An illustration of a woman orbiting Mars inside a SpaceX vehicle. Elon Musk/SpaceX
Elon Musk said he’s “definitely going to be dead” before humans reach Mars unless innovation speeds up.
The SpaceX CEO made the comments on Monday while speaking to attendees of the Satellite 2020 conference in Washington, DC.
Musk said the biggest obstacle is designing and building a large and “rapidly reusable” rocket.
According to the technology and data company Crunchbase, an astounding $825 million in venture capital investment has flowed into legal and legal-tech sectors just since the start of 2018.What do you think about when you hear the terms “disruption” and “technological innovation?” What industries and sectors come to mind?
Autonomous cars, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, genetic testing, cryptocurrencies and various other technologies likely populate the top of your list.
However, if you strictly limit your perception of innovation to these flashy concepts, you could be missing out on transformational booms that are happening across industries that wouldn’t be categorized as cutting edge.
Because of significant injections of investment capital and a traunch of fresh ideas, new companies and opportunities are arising in traditional fields that may challenge your perception about which markets are hot versus which are not.
Continue reading… “Five traditional industries on the verge of an innovation boom”
Richard Florida: One of the most persistent myths in America today is that urban areas are innovative and rural areas are not. While it is overwhelmingly clear that innovation and creativity tend to cluster in a small number of cities and metropolitan areas, it’s a big mistake to think that they somehow skip over rural America.
A series of studies from Tim Wojan and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service documents the drivers of rural innovation. Their findings draw on a variety of data sets, including a large-scale survey that compares innovation in urban and rural areas called the Rural Establishment Innovation Survey (REIS). This is based on some 11,000 business establishments with at least five paid employees in tradable industries—that is, sectors that produce goods and services that are or could be traded internationally—in rural (or non-metro) and urban (metro) areas.
Continue reading… “The rise of the rural creative class”
Around the world, in places like Barcelona, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York, there’s an exciting new co-location concept spurring innovation: Multi-sector innovation hubs that span a range of business models, ownership structures, and physical layouts. The goal of all is to create a motivating work environment where businesses of all kinds can learn from each other, make connections, develop new skills, and get inspired to reach the next level. Many of the hubs occupy imaginatively repurposed iconic buildings, including museums, warehouses, train stations, navy yards and hospitals, giving new life to underutilized parts of cities that had lost their previous vibrancy. What follows are six of the best global innovation hubs.
Continue reading… “A new wave of innovation hubs sweeping the world”
It’s better to prepare than adapt because, by the time you see the need to adapt, it may already be too late
One of the most interesting things I discuss in my book Mapping Innovation is what I call the new era of innovation, which will create profoundly new technologies, classes of data and business models. It is likely to be the most important shift we’ve seen in at least 50 years and perhaps in a century.
Continue reading… “We’re on the Brink of a New Era of Innovation. Will You Survive It?”
Homelessness is widespread and hard to solve, affecting more than 560,000 people in the U.S. and hundreds of millions around the world.
Continue reading… “8 incredible innovations helping homeless people around the world”
Swedish architects Mads-Ulrik Husum and Sine Lindholm collaborated with Space10, Ikea’s innovation lab, to design a piece of living furniture that can feed quite a few people, from the looks of it.
Called the Growroom, it’s a flat-pack spherical garden that grows plants, veggies, and herbs.
“Standing tall as a spherical garden, it empowers people to grow their own food much more locally in a beautiful and sustainable way,” its designers write on Medium.
Though Space10 launched the Growroom in late 2016, the designers just made the plans open-source. You can download the instruction manual on Space10’s site.
You may hear quite often that “the only reason solar is so cheap is because China is dumping cells. ”Let me correct it. Here is the price, as of February 2015, of solar modules, per watt sold in Europe. SE Asia (Malaysia, mostly) is cheapest. China is next. Japan, Korea, and Germany are slightly above that.
Continue reading… “Innovation is the reason China’s solar is cheap”
Scientists are creating and discovering new materials all the time, but few are so jaw-droppingly cool that they deserve to be recognized. Continue reading… “Coolest chemical substances humans have discovered”
Kahol built a prototype of a device called the Swasthya Slate (which translates to “Health Tablet”).
Kanav Kahol was a member of Arizona State University’s department of biomedical informatics. He became frustrated at the lack of interest by the medical establishment in reducing the costs of diagnostic testing, and seeing almost no chance of getting the necessary research grants he returned home to New Delhi in 2011Kahol had noted that, despite the similarities between most medical devices in their computer displays and circuits, their packaging made them unduly complex and difficult for anyone but highly skilled practitioners to use. And they were incredibly expensive — costing tens of thousands of dollars each.
War for developers
The emergence of next-generation social, mobile, analytics and cloud technology has sparked a war for developers able to continue the fast pace of innovation. Enterprises that want to remain in business tomorrow would be wise to make the right changes today.
Continue reading… “The rapidly changing world of IT sparks a war for developers”
Self-driving cars manage to backfire on Los Angeles and cause even more traffic.
In the year 2030, Google has taken over Atlanta’s transportation system. Self-driving cars have failed to solve Los Angeles’s traffic problems. There’s a fleet of smart buses and on-demand “jitneys” in New Jersey And Boston is hyper-dense: People live in downtown micro-apartments and get around mostly by walking and cycling.
Continue reading… “Top 4 scenarios for the future of transportation”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.