Abstract
This chapter analyzes the disruptive unicorn of the 21st century, characterized by six of the most important digital disruptive innovations that will dominate the business ecosystem. A survey was applied to undergraduate students at Tecnologico de Monterrey in Mexico in 2019 to identify the students' perception of the unicorn. The hypothesis to be evaluated is that the undergraduate student has an unclear perception of the existence of the unicorn that could generate risks related to ethics and business power shifts in the world. An educational challenge is the need to develop the transversal competence of critical thinking related to digital disruptive innovations in the students. The educational strategies must evolve as fast as these digital disruptive innovations in order for the world to have citizens of a technological world in favor of humanity with the power of critical thinking and discernment. This is the challenge for the university educator.
TopBackground And Literature Review
Christensen (1997) defines a disruptive technology as the one that unexpectedly arises and displaces the existing one. This technology is vaguely defined, with implementation problems, with a yield that is not profitable yet, and faces difficulties to be used in practical and commercial applications.
A disruptive technology has the power to change our lifestyle and the approach of doing business. These technologies will change the power centers of the world that will require a reinvention of the business models (Van Veldhoven and Vanthienen, 2021). While the adoption of a disruptive technology may be easy, fast and with a low-cost possibility of failure in some type of businesses, for others, it could mean a huge risk, a threat because of the slow process of acceptance and marketing, and a financial danger due to the high cost possibility of failure in its application (Andal-ancion, et al., 2003).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Critical Thinking: A type of transversal skill or competence in the decision-making process. Not every situation can be described in black and white…there is always a gray area where this competence is needed to observe, analyze, reflect, discern, and arrive to a solution of any problem with an open and flexible mind.
Blockchain: A type of digital disruptive innovation that records transactions that are perfectly linked in an electronic ledger which cannot be altered, promoting security in every operation in a peer-to-peer system.
Biometrics: A type of digital disruptive innovation that can identify a human being through biological measurements such as fingerprints, DNA readings, retinal scans, etc.
Transversal Competences: General skills that can be applied in any situation regardless of the academic discipline or area of knowledge. Examples could be critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, etc.
Ethics: Education in service of humankind. Any discipline could be approached with the most advanced technology in the field with a simultaneous hierarchy of values such as: responsibility, freedom, unity, creativity, the inclusion of the less privileged, respect to others, and caring for our planet. Ethics trigger the process of critical thinking in favor of humanity.
Artificial Intelligence: A type of digital disruptive innovation that tries to mimic the human mind and actions in machines. The objective is that a machine could learn and solve problems faster than a human being.
Internet of Things: A type of digital disruptive innovation that connects different types of objects from which data is collected and fed into a wireless network without human intervention. Its objective is to design and connect many digital devices in real time to improve performance of every human activity with a statistical analysis that is superior to the ones done by human beings on their own.
Digital Payment: A type of digital disruptive innovation that uses electronic devices to make a payment.
Big Data: A type of digital disruptive innovation that enhances decision making by using a machine with the capacity of analyzing extremely large data sets in order to find behavioral patterns, trends, etc. It can predict human behavior and its interactions.
Disruptive Innovation: An innovation that changes the traditional way of doing things.