Supertrends

7.NEW NETWORKS AND DECENTRALISED TECHNOLOGIES

‘Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something.’ These were the words of the co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs, in an interview in Wired magazine in 1995. As far as I'm concerned, he was right. It is almost impossible to find any innovation that does not essentially combine elements that existed before. The same is also true of life, for example. There are only 118 different chemical elements, all of which are made of helium and hydrogen, but the atoms form the building blocks for our estimated 8.5 million living species (plus an astronomical number of different bacteria and viruses).

That is why the ability and the opportunity to combine things in new ways is crucial to the creation of innovation and thus prosperity. This is also evident in the fact that, historically speaking, prosperity was chiefly created where access to trade was easiest. Until the invention of roads, railways, and air transport, this generally meant in the vicinity of sea and rivers. Accordingly, empire upon empire (for example, the Venetian) evolved from people who had particularly good access to shipping. Probably the most advanced civilisation in Africa emerged on the banks of the only African river that was navigable throughout the year and ran into the sea: the Nile.

In other words, it is all about networking, and connecting people ...