the 2015 innovation forecast report
TRANSCRIPT
The emphasis on creating innovations has never been so strong as it is these days. Young innovators can count on support of entrepreneurs, investors, scientists and authorities as well. Outstanding, innovative projects capture a lot of attention. What we have to remember when entering exciting world of innovation?
New solutions can be named as innovation only when they are successfully implemented to use. In other cases we are dealing with an invention. It has rather questionable commercial application, until a group of receivers is found which needs such solution and is willing to pay for it.
The commercialization of research outcomes and development studies, which are the best source of innovations at the moment, will be the biggest challenge for scientists, entrepreneurs and investors. Each innovation should be a solution to a particular, defined problem. Only then it will be possible to create proper business model and introduce a product or a service on the market.
Following trends isn't in innovators' nature as they are cut out for blazing new trails. Nevertheless, knowledge of trends may help in identifying areas where specific needs for innovation will appear in the upcoming time.
The 2015 Innovation Forecast Report is aimed at indicating directions of development of business projects which shall have the greatest market potential in near future. Opinions presented in this report are to inspire and discover areas that will increase our chances of market success when explored.
Feel free to read it and share your thoughts with us.
2
Marcin Kowalik
Managing Partner, Black Pearls VC
2015 Innovation Forecast Report
preface
@mpkowalik
#BlackPearlsVC#2015ifr
Social changes depend more often on particular bloggers, influential trendsetters, who form ephemeral clouds of social network relations with their followers. They are the ones who are increasingly shaping the form of dialogue. The significance of individuals equipped with smartphones and wireless data transmission will increase and it will alter our milieu. The balance of power will shift more rapidly than ever. Even not evaluating the results of those changes, it’s already clear that we’re entering a world where the central and local authority will lose its significance to individuals who can influence opinions of others over the Internet. The way we learn, communicate, react and organize ourselvesis evolving.
A local authority equipped with proper technology would be able to manage the city more efficiently; that includes areas such as public transport, traffic, public services or education. Even today, authorities are backed by smart technologies and change modeling possibilities during decision making processes. However, due to fluctuation of prices for access to information technologies, methods of change management have to evolve as well. That is becoming a vital challenge for bureaucracies around the globe.
We do not know and cannot precisely predict how technology will affect urban population. We don’t know which technologies would be dominating in a few years time, or what expectations and possibilities of citizens will be. Soon, the generation which has known smartphones since the early childhood will grow up. Those who don’t remember the world before the Internet are becoming the dominant group. We don’t know social, cultural, and economic consequences of the fact that young people have been living and sharing their lives on social media from early childhood. Nevertheless, I think that this generation will be different in some ways from the previous ones. Social media and smartphones influence the quality and density of interpersonal interactions. The social life is becoming more and more dynamic, but also more susceptible to sudden outbursts or emotions. An important and noteworthy change shall be expected in the upcoming years thanks to the use of new technologies, is the shift in participation in social life, especially the public one.
The number of metropolitan citizens who actively exercise their right to discuss, object and propose changes through the Internet is rising steadily. It’s becoming easier and faster to organize different groups of interest. The Internet and social media allow the society to elect its own opinion makers, detached from the traditional political parties, authorities or conventional media. Urban activism, fueled by and organized with the use of modern technologies is a completely new quality, having an increasingly greater importance. If cities want to be smart, they have to adapt to the new reality, responding to their civil and technological challenges with agility and flexibility. Improving the transparency of public data and communication with citizens is the biggest challenge of modern city authorities. Moreover, the vast amount of accessible information requires smart decision making, analyzing and reasoning. That is yet another challenge for the smart society.
PawełAdamowicz
The Mayor of the city of Gdansk
32015 Innovation Forecast Report @AdamowiczPawel
#smartengagement#smartsociety
Open Data – how to build a Smart City
nternet video – an amateur TV business phenomenon.
