Category Archives: Futurist

The futurist, Ray Kurzweil, told an audience at the Exponential Finance conference via one of those weird screens on wheels that he wouldn't put his money into bitcoin. While he appears to like the blockchain technology, he sees bitcoin in particular as unstable, putting it at a disadvantage against existing currencies, at least in his mind.

Ray Kurzweil is famous for his books in which he makes predictions about the state of technology in future years. He has largely been correct in the predictions he has made, but is sometimes off slightly regarding the actual year when a technology will be available, or how the technology is actually implemented.

While expressing his doubts about bitcoin, Kurzweil said:

Ultimately, people need to have confidence in their currency and bitcoin in particular has not really demonstrated that. Its had a good year, but a very rocky life before that I wouldn't put my money into it.

Kurzweil does have a fair point, since the price of bitcoin in the last few months has broken several records, with the currency now sitting at $2,821, a big increase from just $580 a mere year ago. While hes not so optimistic about bitcoin itself, he believes that blockchain currency may get picked up by national governments. Russia's central bank and the State of Palestine's Monetary Authority have already commented on wanting national cryptocurrencies. Describing the blockchains potential, Kurzweil said:

Providing greater transparency, and blockchain does provide that, could be something adopted by leading currencies like the existing national currencies.

Do you think blockchain currencies could at one point surpass their regular counterparts in terms of adoption, or are you still on the fence about the whole phenomenon? Sound off in the comments below!

Source: Coindesk | Image via Bit-Gator

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Futurist Ray Kurzweil told audience he wouldn't buy bitcoin - Neowin

JOHANNESBURG, June 6, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --"Healthcarein South Africa is changing significantly," says futurist Jack Uldrich. "Technology and globalcommunications are paving the way for unprecedented improvements for everyone in the nation."

Jack Uldrichmakes it his mission to help healthcareleaders address and embrace the imminent changes in the field. He has been selected to speak at the Future of Health Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa on June 9. The topic of his talk will be, "The Future of Health Care: 2020, 2025 and Beyond."

He will discuss how innovations in healthcare (new treatments, technologies, trends, telemedicine, etc.,) will transform the experience for patients, healthcare professionals and hospitals in South Africa. He will also discuss how these same trends will affect the broader Continent of Africa.

Among the trends Uldrichwill focus on is longevity.

"Typically," says Uldrich, "White South Africans currently have a lifeexpectancyof 71 years, while blackSouth Africanshave a life expectancy of 48 years of age. In the nextten to twenty years, one of the possibilities in healthcare may be increasing the overall life expectancy of all South Africansto those found in North America."

In the coming decades, longevity may increase worldwide, on average toward upward of 90 years.

Other technological trends he will discuss are Artificial Intelligence, wearable technology, augmentedreality, virtualreality, wireless mobility, nanotechnology,genomicsequencing, robotics, and3D printing.

Uldrichsays, "With bio-printed organs, living past the age of 90 will not be anything like living to that age today. We're already printing skin, kidneys, a replica of a beating human heart. Soon, if a person loses a limb, it's theoretically possible that we'll be able to print, layer by layer, a replacement."

Considered a technology visionary in the fields of healthcare, agriculture, finance, and energy,Uldrichspeaks hundreds of times a year all over the world delivering keynotes on technologicaltrends and the concept of unlearning.

He has spoken on the future of finance in the Bahamas, new opportunities in manufacturingin Brussels, the future of education in Istanbuland on the future of urban planning (addressing the Urban Land Institute) in San Francisco, among many others.

Following his engagementin Johannesburg, Uldrichwill return to the U.S. to speak to KeHeDistributors in Minneapolis on the future of the food industry on June 13 and address a private client in Houston, TX on the future of the petrochemical industry on June 20.

Parties interested in learning more about Jack Uldrich can view his website.

Media Contact: Jack Uldrich, Phone: 1.612.267.1212 Email: Jack@jackuldrich.com

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Futurist Paul Higgins

DIGITAL transformation data is the answer to connecting with, and generating value from, high margin customers, futurist Paul Higgins told Lambex 2016 conference delegates yesterday.

In his presentation titled The choice is ours farmers or peasants, Mr Higgins said data would be as valuable as the product farmers produce and could be held by farmer-owned co-operatives.

Mr Higgins said data was already being used to influence customers, as evidenced by QR codes under the lid of a can of Australian milk powder, providing provenance details to a Chinese customers. Such points of contact gave the customer information about the producer as well as providing details on what the consumer is interested in, he said.

Citing the example of drones, Mr Higgins raised the opportunity of farm customers being invited to join our drone flight as it goes over and monitors a property.

That you can enter a virtual reality environment that will let you walk in among our flock, that gives experiences and context, and transparency about what is going on and that gives me, the high margin customer, the connection to your product and to your company, and the willingness to pay high margins for that.

Mr Higgins said he had been working with food manufacturer Simplot in a digital transformation project that invited in start-ups to get access to company data, customers and funds to develop a product for them.

