Link Prediction Revisited: New Approach for Anticipating New Innovation Chances Using Technology Convergence

Link prediction has been actively used to anticipate future technology convergence. However, previous related studies have focused on anticipating within the current network only and fail to predict convergence with possible innovation chances. Hence, a new method is suggested herein for anticipating new innovation chances, where a method for adding innovation signals to the current network is suggested, and link prediction is conducted to the revised network. This article comprises three sections: current network construction, innovation signal detection, and link prediction to the revised network. The suggested framework is applied to mobile financial services as an illustrative example. This article is expected to serve as a systematic method for investigating innovation chances and anticipating possible associations within innovation networks.