A blurred vision

Malta Vision 2050 will supposedly shape the country’s future over the next 25 years. The goal is to improve the quality of life for everyone, focusing on important areas like digital innovation, infrastructure, education, healthcare, sustainability and jobs.

It won’t be easy.

Will a much-needed new economic model be in place? Will the government of the day manage to re-engage with the economy and build a matrix of institutions that will support innovation and investment?

The future is exciting and daunting at the same time. Photo: AI/Shutterstock.com

Will providing sufficient food, water and energy to allow everyone to lead decent lives be an enormous challenge 25 years from now?

After years of trying, will Malta at last build itself a system for developing apprentices and technicians that is no longer the Cinderella of the education system?

Is anyone out there ready to predict that nanotechnology will lead to a revolution, allowing us to make any kind of product for virtually nothing, to have computers so powerful that they will surpass human intelligence, and to lead to a new kind of medicine on a sub-cellular level that will allow us to abolish ageing and death?

In all probability, by 2050, we will have reached the one million population figure. Will our towns and villages, therefore, consist of a series of small units organised, at best, by the people who know what is best for themselves and, at worst, by local construction oligarchs?

Will the remaining little distinction between urban areas and open countryside fade into nothing or will some human genius steal the limelight for inventing social structures leading to new forms of settlement we can’t quite imagine will begin to emerge?

Will traffic congestion on most of our roads at all times of the day when the infrastructure can’t cope for whatever reason become a thing of the past?

I think we’ll be cycling and walking more. Perhaps, by then, we will be seeing the advent of automated cars, like the ones Tesla has recently been testing. Personal jetpacks will, I think, remain a niche choice.

Will we spend more on health, with a good amount of it going on the problems of prosperity: obesity, alcohol consumption and designer drugs?

Will rising sea levels make some of our popular beaches disappear? The rate of increase is accelerating.

The future is exciting and daunting at the same time.

Malta Vision 2050 remains blurred.

Mark Said – Msida