Can the conditions of our environment determine the core values and goals of a community? Does innovation thrive only during times of economic prosperity, or is human creation something resilient that emerges even in darker times? And is the triple transition (smart, green & fair) a necessity across every possible future, or does it depend on the world we find ourselves in?
These are challenging questions without simple answers.
Bearing in mind to explore new ideas about the future in specific sectors in the region of Central Macedonia, in March of 2026, we implemented 4 workshops dedicated to logistics, tourism, digital technologies, and building materials. The mission was simple: working teams of 4 to 6 people had to immerse themselves in a 2035 scenario set in Central Macedonia and co-design a novel product or service tailored to that future context. The scenario context was predetermined and based to one of the Dator’s four alternative future archetypes: Growth, Discipline, Collapse, or Transformation. Across the four events, a total of 115 quadruple-helix representatives participated—bringing together voices from local businesses, research institutions, civil society, and regional and local authorities, and here is what they ended up to.
Different context different needs: Alternative futures
Imagine Central Macedonia in 2035 after a collapse. You live on a farm inside a Resi-Co (Residential Container)—a makeshift shelter clad in solar panels for energy self-sufficiency. Your nearest neighbor lives half a kilometer away in their own container. Yet, isolation hasn’t destroyed community. To power shared streetlights for safe walking after dark, your settlement developed the OEC (Organization of Energy Communities), turning organic waste into local electricity. With the traditional economy shattered, daily grocery runs are a thing of the past. Instead, neighbors trade using IN-TIME—a GPS- and blockchain-powered app backed by a fair credit system that breathes new life into ancient barter trade practices.
If you identify as an optimist, a 2035 scenario of economic growth, could suit you better. In this version of Central Macedonia, not only you still live in a comfortable home, but your living space actively responds to you. Thanks to ColorSense—a smart building material utilizing electrochromism and photochromism—a flip of a switch changes your living room wall color to match your mood, while the facade automatically shifts shades with the sun to regulate indoor heat. Digital technology is everywhere in daily life. Booking a trip takes seconds via Cleverest, a regional database that tracks accommodation trends and local hobbies to curate hyper-tailored vacation packages (Well, perhaps the package is extremely attractive—but the methods used to create it may deserve further discussion). Meanwhile, technology actively bridges social gaps: RALF-ASSISTANTS (AI agents) help blind citizens navigate city streets freely, and a Mobile Fulfillment Center in Thessaloniki deploys 3D printers and autonomous drones to print and transport essential medications to isolated island communities, scoring highly in terms of inclusivity and efficiency.
If you think that economic growth is an obsolete indicator of development, then we recommend this third parallel universe of discipline. In this scenario, people have realized that the price of economic growth to human wellbeing and environmental preservation has become unbearable. Instead of measuring GDP and other traditional economic indicators, the main goal of this system is to utilize new technological solutions to enhance solidarity and environmental protection. For example, in tourism—a sector heavy on carbon emissions today—hotels in 2035 use the T.E.I. (Touristic Environmental Impact) app to gamify resource conservation. Each guest is given a specific quota for electricity and water. If they exceed their limit, they pay a fine; if they stay under their energy balance, they are rewarded with free hotel services, like a spa treatment. In the same spirit of circularity, an app called Kyklos monitors and maps recyclable construction materials so they can be reused across the region, while to rebuild social bonds, the OPEN-FINDS app connects people with shared hobbies, strengthening community ties and relieving stress.
Finally, a world of radical technological transformation feels astonishingly close. Here, technology takes the lead —even in domains once ruled by humans. Under the Justice 2.0 framework, AI Judges replace human magistrates, forcing us to ask: Would you trust an algorithm or a human to weigh human nature? Yet, this world balances digital dominance with green ingenuity. Buildings rise using new ecological mortars, while logistics is optimized by SEARCH-SHARED SPACE—an app that scans shipping containers for empty volume and dynamically reorganizes cargo to eliminate wasted transport. For travelers with mobility challenges, humanoid E-Butler robots provide end-to-end assistance, ensuring accessibility is woven into the fabric of daily travel.
But what did these futures teach us?
In a short answer, they indicate what persists and what changes through different conditions.
First, approximately most of the imagined innovations took the form of technologies already embedded in contemporary social, economic and everyday life, such as robots and apps. This may offer a small but interesting illustration of the concern in futures studies that the present can colonize the future: even when imagining radically different conditions, we often draw on technological forms that are already familiar to us.
A second element that persisted across the scenarios was a set of core values. Inclusivity, accessibility and social cohesion appeared repeatedly, expressed through innovations designed to support vulnerable groups, connect communities or make everyday life more humane. Environmental responsibility and resource management were particularly prominent in the scenarios of Discipline and Transformation. Since the exercise explicitly asked participants to develop innovative products and services, these results cannot demonstrate that innovation necessarily emerges in times of crisis or uncertainty. They do, however, suggest that innovation can function as a medium through which communities express and translate their values into concrete solutions. What changes across the futures, therefore, is not necessarily the presence of these values, but the way in which they are expressed through innovation. For example, inclusivity and social cohesion are expressed through AI agents and robots that assist vulnerable groups in futures of growth and transformation, apps connecting people with the same hobbies in a futures of discipline, while in a condition of collapse it is expressed through fulfilling common needs (like the OEC solution).
This also offers an interesting perspective on the idea of a triple transition towards smarter, greener and fairer societies. Although the four scenarios placed different emphasis on particular dimensions—technological development in Growth, environmental sustainability and social responsibility in Discipline, resilience in Collapse, and radical technological transformation in Transformation—all three dimensions appeared, in different ways, across the four futures. In the Collapse scenario, for example, Resi-Co combines technological innovation with energy self-sufficiency, the OEC connects environmental resource management with social cohesion, while IN-TIME uses digital technology to support a more localized system of exchange. Rather than suggesting that the smart, green and fair transitions are relevant only under particular conditions, the workshops may therefore indicate that all three can remain important across different possible futures. What changes is how they are combined and the problems they are expected to address. Perhaps this is where innovation becomes a form of hope: even under radically different conditions, we continue to imagine ways of combining technological development, environmental responsibility and social wellbeing.