Recently, Nimbus Ninety held an interactive future reimagined session, where our community of C-level business and technology leaders were asked to conceptualise what they thought the future would look like.

In the minds of the attendees, 2017 brought the rise of the "Uber for lawnmowing"; whilst 2019 saw the possibility of a "VR doctor" service. They speculated that 2021 could be the year of 1GB per second internet speed. Neural memory backup would perhaps make an appearance in 2031, and 2046 presented the concept of immortality.

After an almost unanimous vote from our members, the winner of the best idea proved to be "robotic plants" - an idea they felt could make its way into our society by 2026.

“RoboPlant uses energy from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water to produce biomass and oxygen. This biomass is then fed into a biorefinery that can configure it into various carbon products like wood, oil, plastics and, if squashed hard enough, diamonds.”

David Renner, Co-Founder, ATMA Enterprises

Those who came up with the winning concept were a Global Head of BI for a leading high street food chain, the Global CIO of a top manufacturing company, a Co-founder from a youth charity, a Procurement Manager from a London-based housing association and the Head of Technology Programmes from a globally renowned publishing house.

Whilst it is interesting to imagine robotic plants and "Uberised" lawnmowing, there is something very fundamental and relevant that we can take away from this session.

The digital world is rapidly moving towards a new way of working; digital ecosystems are on the rise and are already apparent in industry giants such as Apple and Netflix. History proves that innovation and value will flourish if organisations, companies, industries, and individuals work together in a mutually beneficial way - whether they’re competitors or not.

Here at Nimbus Ninety, each team is working ten-fold to create an exciting, inspiring and thought-provoking summit for all those keen to learn about this new way of working. We are even assessing our own future, and what it means for you.

We welcome you to join us on 19 & 20 September in central London, to hear from those who have successfully started their ecosystem journey, including: