Underhyped tech for post-development

Our actions

A project to identify, imagine and activate nine pioneering technologies with high eco-social potential that currently go unnoticed.

Partners
Frontier Tech Hub, UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

Year
2025

Services
Foresight · Innovation strategy · Applied research

This project redefines what deserves technological attention today. Instead of following the hype, we map and prioritise technologies with high social and ecological value that often go unnoticed. We combine evidence, scenarios for the future in 2035 and post-development criteria to arrive at nine underhyped technologies.

CHALLENGE

The global technological debate tends to focus on narratives of high hype and quick returns, leaving out technologies with great social, territorial and ecological value. The challenge was to identify these underhyped technologies and make strategic recommendations—based on foresight and evidence—so that public, private and community actors can explore, finance and adopt them fairly.

APPROACH

We combine research and technological curation with strategic foresight. To do this, we define technological selection criteria based on ‘attention’ (who is watching and why) and ‘potential’ (systemic and territorial impact).

With this approach, we studied 142 technologies with the potential to impact post-development at an international level.

IMPACT

Portfolio of nine undervalued technologies with eco-social significance.
Clear language for decision-makers: technological criteria and five sets of recommendations for financing and adoption.
Futures thinking to highlight risks and opportunities for 2035.
Post-development literacy and perspectives from the Global South towards technological solutions with greater territorial value.

What does ‘underhyped’ mean?

Our ‘underhyped’ technologies challenge dominant narratives of innovation. Despite their potential to strengthen community resilience, ecological balance, and locally-based solutions, they receive little attention because they do not fit into traditional funding models or challenge assumptions about ‘progress.’

We reframe attention (who is looking, why, who benefits) and potential (the capacity to create long-term systemic impact, based on local priorities) to value technologies that expand the realm of possibility.

Not only are these technologies little known, but they also prove that a different form of development is possible, one based on ecological balance and community worldviews.

9 prioritised technologies

Click on the dots to explore the technologies.

Key recommendations

Read the Recommendations →

1) Data sovereignty and security

Move away from data extractivism and treat data as a common good. Communities decide what is collected, who has access to it and for what purpose, with decentralised infrastructure and security policies that prevent surveillance and misuse.

2) Community-centred economies and business models
Prevent technology from reproducing extractive dynamics. Promote local ownership and operation, circular economies and alternative finance that keep value in the territory.

3) Governance, social capabilities, and open technologies

Adoption depends less on the Technology Readiness Level and more on the social stack: bioregional governance, training, and community-controlled open source. It is about technological autonomy and peer learning.

4) Legal and ethical protection for implementation

Move from technology as private property to common good. Prevent monopolies, biopiracy and surveillance, and ensure human and environmental rights through proactive regulation and social participation.

5) Pluriversal research and community innovation ecosystems

Overcoming the ‘top-down’ approach. Researching and designing with communities, integrating indigenous, local and scientific knowledge, prioritising resilience, agroecology, water and restoration.