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