as to how the black hole in the public finances will be filled, there doesn’t seem that much to celebrate.

But, I’m ever the optimist, especially if we take the long view.

The science and technology sector seems to have fared rather better than others and the Government seems keen to keep the UK at the very cutting edge of these developments, encouraging the growth of the sector and the future of the economy.

As well as a number of measures announced in the PBR to protect and promote the development of the hi-tech sector, the Government has this month launched a new strategy for the development of plastic electronics.

This is excellent news for a technology that is both environmentally friendly and has the potential for high growth. While the global market is estimated to be under $2bn now, it is predicted to grow to as much as $330bn by 2027 and create up to 20,000 jobs in the UK.

And this is especially good news for the North East. The national centre for this technology, the Printable Electronic Technology Centre (PETEC) is based on NETPark in Sedgefield and has been allocated £20m of this money for the development of facilities and to create 1,500 jobs in the sector.

The technology, which allows circuits to be printed onto any surface, provides a low-cost alternative to conventional silicon-based electronics and has a vast range of potential applications from ultra efficient solid state lighting to photovoltaic solar cells to animated posters to active clothing, though in reality the potential uses for this technology are virtually boundless.

With the cost of producing this technology on the sharp decline and the Government apparently in full support, this sector of British manufacturing is most definitely on the up and is poised for dramatic and rapid expansion.

And so, as we face this bleak mid winter, I hope there is some message of hope in all this. It is without doubt that we all face some pretty tough times ahead but the future for our region is also an exciting one and by embracing and driving the growth of these new technologies, the second decade of the 21st century promises to be even more exciting than the first.

On my way to work the other morning I heard a piece on the radio saying that the UK would need half a million engineers over the next eight years to help build and maintain new and growing industries.

This seemed an astonishing figure and really impressed upon me the scale of the challenge we face.

Admittedly the speaker being interviewed was Sir Anthony Cleaver, chairman of Engineering UK who has a somewhat vested interest in encouraging more people into engineering, but it got me thinking about the importance of engaging young people now to ensure a ready workforce for growing sectors in the future.

One of these burgeoning sectors is science and technology which encompasses a whole range of businesses working on products or techniques that promise to transform our lives.

It will be essential to get young people interested and excited by the work being done in order to ensure this sector continues to grow and to flourish, and offers opportunities for coming generations.

National science seminars called the GCSE Science Live forums are a great example of the way science can be opened up to students and young people. The conferences are held around the country and have a panel of leading scientists to talk to the students about their work and about the longer term opportunities in the sector.

In a different way, Durham University is opening up its educational opportunities in efforts to attract those with the academic capabilities of studying at Durham to fulfil their potential.

The recently announced Supported Progression Programme will identify sixth form and secondary school pupils with the merit and potential for Durham and prepare a package of academic and financial support as well as admissions guidance to help those who make it through the rigorous programme.

And it is essential that these kinds of programmes are in place to encourage and enthuse young people particularly in sectors like science that can often appear remote or daunting.

The North East Technology Park (NETPark), home to some of the region’s most innovative and exciting science and technology companies is also working extensively with the local community and local schoolchildren to help demonstrate and excite them about the things happening on their doorstep.

As one of the region’s seven Innovation Connectors, NETPark is integrally involved in driving the region’s success and reputation in the science and technology sector and so is keen to do all it can to retain and attract talent in this field.

Looking to the future the region has an incredibly exciting future ahead of it with the potential to lead the world in a diverse array of industries. But success tomorrow will depend on an educated, capable and enthusiastic workforce, and that will rely on us talking to them today.