Can you imagine travelling overseas to discuss an export trade deal, and not having to take a translator - instead you just take a pill? Well that situation may only be a few decades off, according to one of Australia's leading social futurist.
Chief Strategy Officer at WPP AU/NZ, Rose Herceg told the Australian Banana Industry Congress in Sydney that with artificial intelligence or machinery already engrained in everyday life, it is time to start thinking about military grade technology that is in the planning. She was recently given a tour of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in America.
"DARPA invented everything that is genius in this world; the Internet, GPS," Ms Herceg said. "18 year-olds think that GPS was invented by Google with Google maps, but it wasn't. Everything in this world that is genius was touched in some way, shape or form by this organisation."
The agency has a $1 trillion a year research budget, and Ms Herceg says she was blown away by some of the projects that are being developed, which could be utilised by the fresh produce industry in as little as five years.
The Broad Operational Language Translation (BOLT) is a little further away. Currently in the form of an injection, it is being adapted to a pill form, will allow people to have the treatment and be able to speak another of the top five languages across the world: English, Mandarin, Spanish, Hindu Swami and Arabic.
"It works on the synapses in your brain, that small children have uber developed that are better adaptive to new language skills," Ms Herceg said. "It will give you enough conversational Spanish or Mandarin to be able to speak. The pills will be coming out in 28, 21, 10 or 7 day versions. So if you want to go over to China and cut a deal with the market there, and you don't trust the translator, and you can't speak Cantonese or Mandarin - pop a pill and off you go. Language is the single biggest barrier to business around the world."
However, a lot more work needs to be conducted, as initial studies have found it caused minor brain swelling, and Ms Herceg estimates another 20 years before it is publicly used.
Another was Gait Biometric Technology, which she says uses a three dimensional scan of your body, to predict how you think and feel. Gait refers to physical traits such as the way in which a person walks, which is unique to an individual, for example the way you hold yourself, the way you swing your arms, show confidence or even cross your feet.
"This technology predicted how I vote, how I think, what my general political views are, am I a fan of fruits and vegetables, or packaged food and takeaway," she said. "More importantly how I spent my money. Was I quick and impulsive or did I take my time? Within 99 per cent it predicted everything about how I behave, what I think, what I do."
She says this technology could be applied to the fresh produce industry, at the retail outlets to determine a customer's preference in varieties and sizes and is the "Last frontier in understanding predictive modelling and behaviour segmentation."
DARPA are also investigating genetic modified insects could also help seek out and eradicate problem pests, and protect crops, while work is also being conducted on Kevlar devices, which can climb upwards and remain very sturdy and could replace ladders, netting or physical structures such as walls. Ms Herceg says advancements are also being made on a porous concrete like substance, called Engineering Living Material (ELM), which regrows its tentacles when hit by a natural disaster.
"If the 9/11 towers had been built with this structure, at the time of the attack, they would have stayed up long enough for people to exit the building," she says. "It's a regrowing structure, so when it gets hit by something, particular for growers in disaster prone areas, structures that can regrow and stay upright. They don't look pretty, but they don't need to. It can protect crops or the home you are living in to the degree it won't fall down."
A development that Ms Herceg says is just as important is a Food Crime Unit, which criminalises people who lie about the prominence or contents of their food. She says it puts CEO's of food companies in jail for saying their food is grown one way but it is grown another.
"This is an incredible first step in criminalising negligent food behaviour, which has to be music to the ears of anyone in the primary industry that is in fresh food competing against 'fake' food," she said.
To read more about DARPA visit: www.darpa.mil
For more information:Rose Herceg
WPP AU/NZ
Phone: +61 2 9373 6488