Open Data + Crowdsourcing + App = Smart City. This is an equation which in 2015, should be present in each modern city hall in our country. Data Sharing is not only a sign of political maturity but also is an essential direction in development of modern Polis. Opening data arrays and connecting them to get proper relations (Open Linked Data), engaging society in decision making processes and digitalizing social discussions will enable to use social intelligence to build aware and modern cities of the future. Smart Cities are mistakenly depicted as a vision of a space packed with advanced electronics. That makes an idea of Smart Cities too distant and impossible to implement. The discussion considering Open Data is dominated by transparency and authority control issues. Yet, information about ourselves is an exceptional source of social innovations, powerful indicator of all social services and infinite source of social research. Americans evaluate the area of Open Data for billions of dollars. I believe that 2015 will be a breakthrough year for Open Data for both the government and local authorities.
IRecent years have shown growing significance of: youtubers, vloggers and other personas of the world of the Internet. We can easily call them Internet celebrities, they have millions of fans who like and follow their heroes. What is even more interesting, the current niche soaks up mainstream characters. The youth manifests new appetite for multimedia consumption. For those who have retired this business (sadly I’m among them) this movement is shocking and phenomenal at the same time, often being tremendously authentic as well. It isn’t enough to do something professionally or in a posh way, you have to be authentic to the bone. Authenticity attracts and provokes, from that point it is close to a commercial success. Without no doubt, 2015 will bring constituting and mass commercialization of online video business.
Recent years on the mobile market have been marked by ongoing struggle of telecoms to get clients and by an improvement of mobile data transmission speed: LTE, LTE+”4G”. The fastest network, fast Internet are the synonyms of modernity, innovation and progress represented by all telecoms on Polish market. At the same time, mobile app revolution is taking place behind the scenes of telecom companies. We connect to the Internet without knowing that we live and function online, and our kids are tagged as Digital Natives (quoting Marc Prensky). The era of daily life facilitating apps is a hegemony of Android, IOS and Windows. The alliance between software developers and hardware manufacturers (smartphones, tablets, computers, etc.) has pushed the telecoms down to the second leauge. They have been limited to a role of data transmission medium, where only the price per megabyte of transfer is relevant. Nowadays the mobile market is in fact the market of apps, smartphones, tablets, sensors and all this electronic stuff, which awaits the predicted time of the Internet of Things.
There are several forecasts for 2015 below. What seems to be the most valuable is the connection of technical capabilities of telecoms as well as new, unexplored directions such as Open Data or social driven software.
2015 is OpenStack’s year – this is open source software for developing private and public clouds. It is backed by a huge community of over 200 brands such as: Cisco, Dell, HP, IBM, Redhat and VMware. Over 800 programmers and 6000 persons who constitute active community have contributed to the main code development. The business is ready for implementation of solutions based on OpenStack. Flexibility, openness and a fresh concept have a chance to gain substantial share of cloud business. An additional factor is maturity of large and medium companies to optimize their IT resources. They start a massive race towards virtualization after years of trainings, conferences and workshops focusing on cloud benefits. The concern about sharing resources, safety issues or access quality are diminishing when company executives see funds which stay on company’s accounts after conducted implementations.
Virtualization –cost reducing element of IT infrastructure
4
Sebastian Grabowski
Director of the Research and Development Centre, Orange Poland
2015 Innovation Forecast Report
#OpenLinkedData
Platforms such as Zapier or IFTT(If This Then That – one of the simplest and the most popular algorithms) enable matching API functions of popular services with each other. Transforming Gmail message to Wunderlist task? No problem at all. Forwarding a message from online form to CRM? That’s simple as well. Thanks to such platforms everyone can design simple and tailored algorithms. Coding skills? Not necessarily. 2015 will bring greater popularity of such type of services.
Data-driven is a trend that is expanding steadily. Devices which accompany us measure number of steps which we do daily, they can determine favorite places or ... efficiency at work. From that point there is just one step forward to automated recruitment processes.
Right now, platforms such as HackerEarth, Codility or TestDome enable design and automated verification of tests for programmers. Let’s add rivalry component to the mix (beat average score of our developers) and we have additional motivating element.
