Recently, there has been so much conspiracy on 5G technology even though it is true that radio waves have an impact on our health we are beyond the stage of stopping the implementation of this technology. Safaricom has already done some tests and soon or later the technology will be already rolling.

Since we cannot stop it let us understand what this really means and the impact it will bring.

What is 5G

This is the 5^th Generation of wireless technologies that aims at opening up the spectrum to allow for more data transmission and increase the speed at which data can be transmitted from one point to the other.

Why Do we need 5G

5G will act as a catalyst that will accelerate the possibility of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Augmented reality, etc this are the technologies that will bring to us; self-driving cars, drones, robots, quick diagnoses in medicine and many other innovations.

As the population continues to grow the current spectrum cannot continue to support the number of data transmissions we currently have. Increased video streaming, chatting more and more voice calls, mobile money transactions the list is endless.

What will be the impact of 5G technology?

1. High Demand for Engineers and Data Scientists; We are moving to a data-driven economy where we will need people to model data in a way machines can understand. We will also need engineers to create and innovate the equipment to be used in line with these technologies.
2. Extreme Automation Leading to high quality and low cost per output: Most Jobs being done by people will be shifted to machines. Machines are near perfect at what they do, they can also do much more work than a human being, this will reduce the cost of production by increasing efficiency and output.
3. Privacy, Surveillance, and control; Automation is made possible by the collection of data and for this to happen, surveillance systems will be put in place. On the other hand, every online transaction requires data input and this means every information about us will be somewhere in the cloud this will trade our privacy.
4. Major Shift on Job Opportunities; as operations continue to be automated, there will be less need for some types of jobs. If we take E-commerce as an example, the introduction of drones and self-driving cars will eliminate the need for delivery guys. The RFID technology will reduce the number of people required to do stock takes.

Whoever has data has control.

This means that companies that will NOT adopt these technologies early enough will be left out and people whose jobs can be automated will be jobless in the near future