Horizon Scanning

Future cannot be predicted, but it can be estimated. Some areas are more predictable than others. Technology is one of them. Most of the technologies we use today are evolutions, combinations, repurposing of previous technologies.

Analyzing in time news, patents and papers, we created mathematical representations of the different technologies and – using Machine Learning techniques – we extrapolated future representations, meaning future technologies and/or future applications of the same technologies. We used graph theory and linear algebra for the representations.

The system is using the “Room Theory” to determine the baseline technologies. Even if it has been developed for technology forecasting, it could be applied to different domains.

The prototype for this system was created as part of a 2 years project, developed with an Agile approach by a team of about 25 people, with a total of 15,000 lines of code.