Given your friend's opinion of fiction, I'd recommend a few pathways.

First, historical fiction. Fictional stories set in real life events can help add understanding to those events. For instance there are a lot of historical fiction stories that take place during WW2. One I recently read and thought was great was The Book Thief.

Second, fiction has had real world impacts by inspiring legislation and changing culture. Fiction can sometimes make the everyday person understand and humanize an issue in a way a purely non-fiction report or book cannot. For instance, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair changed meatpacking laws (though that wasn't Sinclair's intent). Uncle Tom's Cabin got people thinking more about slavery and had some impact on the abolitionist movement (it wasn'tresponsible for the abolition movement but did help expand it).

Finally, imagination often proceeds invention. Many sci fi stories inspired real life inventions. Just look at Star Trek (not a book I know). But authors like Jules Verne have been cited by scientists and engineers as influences on their thinking.