Innovation for the 2030s and onwards: beyond technology

Joseph Schumpeter, one of the 20th century’s greatest economic thinkers, believed that entrepreneurial activity was the cornerstone of capitalism. But much of the ‘innovation’ practice and research in recent decades has de facto emphasised technology rather than the social as the primary driver in sector after sector.   

The unsettled nature of these early decades of the 21st century provides reasons to reflect and rethink that technology focus, with critical innovations in civil society, infrastructure, and the firm that highlight a move ‘beyond the tech.’

We need to learn from our recent history while keeping an eye on the dynamics of the Fourth Industrial Revolution where emerging technologies foreground questions of governance and ethics.  

We live in times when distributional equity and inequity foreground agendas and issues and the role of innovation is critical for corporations and governments in building markets and shaping wellbeing in the decades ahead.