Traditionally at new years, news media, technology blogs and psychics all get together and look in the crystal ball of the year to come, ranting out predictions on their segment. With Hub Brussels being so deeply engaged in many different industries, sectors and connecting to a wide and diverse age group of individuals and organisations we felt it appropriate to offer the comprehensive list of what we expect 2010 to offer. Read on….

Climate – More talk, little action

The Hub Brussels membership believes that change will be the significant keyword for  climate change in 2010. Not only will it be more normal to see people change behaviour as the effects of climate change begin to sink in the public consciousness, but also governments and business will follow suit, seeing more green business, which we expect to become a strong branding tool in the coming year. Also, we believe that following the failed COP15 meeting, initiative will move from being in the hands of government to being more grounded in the local community and businesses. It will make sense for some local councils to address the issue aggressively, as well as businesses who have an interest in a more green profiling. Some of the more serious predictions are that more flooding will occur. Flanders will experience more heavy rainshowers and flooding while more environmental refugee’s are seen landing on the shores of the developed world. Also, following the failure in Copenhagen, a treaty in Mexico this year, might have a better chance.

The Hub – Better Baños

While Hub Brussels has faced it’s own heating problems in the coldest of winters in a while, the member temperature is rising. More and more members will be populating the Hub space as the year passes by, with passions running high in a number of areas. Firstly to amend the temperature, we are looking into installing a fireplace in the lounge space, to be able to have meetings around, enjoy a glass of wine before heading home or just to sit and gaze aimlessly into the flames. Next the amount of events and projects this year will be huge. We will be seeing a number of BarCamps, after our successful BizzCamp in 2009, with innovators within governance and technology connecting in the Hub. The hosting team will work more on it’s first and foremost priority. Growing the members business, connecting to their passions and making relevant programming. Also a significant growth of members is to be expected, with 2010 being Brussels year of growing into its community after having

The Monday Breakfast, Wednesday Sexy Salad, and Thursday Afterworks will become the pillars of the community that members and visitors build their meetings around. The immense response to these events have shown that if you need people to get together, enjoy and contribute, give them food and drink and it will be a success. There will be much more food and drink in Hub Brussels in 2010. We guarantee it. Also, our members predict a Satelite Hub in Antwerp and Hub Brussels having a doorbell that is working.

Energy – Sharing Creative Energy to Fuel Everyday Life

With Energy remaining on of the political most hot potatoes in the year to come, we can expect some interesting developments here. Firstly, Nuclear Power will see an unfortunate revival, but we have faith in some major developments will take place in 2010 that will change the energy market and issue for years to come. Firstly, Hub Brussels, predicts that there will be significant technological revolutions within Battery development, allowing more long lasting batteries onto the market, not only for consumer and medical devices, but also within the fledgling electrical car industry.

Also, we expect massive price reductions on consumer access to renewable energy sources, such as solar panels and community owned wind turbines. More public funding will be made available for R&D, after a year of spending on a very established but distraught financial sector.  Green tech, green tax, are expressions we will be hearing a lot. While CSR has had plenty of attention in the past years, it’s now time for the colour green. More radical decisions will be seen when governments, companies and local councils make their energy decisions in the future, allowing for multiple speeds in regional development, where some act and others will wait and follow. The biggest risk we see to the future C02 emission reductions, are the South Atlantic Oil resevoir, which could lead to massive further emissions and little regulation, causing further stress to the environment. Finally, more smart meters for energy use, will be available in private and business housing, making actions more visible to the individual, leading to a change in behavior on energy.

You – Being the change?

Hub Members expect some interesting headlines for the coming year. Change seems to be the key factor. Job and career shifts are in fashion, several members see art as a growing aspect of their life, working on their own art projects, but also combining this with business and their daily lives. Also, some of the main challenges remain to convert ones own knowledge into cool cash that can pay the bills. Developing ones own business or working together with a few partners, has never been more relevant than this year, where traditional employers are continuing to lay of employees.

Expansion is also on the agenda, as members with more established businesses seek to grow their business into new sectors or even new countries. Also, there are enough aspirations to go around. Members are keen to see the world change in 2010 with new inroads being made into learning, the corporate world and how this relates to the change they want to see reflected in the world we live in.

