My first guess is Avatar as a grand inspiration, but who are the writers out there standing of the giants before them? Quoting country music usually gets me in trouble, but "Who's gonna fill their shoes?"
Even if there were parallels around (and, really, you aren't going to find an Asimov or even a Clarke every generation), the social, economic, and cultural situation of the early 21st century isn't the same as the one of the mid-20th, and doesn't lend itself to the same kind of popular reception for futurism that occurred especially during what might be described as the golden age of the American middle class from the end of WWII through about 1980, and continued later among the people that grew up in that period.
My guess is that the original/semi-original stuff they will be inspired by are games like Halo, Mass Effect, Portal, StarCraft, Bioshock, movies like Avatar as mentioned, District 9 and Inception.
Anecdotally, I don't see young people reading much and when they are it's wizards or vampires, not science fiction. As best I can recall, there haven't been many strong or particularly popular books, movies or television series in the genre for a good decade now.
Not SF necessarily, but still inspiring.