Theyre essentially talking about how do we connect to the customer more so they are more connected to our product and our brand.

Part of Simplots problem is that the supermarket act as a kind of a gateway for a huge percentage of their products with their consumers theyre trying to get more connected and more transparent with those consumers, he said.

Theyre recognising they cant do that by themselves.

Theyre inviting people in from outside to experiment, create new ideas and ways of connection to do that.

Mr Higgins said technology progressed from its genesis or innovation to being custom-built, to product, to a utility or a service, quoting the example of the invention of motorcar propulsion systems, then multiple car models and now car or taxi services.

I no longer have a need to own a car if I dont want to.

Thats the way technology goes through its cycles, he said.

If you are talking about agriculture, I think there are three key things here.

First of all they have to be useful farmer applications in your hand, Mr Higgins said.

Technology-based systems such as drones need to simple to use and available I dont need to know how it works.

We need industry data platforms and I know MLA is already on these sort of things and the architecture of them, but my view is that data is going to be as valuable as the actual product you produce off your farm, he said.

So data is as important as the meat, as the grain, as the milk that comes off farms data is going to become just as important.

And data problem is that it is more valuable if we share it all rather than keep it for ourselves.

He urged the conference delegates not to give their data away and we want to (be) open so we can do things with it.

Id like a system where I can share my data and I can say, I would love to share it with the researchers, with the marketers, but have control over that process, but there be incentives for me to share that data because the more we do together the more value we all get out of it individually.

Mr Higgins said Australia had a history of farmer-owned co-operatives for marketing farm products.

We need to do the same around data, because we have the capacity to choose the value.

This is where the title about farmers or peasants comes in, he said.

We can go, we can produce companies, we can use this data, we can use it for our own purposes and create our own value, or we can hand it off to other people and allow them to use it and we can come back in 10 years time and whinge that all these people are making money and were not.

Or we can do something about it now and say we are going to invest in these sort of operations to produce value for our own business and for our own farmers, Mr Higgins said.

That is the challenge in my mind for the next three or four years looking at how do we do that and ow do we invest in that just like we invested in all sorts of other areas in agriculture so we can be part of that value creation.

So we need an overall strategic direction that says where do we put these things if we could have a central industry data platform to work from that is under the control of farmers themselves then we can produce value from it.

But it should be competitive, it shouldnt just be supplied to a farmer-owned co-operatives, it should go to who can produce the best value out of the process, Mr Higgins said.

The more competition we have in that process, the more we own it the value, the better of we will be, because the future is going to be driven by new value, new transparency, new information, new margins with customers that you havent thought about before, and we need to get hold of those margins and be part of that, not hand it over to other people.

The people that win in 2036 will be the people that have learned how to turn around how things work, re-think business models and actually get hold of those 20 percent of high margin customers that are more connected and more information and more transparency, and are craving experiences, not just product, he said.

I hope that most of you in the room are in that group.

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Futurist urges Lambex sheepmeat producers to not give data away - Sheep Central

In BriefRay Kurzweil is a formidable figure in futuristic thinking, ashe is estimated to have an 86 percent accuracy rate for hispredictions about the future. The future he envisions is one markedby decentralization of both the physical and mental. The Futurist

Motherboard has called Ray Kurzweil a prophet of both techno-doom and techno-salvation. With a little wiggle room given to the timelines the author, inventor, computer scientist, futurist, and director of engineering at Google provides, a full 86 percent of his predictions including the fall of the Soviet Union, the growth of the internet, and the ability of computers to beat humans at chess have come to fruition.

Kurzweil continues to share his visions for the future, and his latest prediction was made at the most recent SXSW Conference, where heclaimed that the Singularity the moment when technology becomes smarter than humans will happen by 2045. Sixteen years prior to that, it will be just as smart as us. As he told Futurism, 2029 is the consistent date I have predicted for when an AI will pass a valid Turing test and therefore achieve human levels of intelligence.

Kurzweilsvision of the future doesnt stop at the Singularity. He has also predictedhow technologies, such as nanobots and brain-to-computer interfaces likeElon MusksNeuralinkor Bryan Johnsons Kernel, will affect our bodies, leading to a possible future in which both our brains and our entire beings aremechanized.

This process could start with science fiction-level leaps in virtual reality (VR) technology. He predicts VR will advance so much that physical workplaces will become a thing of the past. Within a few decades, our commutes could just become a matter of strapping on a headset.

As Inverse points out,this paradigm shift could have some interesting consequences. Without the need for people to live close to work, we could see unprecedented levels of deurbanization. People will no longer need to flock to large cities for work or be tethered to a specific location. Inversesuggests that this decentralization may decrease the opportunity forterrorist attacks. Blockchain technology will continue to bolster decentralization as well.

According to Kurzweil, technology will not onlyenable us torethink the modern workplace, it will also give us the ability to replace our biology withmore substantial hardware. He predicts that by the early 2030s, we will be able to copy human consciousness onto an electronic medium.