In 2015 we will definitely observe more sectors which could benefit from such automated processes. Gamification and automation will make HR managers’ work not only easier but also more accurate and ... effective.
Gamification in recruitment
Voice interfaces
Automation by amateurs
Amazon Echo is a high quality speaker and a very sensitive microphone which is permanently connected to the network. It can be put everywhere at home and simply left to listen. “Echo, what’s the height of Mount Everest?”, “How many spoons of flour are in 20 decagrams?” or “Play me the last Britney Spears album” – all these questions and requests will be politely fulfilled by Echo. “Add sugar to the shopping list” will be remembered as well. Thanks to the Amazon Prime service (delivery of light packages by drones), Echo will not only be able to answer our questions but replenish the fridge as well.
Amazon is in the business of logistics supply for online stores. If they are able to eliminate graphic interface, besides reducing delivery time (from 24 hours these days to 20 minutes by a drone) they will have no competition. Is that so?
Google is trying to do the same on smartphone screen via Google Now app. Microsoft is heading in the same direction with their Cortana, or Apple (which was the first on the battleground) and their Siri. In 2015 we will see many more smart voice interfaces.
Do you know what API is? This is Application Programming Interface – thanks to it you can ask any app with enabled API to do something for you. For instance you can ask webmail app to access all mails from 2014. After that, you can ask back-up app to store all those e-mails in one huge archive. Finally you can prompt your cloud drive to move this archive to “Old mail” folder. Thanks to API software developers can make apps “talk to each other”. But, are developers the only people who can do that?
PawełTkaczykAll-Father,
MIDEA
52015 Innovation Forecast Report @TkaczykPawel
#gamification
country comes to the city, represented by farmers. Regularly. At fixed hours. And... they come more and more often because the demand for agricultural produce is constantly growing. Thus, there was a coherent and shared method of distribution and transport introduced immediately. Based on mutual relations and trust, the cooperation started to thrive. This way, we – busy townies – live closer to natural and healthyfood products.
Also, I am also truly impressed with what numerous entities such as cooperatives, foundations or associations can offer.Let me mention the activity of a recording studio as an example. As long as the studio was operating on commercial basis, any kind of social innovation was out of question (perhaps we could talk about technological innovation, though). However, when the owner of the studio realized that about 60% of the youth listens to rap music, he decided to do something about it (not for his own profit, though!). Now, he is carrying out a project, within which every child can record his or her own music album for free, as long as it fulfils certain conditions: the content must be positive and must convey positive message. Being involved in the programme is at the same time a declaration to refrain from all stimulants. In the sake of what? To have a chance to perform with a music star, record your own album and stretch your wings on themusic scene. I believe this is a perfect example of social innovation at its best: cultivating talents where they initially have poor chances to bloom, where there is no faith and no opportunities.
I could list more examples like the ones above. Some of them would probably seem surprising to you, but they are always fascinating and truly inspiring.Social innovations, within the society and for the society always serve people. What is more, the number of them is increasing and in my opinion will still be increasing inthe future.Fortunately!Thus, I would like to encourage you to take part in the dialogue on this issue.
Innovation – the keyword and buzzword in the reality we live in (We talk much less frequently about invention. What a pity!). Innovation is mainly associated with technology. This association is perhaps natural, obvious or even automatic.In my everyday work, first in an Industrial and Technological Park, and now in the Science and Technology Park, I am surrounded by innovations. Innovations force their way into more and more areas of our life (not only where they are most expected, that is in ICT, biotechnology, medicine, etc.). Here I mean social innovations, which are entailed with the existence and development of technology, with humans behind it, surrounded by the ecosystem in which they live. Adaptation, understanding of the needs and coexistence constitute an inevitable process in this entireinnovative machine.Let's take education as the first example. Only a few of us today gain knowledge once and for all. We are rather aware of the need for continuous self-development. We count on quantity instead of quality of knowledge processing. We acquire wide knowledge rather than profound knowledge. We learn to react to the current needs of the market almost instantly. Nowadays, you can retrain yourself in only 4 months and prepare for work as a computer programmer or software tester, who will be highly competitive on the labour market. I am personally involved in a programme like this. A programme which aims at preparing its female participants for work at the position of software tester.Thanks to this programme we have already managed to increase the supply of testers, which are constantly demanded on the market; improve the parity in IT; fill positions of software tester with extremely motivated employees (because that's what is usually associated with the features of female personality), employers having inborn competences; and last but not least – decrease the unemployment rate. Isn't all this innovative?
