How the World Economic Forum Sees the 3Cs as Being the Path to Tech Innovation

While the new models and capabilities of publicly-accessible artificial intelligence programs tend to dominate the headlines for innovations in the tech space, the World Economic Forum sees the next big steps as being a mix of tech rather than individual developments. This is what the WEF has showcased in their release of the 3C Framework, which details how tech will combine, converge, and compound to offer something new.

Businesses tend to think of innovative products as being something wholly new coming to the market. However, innovation through combination tends to be the status quo. The way that businesses can discover innovations through this in the world of modern tech may require some tinkering, as laid out by the WEF, but you don’t need to look far to see how well blending tech can land as a seemingly new innovation.

Innovation through Combination across Tech

Combining technologies to create a new experience is often seen in the entertainment corner of technology. One that surged into the 2010s but has faded a bit since would be 3D cinema. The emergence of I.M.A.X. and polarised lenses in the late 1980s enabled audiences from all angles to see the film without distortion, and then digitisation through the 1990s made the tech much more viable to apply to productions.

Behind-the-scenes technological application is one thing, but some of the most well-known innovations have come through a blending of products. Today, for instance, online instant win games often feature Slingo, which is a virtual blend of slots and bingo. Of these two things, a new experience was born, and in a way which was only possible in the digital space. In both of these examples, separate technologies have been combined to create a product that had no real analogue before.

On a larger scale, in sectors that are more influential on the daily workings of life, we can see some of the biggest headliners combine into new creations. For example, smart cities are being founded on the combination of cloud computing, 5G and better internet connections, machine learning, and computer vision technology. The Internet of Things, after all, is just a catchment term for all of the tech that people hope to combine into one system of use.

How to Use the 3C Framework

The World Economic Forum sees a select group of technologies as being primed for innovation, particularly thanks to the power of AI to enable such combinations. As has been noted by the CEO of Capgemini, Aiman Ezzat, there isn’t any doubt about if “technology convergence will reshape industries”. Rather, the challenge is in how different companies will position themselves to present the best innovations from the convergence that’s already occurring.

To tap into this flow towards innovation, the 3C Framework outlines three key steps before they cycle back around. First, complementary technologies combine for a new solution. Next, the overlapping value chains of that combination converge. Finally, this will reveal the compound benefits of the combination. The compound benefits then flow into the business achieving growth and searching for more technologies to combine.

The World Economic Forum sees cognitive robotics, hybrid quantum-classical computing, and digital twin ecosystems as being primed for innovation and advancement through the combination of technologies. However, as has been demonstrated, tech innovation can be found in a great many exploits in combining existing tech.