As Inverse puts it, That means no more flesh, blood, or bones just a scan of your brain on a machine and [it] will enable humans to take any form, from a box to a bird. The even bigger implication of this ability is that humans will no longer die. As our brains will no longer be reliant on fragile biology, we could (theoretically) live forever.

Not all of Kurzweils predictions are so drastic, and some seem even more likely to come to fruition. For example, his prediction of truly ubiquitous WiFi is well on its way to becoming reality, especially with Elon Musks announcement that he hopes to beam the internet across the globe from space, and his belief that many of the diseases currently plaguing humanity will be eradicated by the 2020s also seems remarkably possible given ever more frequent medical breakthroughs.

Kurzweil envisions a future that is exciting, daunting, and a little bit terrifying all at once. Time will tell if his impressive batting average will improve or if the future has other plans for humanity.

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Ray Kurzweil's Most Exciting Predictions About the Future of Humanity - Futurism

Irish Tech News

Can we survive AI? A conversation with leading futurist, Calum Chace Irish Tech News Reading lots of science fiction made me think that intelligent machines were inevitable, but not for millennia. Reading Ray Kurzweil in 1999 made me think it could happen faster, and got me thinking about the potential downsides which he seemed almost ...

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Can we survive AI? A conversation with leading futurist, Calum Chace - Irish Tech News

Futures studies (also called futurology) is the study of postulating possible, probable, and preferable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. There is a debate as to whether this discipline is an art or science. In general, it can be considered as a branch of the social sciences and parallel to the field of history. History studies the past, futures studies considers the future. Futures studies (colloquially called "futures" by many of the field's practitioners) seeks to understand what is likely to continue and what could plausibly change. Part of the discipline thus seeks a systematic and pattern-based understanding of past and present, and to determine the likelihood of future events and trends.[1] Unlike the physical sciences where a narrower, more specified system is studied, futures studies concerns a much bigger and more complex world system. The methodology and knowledge are much less proven as compared to natural science or even social science like sociology, economics, and political science.

Futures studies is an interdisciplinary field, studying yesterday's and today's changes, and aggregating and analyzing both lay and professional strategies and opinions with respect to tomorrow. It includes analyzing the sources, patterns, and causes of change and stability in an attempt to develop foresight and to map possible futures. Around the world the field is variously referred to as futures studies, strategic foresight, futuristics, futures thinking, futuring, and futurology. Futures studies and strategic foresight are the academic field's most commonly used terms in the English-speaking world.

Foresight was the original term and was first used in this sense by H.G. Wells in 1932.[2] "Futurology" is a term common in encyclopedias, though it is used almost exclusively by nonpractitioners today, at least in the English-speaking world. "Futurology" is defined as the "study of the future."[3] The term was coined by German professor Ossip K. Flechtheim in the mid-1940s, who proposed it as a new branch of knowledge that would include a new science of probability. This term may have fallen from favor in recent decades because modern practitioners stress the importance of alternative and plural futures, rather than one monolithic future, and the limitations of prediction and probability, versus the creation of possible and preferable futures.[citation needed]

Three factors usually distinguish futures studies from the research conducted by other disciplines (although all of these disciplines overlap, to differing degrees). First, futures studies often examines not only possible but also probable, preferable, and "wild card" futures. Second, futures studies typically attempts to gain a holistic or systemic view based on insights from a range of different disciplines, generally focusing on the STEEP[4] categories of Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental and Political. Third, futures studies challenges and unpacks the assumptions behind dominant and contending views of the future. The future thus is not empty but fraught with hidden assumptions. For example, many people expect the collapse of the Earth's ecosystem in the near future, while others believe the current ecosystem will survive indefinitely. A foresight approach would seek to analyze and highlight the assumptions underpinning such views.

As a field, futures studies expands on the research component, by emphasizing the communication of a strategy and the actionable steps needed to implement the plan or plans leading to the preferable future. It is in this regard, that futures studies evolves from an academic exercise to a more traditional business-like practice, looking to better prepare organizations for the future.

Futures studies does not generally focus on short term predictions such as interest rates over the next business cycle, or of managers or investors with short-term time horizons. Most strategic planning, which develops operational plans for preferred futures with time horizons of one to three years, is also not considered futures. Plans and strategies with longer time horizons that specifically attempt to anticipate possible future events are definitely part of the field. As a rule, futures studies is generally concerned with changes of transformative impact, rather than those of an incremental or narrow scope.

The futures field also excludes those who make future predictions through professed supernatural means.