Another interesting example of a social innovation are projects which involve bringing farmhouse products closer to the cities. It seems that the availability of summer vegetables in winter stopped being that uncritically appreciated (though, paradoxically, it is possible thanks to innovations). More and more people want to buy healthy, unprocessed food. And instead of city citizens making a trip out to the country, the
6
Izabela Disterheft
Director, Gdansk Science and Technology Park
2015 Innovation Forecast Report
#socialinnovation
Crowdsourcing platforms are often a cheaper alternative to actions undertaken in R&D departments. In comparison with other methods of knowledge transfer such as acquisition of external experts or ordering universities to do a research, crowdsourcing is marked by significantly shorter task execution time.
The cooperation of anonymous groups of Internet users may in fact operate on a dispersed level, where users are not gathered in a community around advanced platforms.
The largest global brands such as Coca Cola, Pepsi, Oreo, Budweiser, Nokia or Unilever have already used crowdsourcing. Users were mainly engaged in marketing campaigns or they were helping to develop new products. However, crowdsourcing can be also used in science which has been proved by Amazon Mechanical Turk platform. It helps researchers to conduct surveys or complex computing.
In the upcoming years crowdsoursing will expand along with the power of the Internet. Creativity and imagination of new campaign or project developers will be the only limit.
User engagement is the biggest problem that is encountered by everyone who decides to use crowdsourcing. After all, the financial aspect isn’t the biggest reward for Internet users. Developing an efficient strategy of crowd engagement will be a key to the success of every crowdsourcing project.
The crowd – new resource waiting in the InternetThe term crowdsourcing was first introduced in 2006 by Jeff Howe in Wired Magazine. He described crowdsourcing as commissioning a job externally that is traditionally performed by an employee to a large, unidentified group of people in a form of an open question. Since that time, the term started to enter scientific nomenclature and later on, business language as well.
Crowdsourcing is generally referred to as using the phenomenon of cooperation with so called crowd. However, the way of using crowd as a resource results only from the creativity of persons who are capable of involving a specific number of people in a particular task. Currently, the most commonly known type of crowdsourcing is crowdfunding. That is funds acquisition from Internet users via dedicated platforms. However, that is only a fraction of the growing crowdsourcing area. Using the strength of a crowd on the Internet isn’t a new idea. Nevertheless, for the last several years, we have been learning how to effectively use those latent but immense resources of each and every Internet user.
Crowdsourcing is offered through online platforms that are used by organizations to obtain innovative solutions to determined problems. In case of large, well established platforms with well developed networking the remuneration for the best solutions delivered by the crowd is sometimes even up to 1 000 000 dollars.
7
AgataKukwa
CEO,dlaodmiany.pl
2015 Innovation Forecast Report @boskaagatka
#crowdsourcing
8
Bartosz Rychlicki
CEO, Quantum Lab
2015 Innovation Forecast Report
disappointment. After some time, the most resilient supporters manage to draw conclusions and develop that technology to the usability stage. This is when the trend rebounds, and slow growth of productivity takes place (for instance GPS car systems these days). This is precisely the moment when our fridge starts to talk to us, and when particular innovation is no longer empty words but it begins to generate a real value for people. Gartner claims that depending on the area, theprocess itself may take between two and ten years (sometimes even more). Mostly it lasts between five and ten years.
The conclusion is that it is better to know at which stage our business is and how long we still have to wait before something that is a novelty for us becomes mature enough to be common. The second outcome: the amount of hype does not determine our success here and now. On the contrary, if there is much buzz about something right now, it probably means that we are before the stage of a huge disappointment.
