NanoInnovation: What Every Manager Needs to Know

13Prologue to the Future What's Next?: Predictions and Possibilities

It's a good thing to turn your mind upside down now and then, like an hour-glass, to let the particles run the other way.

– Christopher Morley, The Haunted Bookshop, 1919

Most books start with a prologue. This book ends with a prologue, because this is where the future begins – a prologue to the future.

As I was interviewing nano-insiders for this book, I asked many of them to offer predictions of radical nanoinnovations that might be possible to achieve in ∼10 years. These informed opinions were combined with my own research and blended with my personal views as a technology futurist. The result is a list of radical nanoinnovations that need to be on your radar screen. If successful, these innovations have the potential to replace existing technologies and applications, transform industries, and create entirely new markets.

While these may be considered predictions, it is more appropriate to consider them as possibilities. With the proper resources, funding, perseverance, and luck, these nanoinnovations can be commercially available in about a decade. Which of these will succeed and which will fail depend on many factors. The important thing is that these emerging technologies and applications hold great promise. Many of these innovations are already finding their way from the research laboratory to the marketplace. This is a dynamic list and it will certainly change in the coming decade and beyond. I'm ...