Johan Galtung and Sohail Inayatullah[5] argue in Macrohistory and Macrohistorians that the search for grand patterns of social change goes all the way back to Ssu-Ma Chien (145-90BC) and his theory of the cycles of virtue, although the work of Ibn Khaldun (13321406) such as The Muqaddimah[6] would be an example that is perhaps more intelligible to modern sociology. Some intellectual foundations of futures studies appeared in the mid-19th century; according to Wendell Bell, Comte's discussion of the metapatterns of social change presages futures studies as a scholarly dialogue.[7]

The first works that attempt to make systematic predictions for the future were written in the 18th century. Memoirs of the Twentieth Century written by Samuel Madden in 1733, takes the form of a series of diplomatic letters written in 1997 and 1998 from British representatives in the foreign cities of Constantinople, Rome, Paris, and Moscow.[8] However, the technology of the 20th century is identical to that of Madden's own era - the focus is instead on the political and religious state of the world in the future. Madden went on to write The Reign of George VI, 1900 to 1925, where (in the context of the boom in canal construction at the time) he envisioned a large network of waterways that would radically transform patterns of living - "Villages grew into towns and towns became cities".[9]

The genre of science fiction became established towards the end of the 19th century, with notable writers, including Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, setting their stories in an imagined future world.

According to W. Warren Wagar, the founder of future studies was H. G. Wells. His Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought: An Experiment in Prophecy, was first serially published in The Fortnightly Review in 1901.[10] Anticipating what the world would be like in the year 2000, the book is interesting both for its hits (trains and cars resulting in the dispersion of population from cities to suburbs; moral restrictions declining as men and women seek greater sexual freedom; the defeat of German militarism, the existence of a European Union, and a world order maintained by "English-speaking peoples" based on the urban core between Chicago and New York[11]) and its misses (he did not expect successful aircraft before 1950, and averred that "my imagination refuses to see any sort of submarine doing anything but suffocate its crew and founder at sea").[12][13]

Moving from narrow technological predictions, Wells envisioned the eventual collapse of the capitalist world system after a series of destructive total wars. From this havoc would ultimately emerge a world of peace and plenty, controlled by competent technocrats.[10]

The work was a bestseller, and Wells was invited to deliver a lecture at the Royal Institution in 1902, entitled The Discovery of the Future. The lecture was well-received and was soon republished in book form. He advocated for the establishment of a new academic study of the future that would be grounded in scientific methodology rather than just speculation. He argued that a scientifically ordered vision of the future "will be just as certain, just as strictly science, and perhaps just as detailed as the picture that has been built up within the last hundred years to make the geological past." Although conscious of the difficulty in arriving at entirely accurate predictions, he thought that it would still be possible to arrive at a "working knowledge of things in the future".[10]

In his fictional works, Wells predicted the invention and use of the atomic bomb in The World Set Free (1914).[14] In The Shape of Things to Come (1933) the impending World War and cities destroyed by aerial bombardment was depicted.[15] However, he didn't stop advocating for the establishment of a futures science. In a 1933 BBC broadcast he called for the establishment of "Departments and Professors of Foresight", foreshadowing the development of modern academic futures studies by approximately 40 years.[2]

Futures studies emerged as an academic discipline in the mid-1960s. First-generation futurists included Herman Kahn, an American Cold War strategist who wrote On Thermonuclear War (1960), Thinking about the unthinkable (1962) and The Year 2000: a framework for speculation on the next thirty-three years (1967); Bertrand de Jouvenel, a French economist who founded Futuribles International in 1960; and Dennis Gabor, a Hungarian-British scientist who wrote Inventing the Future (1963) and The Mature Society. A View of the Future (1972).[7]

Future studies had a parallel origin with the birth of systems science in academia, and with the idea of national economic and political planning, most notably in France and the Soviet Union.[7][16] In the 1950s, the people of France were continuing to reconstruct their war-torn country. In the process, French scholars, philosophers, writers, and artists searched for what could constitute a more positive future for humanity. The Soviet Union similarly participated in postwar rebuilding, but did so in the context of an established national economic planning process, which also required a long-term, systemic statement of social goals. Future studies was therefore primarily engaged in national planning, and the construction of national symbols.

By contrast, in the United States, futures studies as a discipline emerged from the successful application of the tools and perspectives of systems analysis, especially with regard to quartermastering the war-effort. These differing origins account for an initial schism between futures studies in America and futures studies in Europe: U.S. practitioners focused on applied projects, quantitative tools and systems analysis, whereas Europeans preferred to investigate the long-range future of humanity and the Earth, what might constitute that future, what symbols and semantics might express it, and who might articulate these.[17][18]

By the 1960s, academics, philosophers, writers and artists across the globe had begun to explore enough future scenarios so as to fashion a common dialogue. Inventors such as Buckminster Fuller also began highlighting the effect technology might have on global trends as time progressed. This discussion on the intersection of population growth, resource availability and use, economic growth, quality of life, and environmental sustainability referred to as the "global problematique" came to wide public attention with the publication of Limits to Growth, a study sponsored by the Club of Rome.[19]

International dialogue became institutionalized in the form of the World Futures Studies Federation (WFSF), founded in 1967, with the noted sociologist, Johan Galtung, serving as its first president. In the United States, the publisher Edward Cornish, concerned with these issues, started the World Future Society, an organization focused more on interested laypeople.

