30 years ago, on August 6^th, 1991, a fundamental event happened that shaped the world as we know it. Such event was the published of the first website on the world wide web: https://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

This basic hyper-text links website was the beginning of the world as we know it in 2021. This simple website plus the available technology creates thousands of possible futures that people built. The first picture of Les Horribles Cernettes was uploaded on 1992 (see picture below), Amazon site went live on 1995, Yahoo on 1998 and from August 6^th 1991 up to the end of 2017, we went from 1 website to 1,776,926,408 (Source: NetCraft and Internet Live Stats). And not only is about the number of websites but is about the type of websites and the kind of services we can get from those websites.

But how has all this happened? Who has created it?

Well, the answer is simple: People. However, these people share certain characteristics and for this reason we know them innovators.

But what does it mean to be innovator? According to the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language, Innovator is “the one who innovates”. But this says nothing.

An innovator, in practice, is a person who is capable of seeing possibilities, of seeing the future and building it. Netflix, for example, created a new world, video on demand, that would not have been possible if Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph had not seen that possibility existing technology and had not carried it out.

Now, the possibilities always exist and are available to everyone, but not everyone is capable of seeing them. Innovators for their part, are able to observe those possibilities, those potential futures, due to the way they interpret their environment and themselves. For example, an innovator must first believe himself as an innovator who can do different things.

Other relevant characteristics of an innovator are their ability to “connect” with others, “listen” to market and technology trends and execute. The innovator does not remain in the “talk”, the innovator connects and coordinates with others, enables an offer and executes. An innovator “walks the talk”.

Innovators are resilient, have different paradigms from other people, understand their environment and commit to the possible future. Today there are very good entrepreneurship ecosystems in many places and there are also many entrepreneurs and, I want to think, that there are also many more innovators than those that existed just 30 years ago.

In summary, the future is built by people who are capable of observing possibilities that others do not observe, they are capable of seeing the future and building it.

So how will the world look 30 years from now, in 2051? Who will be the architects of that future? Will you be one of those architects? I hope so.