Photo by "My Life Through A Lens" on Unsplash
What got you here won't get you there — Marshall Goldsmith
The future of urban living is changing rapidly. According to the IPCC, the world's carbon emissions have to fall by 45% by 2030 to keep the world's average temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Climate change is shaping all our choices today and transition is most felt in the urban areas. This is borne out by investors like BlackRock. Larry Fink the CEO, announced: "The evidence on climate risk is compelling investors to reassess core assumptions about modern finance"
The job market globally is also going through an upheaval. The unemployment numbers in India as per the NSSO survey of 2019 is at a 45 year high with 7.8% unemployment in urban areas. With AI and the technological revolution this is only slated to get worse.
So there are two massive crisis shaping the future of living. Global climate change and disappearance of the old economy. In all this there is a silver lining. India went up 29 places over the last 5 years on the Global Innovation Index, published by Cornell University, Insead and the UN World Intellectual Property Organization. NITI Ayog said Bengaluru has catapulted Karnataka to the most innovative state in the country. As per the recently released Bangalore Innovation Report, Bengaluru's GDP projected to grow at 8.5% till 2035. It will be the fastest growing city in the world for the next 15 years. More than half of the unicorn incubated entrepreneurs are in Bengaluru.
This has led to the mushrooming of incubation and co-working spaces. One of the entities that differentiates itself in this space is Urban Morph which understands the importance of this opportunity. Urban Morph believes in shifting the narrative from the old economy to the new by providing an experience of the future of urban living. The background and convictions of the founders and partners is important in why we do this. This future can be found in OoruLabs. An urban living innovations lab by Urban Morph. It provides an ecosystem for innovators to create and experience the sustainable future. Designing urban spaces for co-creation that can be a blue ocean in a sea of red.
In the end, the success of such innovation hubs lie in the ability of society and markets to recognise that they can outrun the state in setting a future that we can experience and savour.