Welcome to the Future Readiness Series, where Portulans staff and guest contributors explore the current dialogue surrounding future readiness. Today we kick off our series with an introduction to the concept of future readiness, how it can be measured, and why it is important.
What is Future Readiness? 
Future Readiness as a concept combines the key pillars of technology, innovation, and talent, in order to help us understand what can be achieved if these pillars are optimized. 
Innovation generally refers to the creation and application of new ideas to create value in a certain context. Usually, these ideas are meant to generate an increase in social and economic productivity. Innovation also enhances capacity to adapt to future shocks, and as a result create actionable change in response to challenges. Innovation can be facilitated through diverse partnerships across sectors and domains. 
Talent is the intrinsic quality of human capital, taking into consideration its growth, diversity, and retention. The introduction of scalable learning is becoming necessary in order for employees to keep pace with digitalization and availability of new technology. It is important that workers master the skills that help them remain relevant and contribute to local needs and global trends. Talent also encompasses leadership structure. Stability in this area makes possible the acceleration of decision making during times of crisis and uncertainty. Successful allocation of talent is necessary for facilitating swift responses to change, and effectively deriving value from investment. 
The technology pillar encompasses the infrastructure and tools that help us make better use of available information and resources. New technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), can aid in identifying solutions to both newly arising and long standing issues in ways that were not previously possible. Technology works in tandem with talent to facilitate productivity. These two pillars are becoming increasingly more intertwined as some jobs are becoming automated, while others are becoming more globally dispersed through technology platforms.
Together, these pillars and their underlying indicators allow us to understand what can be achieved by economies, nations, and firms alike, if their maximum potential is reached. Understanding Future Readiness is critical in efforts to tackle wide-ranging challenges and achieve long-term sustainable development. It also presents an opportunity to build on, or reimagine, an institution’s existing structure, and its capacity for growth. 
How do we measure Future Readiness? 
Portulans hosts three indices that are directly relevant to monitoring Future Readiness: the Network Readiness Index (NRI), the Global Innovation Index (GII), and the Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI). Together, these indices, and the indicators on which they are built, can help to identify a wide range of areas that countries and regions can target in order to ensure that they are ready when opportunity knocks.  
This three-pronged approach contributes to a solid understanding of how well economies are positioned to respond to major challenges and changes. To be truly Future Ready, nations need to understand their strengths and weaknesses in these three pillars individually, as well as in how they synergize. 
Why is it important? 
Discrepancies between proposed growth goals, and the ability to achieve them, point to a gap in Future Readiness. This gap suggests that nations and firms may not be ready to effectively seize new opportunities as they arise, which could be detrimental to their status and growth in today’s rapidly changing social, economic, technological, and regulatory environment. 
Future Readiness is critical to addressing these changes, and any obstacles they may bring. By harnessing the collective power of the three pillars, leaders can better orient their strategic decisions to ensure that they are ready to generate value from opportunities, and stay ahead of the curve in competitiveness. These notions are highly relevant to our society today, as we face unprecedented circumstances that call for rapid advancement across many sectors. Future Readiness is critical in sustaining growth and prosperity where it exists, and developing novel solutions to challenges as they arise. 
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