Technology is changing faster than ever — sometimes before your very eyes. It’s interesting to experience the rapid evolution and draw conclusions about what that means for the future. While the OpenVPN team doesn’t possess any crystal balls, they are all very good about keeping an eye on changing technologies and predicting what advances might occur in the near future. We put out some feelers to see what changes the team foresees in tech over the next few years, and what they have their eyes on:
Rohit, Senior Project Manager: Use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to percolate throughout the various technology sectors. There will be continued growth in providing all kinds of services packaged as SaaS. Demand for secure connectivity will continue to grow as more services reside in the Cloud with more devices reliant on them. I am always watching how AI can benefit products in the security realm.
Johan, Access Server Project Manager: We are already in a situation nowadays where a lot of companies are moving away from physical self-hosted servers and going to hiring cloud server capacity, and that will probably continue. As such, VPN will continue to be a valuable technology to get secure access to such systems. Quantum computing is an interesting development. I am looking forward to what quantum technology can do for us — but it seems quite far off before we get practical applications that we'll notice in our daily lives. I suppose AI is where things can get interesting, especially when combined with security and hacking. I know this is already being used to some degree with machine learning and such, but we'll see where this can go.
Andriy, Operations Manager: I see the continued development of cloud, edge computing, and IoT, and the rise of algorithms, automation, and AI as the most important global trends that will continue to change our lives in the future.
Martin, Customer Relations Manager: There are some great teams leveraging blockchain, AI, and Machine Learning to disrupt old industries and level the playing field. This type of disruption helps build an overall, more transparent, and fair society.
Yurii, New Billing Product Manager: Technical solutions will become even more sophisticated and will have more vectors for attackers. I anticipate and am prepared for less personal privacy: web cameras with artificial intelligence (face and even “walking style” recognition), official tracking by the government of your location, and social interactions — all by your smartphone. Perhaps more and more countries will calculate “social rating” for their citizens. From the positive side, I’m waiting for more precise artificial intelligence and finally working direct neural interface; I hope to see commercially available quantum computers that will bring humanity to a whole new level.
Gary, Head of HR and Compliance: Areas I expect to change are; continued automation and AI in the recruitment process, more personalization throughout the entire workforce with more emphasis on employee-based solutions, and stronger partnerships for new opportunities to expand talent and reach.
Yuriy, UI/UX Architect: I think that in the world that is broadly adopting remote work, cybersecurity will always matter the most. And I look forward to seeing the growth of the usage of our products as a result. I keep an eye on the new releases of OS (Android/iOS/macOS/Windows) and new features or changes they bring to the market with an idea to keep our applications ahead of the competitors.
Kyryl, Product Manager: The products we are working on here at OpenVPN will change the way people think about VPN’s and network security.