Future-oriented innovations are a range of products or companies and techniques which can enhance the lives of individuals. They can help improve areas such as healthcare and space technology or boost a company’s competitiveness. To produce these, it requires many hours of work from various high tech technique stakeholders. It also requires a paradigm shift as well as an epistemic awareness. It is important that the staff and leadership of an organization are open to learning from the long-term trends and paying attention to them.
The most common obstacles in fostering innovation that is future-oriented are fear of the unknown or change, and an emphasis on the short-term benefits. In an organization, these barriers can be overcome with an attitude of growth and a culture of innovative thinking. Employees will also feel motivated to work towards an end-point in the future. This is commonly referred to as phronesis, which means that individuals must have an incentive to make difficult decisions in their work and it can result in higher employee preservation rates for companies that have a futuristic mindset.
There is increasing evidence that innovation ecosystems can benefit from a more thorough understanding of future possibilities. This can be achieved by integrating foresight into innovation ecosystems and strengthening the structural connections between research programs and strategy building processes, and increasing the overall awareness of future options by incorporating different perspectives into dialog. The foresight wheel model is a methodological design that can be utilized to meet these needs with a practical and efficient manner that is scalable. This article outlines this new approach for developing innovative technologies that are geared towards the future.