Eric Schmidt, who is the Chairman and CEO of Google, has made his viewpoint clear when it comes to 2009 and the future of technology. According to Schmidt, there has never been a better time to graduate from college than in 2009. Despite the down job market and the uncertain economy, he maintains that this year is a great year for graduates to embark on their career path journey.

“Change happens when things are hard,” said Schmidt when speaking at the Top Speaker Series presented by the Stanford Graduate School of Business. “The economy and the situation that we’re in now will create phenomenal opportunities that are before each and every one of you. If you think about it, this is literally the best time to graduate in 50 years. Assets are cheap, and expectations are set realistically.”

Schmidt isn’t just the Chairman and CEO of Google, however, as he also serves as an advisor to the Obama administration when it comes to the economy and technology policies. As such, it doesn’t come as much of a surprise to learn that Schmidt feels a great deal of excitement when it comes to what the future of technology has in store for us. In fact, Schmidt maintains that the technological changes that are slated to occur will have a significant impact on finance, government, medicine and other aspects of our society. One way this is going to happen is through the technology of cloud computing.

Cloud computing, which involves allowing computer systems to share applications through the Internet, allows businesses to reduce their in-house information technology systems. Although this technology is still in its early stages and has not yet reached its full potential, the potential is truly astounding.

“With cloud computing, it’s now possible to have the same apps at home and at work and still have the same level of security,” stated Schmidt. “In Google, we can actually detect anonymously rises in queries because we centralize the servers and then we can alert the health care professionals that we thing that there is an outbreak of flu in their area and get them [involved]. The cycle is about six months earlier. This saves somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 lives a year because we use that information to get people ahead of the cycle.”

Schmidt also sees cloud computer ultimately making a major impact on the world of education. For example, rather than reading from textbooks, students might be assigned to complete a set of queries and can become “experts” in a topic that is of interest to them. The same idea could apply to the medical field, where doctors can share information about treatments that were successful and ones that were not.

“Can you imagine if you had the same thing about the financial world?” asked Schmidt. “And we had been able to use that to monitor the things that happened over the past five years in the broad-based global financial industry? Think about how different we would be in terms of knowing where we are and what we have to do.”

Schmidt also foresees technology helping to make the government more transparent, as the public would be able to turn to the Internet to see the changes that have been made to bills. Furthermore, he foresees cameras being placed in every public room so the public can watch video that is being streamed live at any time.

“The new idea,” said Schmidt “is that transparency is the best defense against bad decisions.”
There are certainly many technological changes on the horizon. According to Schmidt, many of these changes are about to occur over the next year or so. No wonder he thinks there has never been a better time for students to graduate from college!