Futures 100 Innovators

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Futures 100 Innovators Awards
This month, we’re launching the first 10 nominees for our Futures 100 Innovators Awards to celebrate those among us who are showcasing innovation in its truest and most democratic, diverse and inclusive sense

The Futures 100 Innovators Awards are go!

You’ve probably heard or had this this conversation so many times over the past few months, so forgive me in advance for boring you.

It goes something like this. You’re talking about the climate crisis, the pandemic, global inequality or perhaps the decline of democracy – tick where appropriate – and somebody parrots out the following: ‘We can travel to the moon, plan missions to Mars and get billionaires up into space, but we can’t solve X.’

Then somebody who thinks they’re being original argues that we could be using all this innovation – and money – to solve something much closer to home, be it a social, humanitarian or climate concern. 

But this misses the realities of how innovation happens, disruption bubbles up and change for the better occurs – by challenge, by constraint, by necessity, by risk, by daring to be different, or contrary or vexed enough by how old technologies have failed us that we ask ourselves why not the new rather than knee-jerking against it.

As we’ve seen throughout history, innovation occurs when crises were either happening, pending or receding. And now, more than ever, we need innovators to crack big tech, defend nature and confront the societal challenges that we are about to face in these post-Covid times.

This is why The Future Laboratory is launching its annual Futures 100 Innovators Award – to celebrate those among us who are taking on those challenges that some of us may regard as unimportant, unworthy or unrighteous. They’re the people using new approaches, and sometimes counter-intuitive processes, to tackle those age-old problems of inequality, inclusion and levelling up that will still sit with us unless we innovate and imagine differently.

Published by:

4 February 2022

Author: Martin Raymond

Image: The Future Laboratory

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Left: Bump'n Book of Love, Lust & Disability unearths conversations on sex, relationships and disability, co-created by Andrew Gurza. Right: Curves by Sean Brown, US.

So, here’s how it works. Each month, our analysts will showcase 10 innovators from our overall Futures 100 Innovators longlist across 10 key sectors – among them, beauty, fashion, retail, design, luxury, health and wellness, food, and travel – highlighting their innovation, why it matters, and where and how it is affecting – or will affect – change for the better.

This can be about challenging approaches to beauty in the digital age, as AM Darke’s Open Source Afro Hair Library is doing, or building an eco-first festival sector like Hadi Ahmadzadeh, using satellite data to improve crop growth, as demonstrated by the work of Dr Catherine Nakalembe, or building an incubator like Kerby Jean-Raymond to give more space and opportunities to fashion designers of colour.

But it can also be about the power of an idea the innovator has circulated, a community they have formed or a spark they have generated that has kindled a flame, stoked a new movement, or fired up a new technology or concept.

Innovation, then, in its truest and most democratic, diverse and inclusive sense.

Each month, we’ll profile key names from our ever-growing longlist, but will leave it open for you to suggest your own contenders so that the list is organic and reflects how you define innovation as well as how we frame it.

Who you submit is in some ways irrelevant – it could be you, a colleague, a business partner, or a person you’ve read about or have seen online. But crucially, you have to tell us why their innovation is worth considering and how it will change the status quo.

If they make it onto our shortlist, we’ll interview you alongside them, and if they win, you can join us for our Trend Briefing 2023 event in October this year, when we’ll be hosting the first of our annual Futures 100 Innovators Awards by showcasing our top 10 finalists before we announce our overall winner on the day.

Discover the names that have so far made the Futures 100 Innovators longlist here, or to suggest your own names, email futures100innovators@thefuturelaboratory.com

‘They’re the people using new approaches, and sometimes counter-intuitive processes, to tackle those age-old problems of inequality, inclusion and levelling up that will still sit with us unless we innovate and imagine differently.’
Martin Raymond, co-founder, The Future Laboratory

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Want to find out more or nominate your own innovators?

In the first instalment of our Futures 100 Innovators longlist, we get to know global disruptors and change-makers creating the future across 10 sectors.

Check out the names that have so far made the Futures 100 Innovators longlist here, or to suggest your own names via email.


Discover our first 10 nominees