Business – Diversification and Growth

There will be a split between people and profit oriented business, seeing boosted public support in favour of companies that take responsibility. Awareness is set to become more mainstream as a business trend with companies going to new levels in how they interact and take responsibility in society. Mindsets such as Cradle to Cradle will become adapted into corporate business and the consultancy field for this sector will experience exponential growth.  Social and ecological business will see rapid growth, while only becoming more mainstream in 2011, as the “social” remains too strong as a communist inspirednegative connotation.  Open source business models will begin to unfold to a larger degree, supported by peer to peer systems and new profit models will be put into place.

Society – Confrontation and Hope – The Death of Twitter

The ever growing restriction on human rights in the name of protection will in 2010 lead to more confrontation on the streets, in media and in organisations between the powers who wish to change and the ones wish to control. Better government will be seen implemented on a local level with more engagement from communities. Food crisis, even in industrial countries will become an issue, as crops will be ruined by bad weather and a boiling hot summer.  Open source will grow from technology into other parts of society as peer to peer learning systems are introduced. Green jobs, will be a new  social classification factor that will help create peoples identity as caring for the environment through being conscious of their work. One of the more sinister projections is the social networking will implode, when people realise that they are spending too much time on fake friends, rather than the ones who are actually there, physically around them.

Arts and Culture

After a decade of teaching creativity in the corporate world, results will begin to bare fruit. Creativity has become a household name across industries, spurring innovation unleashing creativity at work places. This will benefit europe in a world economy shifting to Asian leadership, with creativity and arts becoming a strong European export.  Culture for a social purpose and business/art hybrids will become more common as business comes to realise that art is an excellent way of communicating a deeper purpose to the world. The cultural sector will grow as a convener for community development on social issues, spurring more multidisciplinary projects, with people working cross sector on complex societal issues. Finally, the music and film industry will have to reshape and define it’s role in society, having lost the war against piracy. More music artists will work from their own labels, connecting consumers and fans to the musicians in a new way, while continuing to rely on touring and concerts for income. Independent film will also see substantial growth this year.

Our World – is a Noah’s ark – So row hard

More interracial babies, as races continue to mix, due to more and more immigration. Russia will enter a pivotal period in its history as the power struggle between Putin and Medvedev will blow completely into the open. The U.S. will be seriously challenged on many fronts, both culturally, economically and in a military sense. Main challengers will be China and India, while failure in the middle east will considerably weaken it’s political position in the world. Migration pressure will become a major issue for the EU as Italy, Spain and Greece continue to carry the brunt of the burden while human rights violations will be in focus, as migration pressure increases globally. India will increasingly be seen as source of solutions not just labour, going from taking regional leadership to assuming a bridging position in world politics, between China and the U.S.  End of the US dollar as the main currency and the financial reality as we know it. The Euro will be strengthened, bringing strong growth to the eurozone, following national banks worldwide switching their backing currencies from U.S. dollar to Euro. The world will continue getting smaller and hotter and more populated and connected, with technology leapfrogging to the next stages of connectivity.

Politics

Obama hits reality, repblicans book big 2010 gains, loosing both the mid term elections and occasional seats a long the way. The EU becomes more responsive to public activist pressure, with more community based organisations converging on Brussels to affect the political process. Gordon Brown will lose the UK elections and Labour will collapse in internal fighting for years to come. More regulation in finance sector, following the ever growing payouts despite the cost of the bailout across the world. A real european leadership will emerge, with cross European parties growing and finding a foothold, in preperation for the next parliamentary election. 2010 will be an unprecedented year for women in politics, taking the stage in elections worldwide.

Technology

Smaller start up tech companies will be visible under the motto: smaller is smarter. Instead of the current high output from a centralised corporate structure,  tech businesses will increasingly work more in partnerships, becoming networks of companies. More collaboration on innovation and design in the mobile content area, and truly large content providers will emerge here, as the apps trends explodes and consolidates towards the end of the year. The islate will be apple’s first flop in the market, while smartphones from google, such as the Nexus One break the ground in new mobile phone business models. Entertainment and experiences move into an augmented reality stage, and 2 in 5 phones will have smartphone capability at the end of the year, in the western handsets markets. nano + micro=macro -Increasingly real video games will be used for social and environmental awareness raising and online only platforms will overtake offline in the gaming industry in general.