I would like to encourage to take a closer look at this research and to find your business on the time scale. Just google it: Gartner hype cycle 2014.
In 2015, I wish you all much patience on the way to your Plateau of productivity.
When I was beginning to write this article, I was wondering about the issue of 'Trends in innovation'. I started to ask myself following questions: How do we define a trend in innovation? What does 'trendy' mean? Is it so called 'buzz' around a particular subject or rather a current value generated by a given technology?
As it turns out (according to studies performed by Gartner:'Hype Cycle') these two things are mostly separated in practice. One thing is widely discussed (so-called 'hype'), and other things constitute real value on the market.
Therefore, instead of focusing on another 'hit or a flop', I would like to describe an innovation cycle for you. Something that I quite often come across at work and in private life. You may ask, how can it be that we talk about all those Wearables, Internet of Things, Big Data, and at the end of the day we get angry that we cannot find a remote control to our TV set and watch analogue (until recently) Channel One using outdated technology. One glimpse inside the fridge and it is still like our mum's 20 years ago. Nothing talks to us, the light is on, and that is it. Something, what was a fact a decade ago (such us speech recognition), is becoming popular right now. Basing on what mass media says Mars colonization is just around the corner. Why is it like this?
The researchers from Gartner have stated accurately that each and every innovation goes through 5 phases:1. Innovation trigger.2. Peak of Inflated Expectations.3. Trough of Disillusionment.4. Slope of Enlightenment.5. Plateau of productivity.
In this approach, innovation has two characteristics: expectations and productivity. Moreover, as it turns out, they are usually quite contradictory. First of all, a given technology is developed, it becomes appreciated quite fast, it is on everyone's lips and the expectations are growing (at that time we widely claim that it is 'the next big thing'). Then it quickly appears that although it sounds fantastic it does not hit the shelves. That is the moment for equally quick
@rychlicky
#hypecycle
In 2015 we will observe an increasing number of apps using Global Navigation Satellite System, (GNSS) for commercial use. Right now, it is estimated that at least 3% of European GDP depends to same extent on GNSS and this trend is likely to grow. Examples of GNSS usage in commercial applications are as follow: road transport, forms of individual location (including different forms of entertainment), property and fleet management.
Before the end of this year European GNSS system named Galileo should start initial operational service. The system has several unique features which distinguish it from American GPS or Russian GLONASS. It creates a chance for new apps for sectors such as logistics, banking, medicine and agriculture. The availability of Galileo will allow to use several satellite constellations at once. It will be also possible to connect indoor navigation technologieswith GNSS.
9
KrzysztofKanawka
Leader,Blue Dot Solutions
One of the best forms of obtaining a support when creating GNSS apps is participation in European Space Navigation Competition (ESNC), commonly called “Galileo Masters”. The competition has a global range now. Each year hundreds of ideas, prototypes and beta version apps using GNSS are submitted to ESNC. The best submissions receive additional prizes and support of organizations such as European Space Agency or The European Global Navigation SatelliteSystems Agency.
It is worth looking at various GNSS apps before this market becomes more saturated.
2015 Innovation Forecast Report @kanarkusmaximus
#gnss
SocialLending within upcoming years. It is worth following stats from platforms such as BTCJam (https://btcjam.com) or Bit Lending Club (https://bitlendingclub.com/).
Security – this area is not popular across media in terms of banking, however, in practice there is an ongoing arms race. The number of attacks is constantly on the rise, just as their diversity and complexity. Defense techniques against the attacks are getting enhanced, but more expensive at the same time. However, we may expect an emergence of threats connected with projecting military and economic conflicts from real world to cyber attacks influencing financial markets and banking directly or indirectly. An effective attack (like the one on Sony Entertainment) on financial systems could threaten the stability of economy on a country level. Such attack is not viable in a normal situation (banks and financial institutions are much better secured than companies in other sectors), but they can be targeted during conflicts to trigger intimidation and fall of trust towards selected currency. Banks which are aware of the threats will implement innovative security solutions based on Big Data for instance, mass customer behavior examination, risk analysis, filtering abnormal behaviors or immediate reaction to signals from the market.
