Predicting the right technology for investment

“No one could have predicted mobile phones," said an attendee at a futurist conference I recently attended.

Is that so?

Here by some famous predictions at that area:

1.??????Nikola Tesla, Inventor & Futurist, 1926:

“Through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face-to-face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles. And the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket.”

2.??????Mark R. Sullivan, President and Director of the Pacific Telephone & Telegraph Co., 1953:

“Just what form the future telephone will take is, of course, pure speculation. Here is my prophecy: In its final development, the telephone will be carried about by the individual, perhaps as we carry a watch today. It probably will require no dial or equivalent and I think the users will be able to see each other, if they want, as they talk. Who knows but it may actually translate from one language to another?”

According to TRIZ (theory of inventive problem solving), systems tend to evolve from “Dot” to “Line” to “Surface” to “Volume”.

Wired phones enhance people's ability to communicate over distance over a "Line" (the Phone line network). Mobile phones provide the same experience over a "Surface" and therefore offer a greater degree of freedom; thus, it was predictable.

Flying cars (which are currently in development) follow a similar pattern. Regular cars move people and goods over "Line" (the road network). A flying car can travel in any direction and thus move people over surfaces (although it moves in volume, it moves people from point A to point B on a surface). The flying car represents the next step in human mobility.

With that notion in our head, along with the rapid evolution of Functional drones, we at NextLeap Ventures have recognized that controlling of this new predicted air traffic will be the major barrier to such evolution. After scanning the market for potential solutions, we have identified Airwayz as the most promising solution in today’s market.?We invested in them, and indeed shortly after they won a very important tender – the Port of Rotterdam selected them as their partner for UTM (Unmanned Air Traffic Management) – see here.

Most areas of technology will undergo predictable evolution, so using tools like TRIZ, Long Lead Technologies and others is helping us at NextLeap Ventures when searching for potential new investments.

Ido Lapidot

NextLeap Ventures