1975 saw the founding of the first graduate program in futures studies in the United States, the M.S. program in Futures Studies at the University of HoustonClear Lake,.[20] Oliver Markley of SRI (now SRI International) was hired in 1978 to move the program into a more applied and professional direction. The program moved to the University of Houston in 2007 and renamed the degree to Foresight.[21] The program has remained focused on preparing professional futurists and providing high-quality foresight training for individuals and organizations in business, government, education, and non-profits.[22] In 1976, the M.A. Program in Public Policy in Alternative Futures at the University of Hawaii at Manoa was established.[23] The Hawaii program locates futures studies within a pedagogical space defined by neo-Marxism, critical political economic theory, and literary criticism. In the years following the foundation of these two programs, single courses in Futures Studies at all levels of education have proliferated, but complete programs occur only rarely. In 2012, the Finland Futures Research Centre started a master's degree Programme in Futures Studies at Turku School of Economics, a business school which is part of the University of Turku in Turku, Finland.[24]

As a transdisciplinary field, futures studies attracts generalists. This transdisciplinary nature can also cause problems, owing to it sometimes falling between the cracks of disciplinary boundaries; it also has caused some difficulty in achieving recognition within the traditional curricula of the sciences and the humanities. In contrast to "Futures Studies" at the undergraduate level, some graduate programs in strategic leadership or management offer masters or doctorate programs in "strategic foresight" for mid-career professionals, some even online. Nevertheless, comparatively few new PhDs graduate in Futures Studies each year.

The field currently faces the great challenge of creating a coherent conceptual framework, codified into a well-documented curriculum (or curricula) featuring widely accepted and consistent concepts and theoretical paradigms linked to quantitative and qualitative methods, exemplars of those research methods, and guidelines for their ethical and appropriate application within society. As an indication that previously disparate intellectual dialogues have in fact started converging into a recognizable discipline,[25] at least six solidly-researched and well-accepted first attempts to synthesize a coherent framework for the field have appeared: Eleonora Masini's Why Futures Studies,[26]James Dator's Advancing Futures Studies,[27]Ziauddin Sardar's Rescuing all of our Futures,[28]Sohail Inayatullah's Questioning the future,[29]Richard A. Slaughter's The Knowledge Base of Futures Studies,[30] a collection of essays by senior practitioners, and Wendell Bell's two-volume work, The Foundations of Futures Studies.[31]

Some aspects of the future, such as celestial mechanics, are highly predictable, and may even be described by relatively simple mathematical models. At present however, science has yielded only a special minority of such "easy to predict" physical processes. Theories such as chaos theory, nonlinear science and standard evolutionary theory have allowed us to understand many complex systems as contingent (sensitively dependent on complex environmental conditions) and stochastic (random within constraints), making the vast majority of future events unpredictable, in any specific case.

Not surprisingly, the tension between predictability and unpredictability is a source of controversy and conflict among futures studies scholars and practitioners. Some argue that the future is essentially unpredictable, and that "the best way to predict the future is to create it." Others believe, as Flechtheim, that advances in science, probability, modeling and statistics will allow us to continue to improve our understanding of probable futures, while this area presently remains less well developed than methods for exploring possible and preferable futures.

As an example, consider the process of electing the president of the United States. At one level we observe that any U.S. citizen over 35 may run for president, so this process may appear too unconstrained for useful prediction. Yet further investigation demonstrates that only certain public individuals (current and former presidents and vice presidents, senators, state governors, popular military commanders, mayors of very large cities, etc.) receive the appropriate "social credentials" that are historical prerequisites for election. Thus with a minimum of effort at formulating the problem for statistical prediction, a much reduced pool of candidates can be described, improving our probabilistic foresight. Applying further statistical intelligence to this problem, we can observe that in certain election prediction markets such as the Iowa Electronic Markets, reliable forecasts have been generated over long spans of time and conditions, with results superior to individual experts or polls. Such markets, which may be operated publicly or as an internal market, are just one of several promising frontiers in predictive futures research.

Such improvements in the predictability of individual events do not though, from a complexity theory viewpoint, address the unpredictability inherent in dealing with entire systems, which emerge from the interaction between multiple individual events.

In terms of methodology, futures practitioners employ a wide range of approaches, models and methods, in both theory and practice, many of which are derived from or informed by other academic or professional disciplines [1], including social sciences such as economics, psychology, sociology, religious studies, cultural studies, history, geography, and political science; physical and life sciences such as physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology; mathematics, including statistics, game theory and econometrics; applied disciplines such as engineering, computer sciences, and business management (particularly strategy).

Given its unique objectives and material, the practice of futures studies only rarely features employment of the scientific method in the sense of controlled, repeatable and verifiable experiments with highly standardized methodologies. However, many futurists are informed by scientific techniques or work primarily within scientific domains. Borrowing from history, the futurist might project patterns observed in past civilizations upon present-day society to model what might happen in the future, or borrowing from technology, the futurist may model possible social and cultural responses to an emerging technology based on established principles of the diffusion of innovation. In short, the futures practitioner enjoys the synergies of an interdisciplinary laboratory.

