War in Ukraine Will Impact Technology and Business for Decades to Come

My wife is a native of Kyiv. Only the day before, as we called mom from Virginia, had the growing fear of a fully encircled city finally resonated enough with her to turn our pleas into action: she was ready to leave.

Once her journey began, my wife and I first tracked mom’s GPS enabled phone moving to the Kyiv train station and then, intermittently, along the rail route west. As she left, we did not know where she would cross a border or what delays she might encounter on her journey. From a just-booked ticket on a transatlantic jetliner with Wi-Fi, I watched the dot on my screen move with the bus that had departed Lviv in Western Ukraine. It moved along the map north until it reached a location near the Polish border. It had stopped.

For me and my family, every bit of this was deeply personal. Technology – including satellites, the Internet, wireless networks, and our devices – were aiding a critical need: finding mom. As war in Ukraine rages, companies and other observers of trends impacting business should watch how personal experience of technology in war has seismic impact on the future. Thinking of my own experience, some areas and trends to watch:

The dominance of mobile

While the two smartphones my mother-in-law and I own helped us find each other in difficult circumstance, high-ranking Russian Army officers had a far darker experience – reportedly meeting their demise due to mobile use on the same Ukrainian wireless networks. The mobile communications device – in whatever form it might take – has once again proven its immense power – and liability.

Consider: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has effectively used it to rally a nation most had written off and become perhaps the world’s most inspiring national leader in the age of the Internet. It’s been used to track troop movements, document war crimes, and project images to galvanize global action. As Ukrainian mobile networks have proved resilient, even the loss of besieged Mariupol’s last standing cell tower drew headlines as part of a humanitarian tragedy.

The mobile device increasingly renders more traditional technologies and tools irrelevant. But these advantages come with risks to privacy, government surveillance, and society’s growing addiction to small screens. These trends may not continue forever, but all should take heed that mobile technologies and the spectrum fueling it remain a critical and powerful agent of change.

The myth of the stateless, multinational corporation meets its end

The world’s largest companies often include board members and executives who hail from across the globe. Wherever companies establish employment centers, the best practices playbook dictates local hires and integrating operation within the community of a host nation. In the U.S., if the Honda you drive was built in Ohio, you’ve likely been made aware of that reality. And yes, my smartphone was made in China.

The sudden exodus of corporate entities from Russia and the shunning of Russian companies in the West underscores how certain geopolitical events can force even the most stubborn global fence sitters to pick a side. Conflict can also spur investigations of businesses with ties to hostile nations.

Looking to the future, corporate data storage decisions that intentionally seek to segregate business data away from national regulators could draw new scrutiny – and might even be called treasonous in extreme examples.

Even after the conflict is over, key global stakeholders – employees, customers, investors, and public officials – in neutral and more engaged countries will remember that, deep down, nationalism can still be a force within and upon corporations.

New dynamics for crypto and Web 3.0

On the day mom decided to leave and begin our journey, a loosely-knit group of volunteers in Kyiv answered my wife’s pleas for help over Telegram (a popular social messaging app in Eastern Europe) when we needed help shuttling mom from her flat to the Kyiv train station. These brave volunteers wouldn’t take a single hryvna my mother-in-law offered as thanks for their help. But my wife and I were able to send funds to help them via Paysend, an app we’d never used before.

The world was – and still is – trending more toward decentralized models of commerce, finance, and information. But war in Ukraine may create pause for some and greater urgency for others as these models have clear geo-strategic implications.

While the jury is still out on whether crypto currency could undermine international sanctions, the optics of even the discussion certainly aren’t great for an industry that already gets its most prominent press for involvement in criminal enterprise, terrifying value fluctuations, and repetitive warnings of potential worthlessness.

Even as events in Ukraine do not appear to threaten Web 3.0, the vision of a less consolidated yet still efficiently organized version of the Internet, they do raise considerations about control and accountability that regulators may find even more difficult to police.

Artificial intelligence’s growing relevance

Add using facial recognition technology to help notify an enemy’s next-of-kin that the body of their dead relative has been identified – just in case their own government isn’t forthcoming – to the ever-growing list artificial intelligence controversies.

Wars are often showcases, and even breeding grounds, for new technology. The jet engine, computers, and nuclear energy all emerged from and accelerated after the Second World War. In Ukraine, from drone systems to information warfare, artificial intelligence are part of this conflict.

War in Ukraine is likely to change discussion of artificial intelligence – and raise its awareness to do more than open your phone by looking at your face. Expect hardened, but perhaps still divergent, views about its essentiality for security and as well as moral hazards. Societies that fail to embrace such technologies may face greater security threats from abroad while those that throw caution to the wind may face greater threats from within.

Growth of big geospatial data

Satellites didn’t just power the GPS coordinates that tracked my mother-in-law on her journey or the in-flight Wi-Fi I used to obsessively watch them on my flight. Geospatial data from satellites is playing a game-changing role in the conflict.

The Wall Street Journal summarized an industry expert, “the impact of commercial imagery goes well beyond Ukraine: Governments can no longer get away with large-scale military activity without everyone knowing.” The Government of Ukraine has effectively used such services to achieve greater intelligence parity in its current conflict to great effect.

Through the conflict, expect private enterprise to take new notice as imaging from space raises novel commercial applications, and likely new concerns for regulators. The privacy concerns from geospatial monitoring of what we do in real life might one day dwarf those gathered from activity online.

Uniting with my mother-in-law and the end of globalization (as we know it)

Ten hours after she arrived at the crossing, forty hours after leaving her home, and only three hours after I arrived at the border, a screenshot of my location (blue dot) on the Poland side of the crossing helped convince my mother-in-law to leave her bus and attempt to cross on foot.

Her passport was stamped by the Polish border guard and after she maneuvered around gates never designed for pedestrian crossings, I gave her a hug and put her on my phone with my wife. We left for Warsaw and, as of this writing, she is safe with us in Virginia.

Blackrock CEO Larry Fink recently told shareholders, “the Russian invasion of Ukraine has put an end to the globalization we have experienced over the last three decades.” Fink’s letter to shareholders focused on substantial realities about sanctions, energy supplies, and global financial markets.

Writing from personal experience, I submit that how the conflict impacts technologies and new perceptions will have an equal or even greater impact on the world for decades to come. People of Earth are destined to both praise technologies as our savior and fear their growing power over us. Battles – information, economic, and military – shaped by technology as well as human struggles of many families in Ukraine and abroad are writing tomorrow’s history.