In The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab provides this historical perspective:

“The first profound shift in our way of living — the transition from foraging to farming — happened around 10,000 years ago and was made possible by domestication of animals…The agrarian revolution was followed by a series of industrial revolutions that began in the second half of the 18th century. These marked the transition from muscle power to mechanical power, evolving to where today, with the fourth industrial revolution, enhanced cognitive power is augmenting human production.

“The first industrial revolution spanned from about 1760 to around 1840. Triggered by the construction of railroads and the invention of the steam engine, it ushered in mechanic al production. The second industrial revolution, which started in the late-19th century and into the early-20th century, made mass production possible, fostered by the advent of electricity and the assembly line. The third industrial revolution began in the 1960s. It is usually called the computer or digital revolution because it was catalyzed by the development of semiconductors, mainframe computing (1960s), personal computing (1970s and ’80s), and the internet (1990s).”

Schwab believes that we at the beginning of a fourth industrial revolution, one that began at the beginning of this century and builds on the digital revolution. “It is characterized by a much more ubiquitous and mobile internet, by smaller and more powerful sensors that have become cheaper, and by artificial intelligence and machine learning.”

As he explains, “The fourth industrial revolution, however, is not only about smart and connected machines and systems. Its scope is much wider. Occurring simultaneously are red waves of further breakthroughs in areas ranging from gene sequencing to nanotechnology, from renewables to quantum computing. It is the fusion of these technologies and their interaction across the physical, digital, and biological domains that make the fourth industrial revolution fundamentally different from previous revolutions.”

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Klaus Schwab was born in Ravensburg, Germany in 1938. He is Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

He founded the Forum in 1971 and it has since become the world’s foremost platform for public and private cooperation. Under his leadership, the Forum has been a driver for reconciliation efforts in different parts of the world, acting as a catalyst of numerous collaborations and international initiatives. (See the history page for more information).

An engineer and economist by training, Professor Klaus Schwab holds doctorates in Economics (summa cum laude) from the University of Fribourg, in Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and a Masters of Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1972 he became one of the youngest professors on the faculty of the University of Geneva. He has received numerous international and national honours.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution was published by Currency/Penguin Random House (2017).