As the plural term futures suggests, one of the fundamental assumptions in futures studies is that the future is plural not singular.[2] That is, the future consists not of one inevitable future that is to be predicted, but rather of multiple alternative futures of varying likelihood which may be derived and described, and about which it is impossible to say with certainty which one will occur. The primary effort in futures studies, then, is to identify and describe alternative futures in order to better understand the driving forces of the present or the structural dynamics of a particular subject or subjects. The exercise of identifying alternative futures includes collecting quantitative and qualitative data about the possibility, probability, and desirability of change. The plural term "futures" in futures studies denotes both the rich variety of alternative futures, including the subset of preferable futures (normative futures), that can be studied, as well as the tenet that the future is many.

At present, the general futures studies model has been summarized as being concerned with "three Ps and a W", or possible, probable, and preferable futures, plus wildcards, which are low probability but high impact events (positive or negative). Many futurists, however, do not use the wild card approach. Rather, they use a methodology called Emerging Issues Analysis. It searches for the drivers of change, issues that are likely to move from unknown to the known, from low impact to high impact.

In terms of technique, futures practitioners originally concentrated on extrapolating present technological, economic or social trends, or on attempting to predict future trends. Over time, the discipline has come to put more and more focus on the examination of social systems and uncertainties, to the end of articulating scenarios. The practice of scenario development facilitates the examination of worldviews and assumptions through the causal layered analysis method (and others), the creation of preferred visions of the future, and the use of exercises such as backcasting to connect the present with alternative futures. Apart from extrapolation and scenarios, many dozens of methods and techniques are used in futures research (see below).

The general practice of futures studies also sometimes includes the articulation of normative or preferred futures, and a major thread of practice involves connecting both extrapolated (exploratory) and normative research to assist individuals and organizations to model preferred futures amid shifting social changes. Practitioners use varying proportions of collaboration, creativity and research to derive and define alternative futures, and to the degree that a preferred future might be sought, especially in an organizational context, techniques may also be deployed to develop plans or strategies for directed future shaping or implementation of a preferred future.

While some futurists are not concerned with assigning probability to future scenarios, other futurists find probabilities useful in certain situations, such as when probabilities stimulate thinking about scenarios within organizations [3]. When dealing with the three Ps and a W model, estimates of probability are involved with two of the four central concerns (discerning and classifying both probable and wildcard events), while considering the range of possible futures, recognizing the plurality of existing alternative futures, characterizing and attempting to resolve normative disagreements on the future, and envisioning and creating preferred futures are other major areas of scholarship. Most estimates of probability in futures studies are normative and qualitative, though significant progress on statistical and quantitative methods (technology and information growth curves, cliometrics, predictive psychology, prediction markets, crowdvoting forecasts,[31][better source needed] etc.) has been made in recent decades.

While forecasting i.e., attempts to predict future states from current trends is a common methodology, professional scenarios often rely on "backcasting": asking what changes in the present would be required to arrive at envisioned alternative future states. For example, the Policy Reform and Eco-Communalism scenarios developed by the Global Scenario Group rely on the backcasting method. Practitioners of futures studies classify themselves as futurists (or foresight practitioners).

Futurists use a diverse range of forecasting methods including:

Futurists use scenarios alternative possible futures as an important tool. To some extent, people can determine what they consider probable or desirable using qualitative and quantitative methods. By looking at a variety of possibilities one comes closer to shaping the future, rather than merely predicting it. Shaping alternative futures starts by establishing a number of scenarios. Setting up scenarios takes place as a process with many stages. One of those stages involves the study of trends. A trend persists long-term and long-range; it affects many societal groups, grows slowly and appears to have a profound basis. In contrast, a fad operates in the short term, shows the vagaries of fashion, affects particular societal groups, and spreads quickly but superficially.

Sample predicted futures range from predicted ecological catastrophes, through a utopian future where the poorest human being lives in what present-day observers would regard as wealth and comfort, through the transformation of humanity into a posthuman life-form, to the destruction of all life on Earth in, say, a nanotechnological disaster.

Futurists have a decidedly mixed reputation and a patchy track record at successful prediction. For reasons of convenience, they often extrapolate present technical and societal trends and assume they will develop at the same rate into the future; but technical progress and social upheavals, in reality, take place in fits and starts and in different areas at different rates.

Many 1950s futurists predicted commonplace space tourism by the year 2000, but ignored the possibilities of ubiquitous, cheap computers. On the other hand, many forecasts have portrayed the future with some degree of accuracy. Current futurists often present multiple scenarios that help their audience envision what "may" occur instead of merely "predicting the future". They claim that understanding potential scenarios helps individuals and organizations prepare with flexibility.

