ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the most important trends and megatrends in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in order to identify and detail the issues and challenges that Eurotech is facing and will face in the future. The ICT sector is definitely a context where acceleration, interconnection and discontinuity are ever-present conditions that have to be dealt with on an ongoing basis. The spread of personal computers, the development of broadband networks, and the acquired habit of dealing with increasingly advanced technologies have all given momentum to the rise of new technologies and new service categories. Besides, ICT is a recent, constantly changing sector. Finally, the ICT sector assimilates many ideas from different disciplines: not just computer science and electronics, but also biology, genetics etc., and this is why we talk about GRIN convergence (genetics, robotics, informatics and nanotechnology). Both for society and for individuals, the Internet of Things will result in an improved quality of life.
