371862 03: Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock in the television series, "Star Trek."

Star Trek either inspired or predicted many of the astonishing developments we live with today, says Lewis Liu

I’m a huge Star Trek nerd, having watched since I was a kid. I’m not alone amongst tech founders – sci-fi remains a core inspiration for us. Elon Musk famously cites the late British sci-fi novelist Iain M Banks as an influence . Apple’s iPad was directly inspired by Star Trek’s PADD.

What’s remarkable is how much Star Trek predicted correctly on tech trends. Technologies the show predicted would take hundreds of years, like touchscreens, video conferencing and mobile communicators, arrived in just 30-50 years. In fact, the mobile revolution was directly inspired by the handheld communicator from

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