Big tech is in governments’ crosshairs. There’s no let up in criticism of Silicon Valley’s giants over privacy scandals, social media censorship and alleged abuse coming from monopoly powers. Meanwhile, small business owners lament their fate as Amazon rakes in more and more of their business -- how can they compete? Government must step in!

For many years, “digital transformation” was all the rage, but it meant something different: mainly, hiring consultants or spending lots of money on technology. It was supposed to mean something more fundamental: how to future-proof companies to withstand new challenges and take advantage of new opportunities. But in 2020, companies were forced to make meaningful changes, not tweaks and time-wasting meetings, based on aligning technology with smart business strategy. Years’ worth of change happened in mere months.

As a regular reader of Recurrent Patterns, you’ll know my philosophy: technology should be our servant, not our master. It always should help people in their lives.

A timely example comes from one area of technology that’s close to my heart: Smart Cities.

Recurrent Pattern is the drive to make things better, use science and data to advance our understanding of the things around us, communicate better with each other and do things which have not been done before.

Launching Recurrent Patterns in 2020, I’ve been excited to share ideas that connect the dots between technology, business and the news that moves us.

I hope that you, my dear reader, found ideas useful and can use it as your inspiration for 2021. Here’s a look back at some of my favourites.

Dr Ben Evans is an Associate Professor in Aerospace Engineering and sits on the design team for the Bloodhound Land Speed Record project with responsibilities for aerodynamic modelling.

There are two big strategies companies should employ all the time: growth and focus. Growth is about exploring new capabilities, new markets and new customers.

Airlines bleeding money. Your favourite restaurants closing after repeated lockdowns. COVID is killing jobs. But even after a vaccine saves us, people will still be talking about another threat that didn’t go away: the possibility of AI stealing all the jobs.

A politically-incorrect reality TV showman takes the White House. America is in shock -- and following the election, it turns out faulty voting machines were involved.

It’s the plot from Man of the Year, a 2006 film starring Robin Williams - but change a detail or two and it might sound familiar in 2020, weeks after a US election.

Everybody knows -- the development of AI-powered robots will put most people out of work. Right?

It turns out that everyone may be wrong. At least, so far.