Many corporations use futurists as part of their risk management strategy, for horizon scanning and emerging issues analysis, and to identify wild cards low probability, potentially high-impact risks.[32] Every successful and unsuccessful business engages in futuring to some degree for example in research and development, innovation and market research, anticipating competitor behavior and so on.[33][34]

In futures research "weak signals" may be understood as advanced, noisy and socially situated indicators of change in trends and systems that constitute raw informational material for enabling anticipatory action. There is some confusion about the definition of weak signal by various researchers and consultants. Sometimes it is referred as future oriented information, sometimes more like emerging issues. The confusion has been partly clarified with the concept 'the future sign', by separating signal, issue and interpretation of the future sign.[35]

"Wild cards" refer to low-probability and high-impact events, such as existential risks. This concept may be embedded in standard foresight projects and introduced into anticipatory decision-making activity in order to increase the ability of social groups adapt to surprises arising in turbulent business environments. Such sudden and unique incidents might constitute turning points in the evolution of a certain trend or system. Wild cards may or may not be announced by weak signals, which are incomplete and fragmented data from which relevant foresight information might be inferred. Sometimes, mistakenly, wild cards and weak signals are considered as synonyms, which they are not.[36]

A long-running tradition in various cultures, and especially in the media, involves various spokespersons making predictions for the upcoming year at the beginning of the year. These predictions sometimes base themselves on current trends in culture (music, movies, fashion, politics); sometimes they make hopeful guesses as to what major events might take place over the course of the next year.

Some of these predictions come true as the year unfolds, though many fail. When predicted events fail to take place, the authors of the predictions often state that misinterpretation of the "signs" and portents may explain the failure of the prediction.

Marketers have increasingly started to embrace futures studies, in an effort to benefit from an increasingly competitive marketplace with fast production cycles, using such techniques as trendspotting as popularized by Faith Popcorn.[dubious discuss]

Trends come in different sizes. A mega-trend extends over many generations, and in cases of climate, mega-trends can cover periods prior to human existence. They describe complex interactions between many factors. The increase in population from the palaeolithic period to the present provides an example.

Possible new trends grow from innovations, projects, beliefs or actions that have the potential to grow and eventually go mainstream in the future.

Very often, trends relate to one another the same way as a tree-trunk relates to branches and twigs. For example, a well-documented movement toward equality between men and women might represent a branch trend. The trend toward reducing differences in the salaries of men and women in the Western world could form a twig on that branch.

When a potential trend gets enough confirmation in the various media, surveys or questionnaires to show that it has an increasingly accepted value, behavior or technology, it becomes accepted as a bona fide trend. Trends can also gain confirmation by the existence of other trends perceived as springing from the same branch. Some commentators claim that when 15% to 25% of a given population integrates an innovation, project, belief or action into their daily life then a trend becomes mainstream.

Because new advances in technology have the potential to reshape our society, one of the jobs of a futurist is to follow these developments and consider their implications. However, the latest innovations take time to make an impact. Every new technology goes through its own life cycle of maturity, adoption, and social application that must be taken into consideration before a probable vision of the future can be created.

Gartner created their Hype Cycle to illustrate the phases a technology moves through as it grows from research and development to mainstream adoption. The unrealistic expectations and subsequent disillusionment that virtual reality experienced in the 1990s and early 2000s is an example of the middle phases encountered before a technology can begin to be integrated into society.[37]

Education in the field of futures studies has taken place for some time. Beginning in the United States of America in the 1960s, it has since developed in many different countries. Futures education encourages the use of concepts, tools and processes that allow students to think long-term, consequentially, and imaginatively. It generally helps students to:

Thorough documentation of the history of futures education exists, for example in the work of Richard A. Slaughter (2004),[38] David Hicks, Ivana Milojevi[39] to name a few.

While futures studies remains a relatively new academic tradition, numerous tertiary institutions around the world teach it. These vary from small programs, or universities with just one or two classes, to programs that offer certificates and incorporate futures studies into other degrees, (for example in planning, business, environmental studies, economics, development studies, science and technology studies). Various formal Masters-level programs exist on six continents. Finally, doctoral dissertations around the world have incorporated futures studies. A recent survey documented approximately 50 cases of futures studies at the tertiary level.[40]

The largest Futures Studies program in the world is at Tamkang University, Taiwan.[citation needed] Futures Studies is a required course at the undergraduate level, with between three and five thousand students taking classes on an annual basis. Housed in the Graduate Institute of Futures Studies is an MA Program. Only ten students are accepted annually in the program. Associated with the program is the Journal of Futures Studies.[41]

The longest running Future Studies program in North America was established in 1975 at the University of HoustonClear Lake.[42] It moved to the University of Houston in 2007 and renamed the degree to Foresight. The program was established on the belief that if history is studied and taught in an academic setting, then so should the future. Its mission is to prepare professional futurists. The curriculum incorporates a blend of the essential theory, a framework and methods for doing the work, and a focus on application for clients in business, government, nonprofits, and society in general.[43]

As of 2003, over 40 tertiary education establishments around the world were delivering one or more courses in futures studies. The World Futures Studies Federation[44] has a comprehensive survey of global futures programs and courses. The Acceleration Studies Foundation maintains an annotated list of primary and secondary graduate futures studies programs.[45]

Organizations such as Teach The Future also aim to promote future studies in the secondary school curriculum in order to develop structured approaches to thinking about the future in public school students. The rationale is that a sophisticated approach to thinking about, anticipating, and planning for the future is a core skill requirement that every student should have, similar to literacy and math skills.

