14. Technology and Innovation for Societal Resilience Through Multistakeholder Collaboration

The chapter engages in exploring possibilities of innovation and use of future technology arising from multistakeholder collaboration in essential societal functions such as public services, critical infrastructure systems and public policy arena. Multistakeholder collaboration is the key to adaptation and resilience amidst the fast-changing twenty-first century world around us. Owing to increased interconnectedness and interdependencies of complex socio-technical systems, critical infrastructures and essential services, our socio-technical relationships have also grown more complex. On one hand, the tightly coupled systems, services and infrastructures are highly optimized while on the other, because of their high optimization and tightly coupled nature, these systems are often more prone to catastrophic disruptions and crises. So, what is the way forward to effectively increase adaptation and resilience? The chapter engages in the discussion of boundary spanning activities such as the essential public services where multistakeholder collaboration among various actors, i.e., public, private, academia and the industry is inevitable due to cross-cutting issues, demands and challenges. With examples of successful cases and evidence from scientific literature, the chapter makes a convincing case in favour of multistakeholder collaboration as a powerful tool to raise societal resilience.