2021: tech innovation boom!

In most of these cases, holograms were created based on video footage of past performances, plus the recorded song.

Holograms can, however, be created entirely from the ground up, using voice actors and digitally-created images. That's what we saw in 2020 when Kanye West presented his wife Kim Kardashian with a hologram of her late father Robert.

Holograms presented in real-time will soon have an impact on elections. A candidate in the 2017 French presidential race gave a speech in seven venues simultaneously using holographic projection.

Meanwhile, holograms are being used in medicine, to design prosthetic devices that can be fitted more accurately and comfortably for the wearer. Remote surgeries can be conducted using holograms, with expert consultants working in one location and local, hands-on surgeons in another.

Holographic projection is also used in the design of furniture, cars and even buildings - using full-size or scaled-down versions of the final product. Cities are also being developed using 3D scale models.

As this technology improves and becomes more consumer viable, holograms will create a "virtual travel" market, which will be important for the environment. It will become much more common for business leaders to avoid costly air travel by casting into meetings a live hologram of themselves.

Soon thereafter, we'll see personalised holographic units, such as phones or wearables that can project basic holograms - at least, those that are pre-recorded. This will provide great consolation for workers in remote locations, who go for long periods without physical contact with their families.

Holograms will also provide another weapon in our war against mental illness.

Like virtual reality, holograms will provide opportunities for patients to face stressful situations or people within controlled environments. This will be a step up on the apps we have today, which help us break patterns of behaviour and explore different treatment options.

In 2021 we will keep some of our focus on dealing with Covid-19. But we will also produce rapid collaborative innovation in technologies that solve other problems. There's every reason to look forward with hope.