The phenomenon of increased diffusion between financial and e-commerce worlds enters a quick growth phase. We will receive offers in the banking systems that are suited better to our needs. In the area of online stores and when shopping using mobile devices we will be given a possibility to pay in installments and together with an insurance “atone tap”.
As banks face much more competition from startups and giants such as Facebook, they will look for their spot on the market more dynamically, often through acquisitions. Banks will also develop own projects basing on new technologies.
Mobile payments – after strong entrance of Apple Pay, it is likely to see solid competition from Android. It will be probably observed on Asian markets first, but the trend of common mobile payments availability will be visible in the entire world.
Wearables – we will be able to observe first experiments regarding banking on devices sewed in our clothes, watches, glasses or new forms of “electronic jewelry”.
Internet of Things – we probably won’t hear about it, but first financial institutions or startups connected with financial sector are going to start working on the use of data from sensors installed in appliances. For instance, an insurance company will learn about malfunction of insured equipment before the claim is filed. A potential of this sort of data will be examined not only to increase customer service quality but also to measure less visible factors connected with expenditures forecast based on equipment depreciation or usage statistics.
Cryptocurrencies – after a bumpy year for BitCoin, which was full of highs and lows the exchange and use of cryptocurrency will begin to stabilize. The amount of solutions connected with the use of technology stemming from cryptocurriences will rise. However, it’s rather too early to say that such implementations will be visible next year for average Joe. There is a chance that we will see first signs heralding a cryptocurrency oriented migration to
10
Sebastian Brzuzek
Head of Innovation, Meritum Bank ICB
2015 Innovation Forecast Report @seba_brzuzek
#infosecurity
HR analytics – Big Data in the recruiters’ serviceHR professionals face numerous challenges every day. Working with a team that lacks motivation, protecting company’s human resources from competitors, or inadequate use of employees’ potential are just some of thhem. Moreover, according to “State of the Global Workplace”, research conducted by Gallup Institute, only about 13 percent of employees are actively involved in their daily work. A lack of commitment, not understanding the corporate values, improperly set goals, lack of appreciation in the eyes of manager or coworkers, no development opportunities or working below one’s competences can be a reason of fall of employee’s commitment. Thus, individuals who are responsible for company’s personnel policy are becoming increasingly dependent on specific data in order to make correct decisions.
Thanks to analytical approach to HR, more effective employee management and better use of their potential is possible. Real-time tracking of personal development of particular employees in order to make better HR decisions is required from modern HR recruitment solutions for recruiters and HR staff. HR analytics also helps to identify employees who make no progress and reporting such situations to their supervisors. However, in order for those tools to be effective, they need to gather complex data. More information they obtain, the greater is their value.
Utilizing data and employee development history can be a way to optimize costs for many companies. The possibility to check on which position a particular person fits best, would reduce a number of employees who leave or who work below their competences. Finding a talent to fulfill this emerging gap will have influence on the efficiency of internal recruitment and decrease costs connected with recruiting new employees. Additionally, training needs analysis will enable effective management of the internal skill development system.
The possibilities that HR analytics will open for organizations are vast. Comparing employees’ potential matching them to the best possible jobs, analyzing the progress of development across divisions, seeking employees out in terms of their sets of skills or ranking them by personal progress are just some of the ideas. This type of tools will become an equivalent of what Google Analytics is for websites. They will not only allow reporting and showing a broader context, but also focusing on any element of particular organization.
The most important is that, apart from intuition, HR specialists will gain a tool which will help them act more consciously. For organizations, HR analytics could be a similar quality leap to what emergence of portals for professionals was for the recruitment market.
11
WojciechDrewczyński
Product Owner,Gamereer.com
2015 Innovation Forecast Report @WDrewczynski
#hranalytics
