Two weeks ago, I invested time and money in my own professional development. Prof. Dr. Sohail Inayatullah, one of the world’s leading futurists, was invited by the Change Initiative to run a Futures Foresight workshop in Bangkok. Apart from many other useful foresight tools, Dr. Sohail introduced a set of simple questions to create alternative and preferred futures. What are these powerful forecasting questions? And how do they play out if a group of innovation experts applies them on forecasting the future of innovation in Asia in 2035?

1. What is the history of the issue? Counterintuitively, our first forecasting question investigates the future by looking back into the past. We examine where we’re coming from and how we got to where we are now. Why? Understanding past and present of the issue establishes a solid foundation for looking ahead.

• Case Application: While the history of innovation in Asia started centuries ago, our group focused on the past 50 years only. Among others, we identified three historic innovation themes: (1) While Western corporations largely dominated product-related innovations in the past 50 years, Japan led production process-driven innovations that powered the rise of many Japanese companies in the 1970s to the late 1990s. (2) Since the turn of the millennium, South Korea has evolved into a globally influential new technology and entertainment hub. (3) In the last decade, new R&D facilities and innovation centers have mushroomed all over Asia, set-up by Multinational Corporations as well as Asian Government Agencies and Large Asian Corporations.

2. What do you think the future will be like? What are you afraid of? The second forecasting question probes for our predictions as to where the issue is likely to head in the future. It allows us to offload our personal forecasts and fears related to the issue.

• Case Application: “What do you think the future of innovation in Asia is going to be like in 2035?” Our group predicts the following: (1) Led by large corporations, more capital-intensive, technology-driven innovation initiatives will predominantly take place in North-Asian countries and India. (2) Southeast Asian countries will excel in innovation-initiatives focusing on the areas of health, wellness, lifestyle, as well as food & beverages and fast-moving consumer goods. (3) Asia will see a sharp rise in entrepreneurial and SME-driven innovations in the future.
• Possible fears are that systems-driven open innovation initiatives will dominate the innovation-agenda particularly in China and India.

3. What are some of your assumptions about the projected or feared future? Future forecasts are always based on assumptions. It is important to get these critical assumptions out in the open.

• Case Application: Our forecasting group listed these assumptions related to innovation in Asia 2035: (1) Asia will emerge as one of the world’s innovation hubs alongside others. (2) Disruptive modern technologies (such as further digitalization or 3D-printing) will lead Asian business to shift from a managerial to an entrepreneurial society. (3) In 2035, innovation will still be people-driven and human-centered, but technology-supported. (4) Open innovation will be one of many channels to source and develop ideas and solutions (particularly in systems-focused countries such as in China), but won’t be “the holy grail of innovation”.

4. What are the alternatives, the different scenarios? Next, we use these assumptions to envision alternative scenarios, including at least one that may make us feel uncomfortable.

• Case Application: What alternative scenarios related to the future of innovation in Asia did we come up with?
• “Corporate Asian Innovation 2035” is a continuation of current developments. In this first scenario, innovation in Asia will be largely driven by Multinational Corporations or Large Asian Corporations which have built up in-house innovation centers, or which insource outside innovation expertise from specialized innovation companies to work on specific innovation project initiatives.
• “Entrepreneurial Asian Innovation 2035” is the second scenario developed by our forecasting group. Here, new entrepreneurial ventures and SMEs set-up by tech-savvy millennials and meaning-searching Gen Y business drop-outs drive innovation in Asia. Innovation initiatives often take place in self-organizing temporary networks that are project-driven, technology-empowered and method-based.
• “Outsourced Asian Innovation 2035” describes a third scenario where due to cultural conflicts with traditional Asian values, large Asian Corporations will outsource all their innovation initiatives to specialized innovation companies and design agencies, who can produce superior solutions to their innovation challenges.
• “Open Innovation Asia 2035” is our least favored (or “disowned”) scenario. Here, Asian innovation is fueled by technology-driven open innovation systems that are centrally managed by an in-house innovation manager or an external open innovation broker who coordinates innovation initiatives and crowd-sources ideas.

5. What do you want the future to be like? Which future do you want? After listing assumptions and developing alternatives, question five allows us to envision our preferred future.

• Case Application: Our forecasting group wants to see an Asian innovation renaissance in 2035, where large corporations and the new wave of Asian entrepreneurs and SMEs equally contribute to innovation. Asian innovation initiatives focus on human wants and needs and are done by human innovation teams, not by anonymous open innovation systems. These diverse innovation teams (with members coming from different disciplines, nations, generations, etc.) use highly effective innovation methods and latest technology (such as virtual reality) to create meaningful innovations for specific innovation challenges that focus on increasing the quality of people’s lives and making the world a better place.

6. How did you get to the preferred future? Question six helps us to “backcast” the way to our preferred future. We list all strategic actions that need to happen in five-year time intervals to bring us toward our preferred future.

• Case Application: What needs to happen to realize a corporate-driven and SME-driven Asian innovation renaissance? We need more flexible Asian immigration policies to attract top global talents; a wide range of support mechanisms to promote new ventures and SME; a shift of business education from an MBA to an MCI (master in creativity and innovation) or MCE (master in creative entrepreneurship); more academic institutes and government agencies that focus on supporting creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship.

Conclusion: What insights did I get out of the forecasting exercise? Among others, I realized that in the next 20 years, entrepreneurial ventures are likely to become one important pillar to drive innovation in Asian economies. For my innovation company Thinkergy, this means that in the coming years, we will also create solutions and programs to support the growing number of entrepreneurs, new ventures and Asian SMEs, while at the same time continuing to serve the innovation needs of Multinational Corporations and Large Asian Corporations.

But why is Asia likely to see a shift from a managerial society driven by “Asian Business Inc.” to an entrepreneurial society driven by millions of new entrepreneurial ventures that we may call “Asian Business Me”? We will discuss this question in two weeks from now with the help of a Causal Layered Analysis, another special forecasting technique created by Dr. Sohail.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2015. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 17 September 2015.