I wrote a phone call to take action so that the tech community delves deeper into the future of innovation in the next decade. But where will some of the hot spots come from? Below, I have assembled a very large set of five clusters broadly categorized into 'well-being', 'climate', 'data society', 'creativity' and 'fundamentals' which offer some basis for understanding what is to come in this decade and how and any entrepreneur - indeed, any citizen - can start building progress.
Take these ideas for inspiration: they are not limits, nor should the boundaries of these categories be seen as anything other than the limit. I know that in the daily news show it can be difficult to feel inspired by the future. But be! There is much more to come in this decade than we can look back on to the 2010s as the dark age of innovation.
"Welfare"
First, there is a group around "well-being". This is sometimes elided to just "mental health" and reduced to a prescription bottle, but this area really encompasses so much more. How do we build humanistic societies with strong social fabrics that animate, enrich and build meaning for our lives?
Yes, we've seen strong demand for wellness apps like Calm and Headspace. Exercise hardware such as Peloton, Mirror and others along with platforms especially around group classes have been a huge mainstay during this pandemic era. Mental health treatment itself is undergoing a makeover as startups reinvigorate the therapist and psychiatrist's visit in person and think about new models of providing mental health services virtually. LSD is also starting to make progress as a potentially useful tool, and psychedelics will be an interesting area to keep an eye on in the coming years.
All of these areas are still ripe for innovation, but how can we go deeper and begin addressing the root causes of distress and despair?
Take work, for example. How can we make workers feel more secure and meaningful in a remote world where concert work makes up a growing fraction of all employment? Job insecurity has a direct effect on well-being, and it will take a much bigger leap than a reclassification battle like this election cycle in California to make jobs "work" for all people. What can we do for wage stability, both from work and from programs such as universal basic income to give people a sense of belonging to their own destiny?
How do we begin to create the bonds of neighborhoods and communities that hold people together and offer comfort in times of despair? Part of this is improving the average city and making it more human-centered (they're like 20 startups right there), but it also includes building more vibrant and expressive virtual worlds where we can find online neighborhoods that are safer than the dumpster fires we find on the web today.
Then there is the health system in general. While America deservedly receives enormous criticism for its overpriced and underinsured system, healthcare systems around the world face incredible pressures to improve efficiency. How can we make assistance better, more personalized and more open? How can we reduce costs by ensuring that care is accurate and delivered quickly? There is a huge amount of work to be done to make health a key component.
To increase the well-being of individuals, we must increase the well-being of our societies by building systems designed for the humans who inhabit them. Flexibility with confidence, commitment with individuality, expression with support. Our existing systems are already out of date and we haven't found anything better.
This group is about the question "How does the world make us feel?"
"Climate"
The second cluster has to do in general with the Earth, climate, crisis and resilience. Climate change is real and is not going away, and literally billions of people will feel the effects in the coming decades. Rising tides, massive hurricanes, power outages, fires, droughts and more will become part of our daily vernacular.
Resilience is not something any technology can offer, but innovation has enormous potential to allow more of our systems to adapt to the changing nature of our world today.