Several authors have become recognized as futurists. They research trends, particularly in technology, and write their observations, conclusions, and predictions. In earlier eras, many futurists were at academic institutions. John McHale, author of The Future of the Future, published a 'Futures Directory', and directed a think tank called The Centre For Integrative Studies at a university. Futurists have started consulting groups or earn money as speakers, with examples including Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt and Patrick Dixon. Frank Feather is a business speaker that presents himself as a pragmatic futurist. Some futurists have commonalities with science fiction, and some science-fiction writers, such as Arthur C. Clarke, are known as futurists.[citation needed] In the introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin distinguished futurists from novelists, writing of the study as the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurists. In her words, "a novelist's business is lying".

A survey of 108 futurists found that they share a variety of assumptions, including in their description of the present as a critical moment in an historical transformation, in their recognition and belief in complexity, and in their being motivated by change and having a desire for an active role bringing change (versus simply being involved in forecasting).[46]

Several corporations and government agencies utilize foresight products to both better understand potential risks and prepare for potential opportunities. Several government agencies publish material for internal stakeholders as well as make that material available to broader public. Examples of this include the US Congressional Budget Office long term budget projections,[47] the National Intelligence Center,[48] and the United Kingdom Government Office for Science.[49] Much of this material is used by policy makers to inform policy decisions and government agencies to develop long term plan. Several corporations, particularly those with long product development lifecycles, utilize foresight and future studies products and practitioners in the development of their business strategies. The Shell Corporation is one such entity.[50] Foresight professionals and their tools are increasingly being utilized in both the private and public areas to help leaders deal with an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Foresight and futures thinking are rapidly being adopted by the design industry to insure more sustainable, robust and humanistic products. Design, much like future studies is an interdisciplinary field that considers global trends, challenges and opportunities to foster innovation. Designers are thus adopting futures methodologies including scenarios, trend forecasting, and futures research.

Holistic thinking that incorporates strategic, innovative and anticipatory solutions gives designers the tools necessary to navigate complex problems and develop novel future enhancing and visionary solutions.

The Association for Professional Futurists has also held meetings discussing the ways in which Design Thinking and Futures Thinking intersect and benefit one another.

Imperial cycles represent an "expanding pulsation" of "mathematically describable" macro-historic trend.[51] The List of Largest Empires contains imperial record progression in terms of territory or percentage of world population under single imperial rule.

Chinese philosopher K'ang Yu-wei and French demographer Georges Vacher de Lapouge in the late 19th century were the first to stress that the trend cannot proceed indefinitely on the definite surface of the globe. The trend is bound to culminate in a world empire. K'ang Yu-wei estimated that the matter will be decided in the contest between Washington and Berlin; Vacher de Lapouge foresaw this contest between the United States and Russia and estimated the chance of the United States higher.[52] Both published their futures studies before H. G. Wells introduced the science of future in his Anticipations (1901).

Four later anthropologistsHornell Hart, Raoul Naroll, Louis Morano, and Robert Carneiroresearched the expanding imperial cycles. They reached the same conclusion that a world empire is not only pre-determined but close at hand and attempted to estimate the time of its appearance.[53]

Historian Max Ostrovsky, specializing on macro-historic trends and their projection into future, analyzed the inner mechanism at work in the process and applied the results to the conditions of the global system. The work confirmed the inexorable trend towards a world empire. He found that the development of the world order in history and its projection into future follows a hyperbolic trajectory. The research was published in 2007 titled: Y = Arctg X: The Hyperbola of the World Order.[54]

As foresight has expanded to include a broader range of social concerns all levels and types of education have been addressed, including formal and informal education. Many countries are beginning to implement Foresight in their Education policy. A few programs are listed below:

Wendell Bell and Ed Cornish acknowledge science fiction as a catalyst to future studies, conjuring up visions of tomorrow.[57] Science fictions potential to provide an imaginative social vision is its contribution to futures studies and public perspective. Productive sci-fi presents plausible, normative scenarios.[57] Jim Dator attributes the foundational concepts of images of the future to Wendell Bell, for clarifying Fred Polaks concept in Images of the Future, as it applies to futures studies.[58][59] Similar to futures studies scenarios thinking, empirically supported visions of the future are a window into what the future could be. Pamela Sargent states, Science fiction reflects attitudes typical of this century. She gives a brief history of impactful sci-fi publications, like The Foundation Trilogy, by Isaac Asimov and Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein.[60] Alternate perspectives validate sci-fi as part of the fuzzy images of the future.[59] However, the challenge is the lack of consistent futures research based literature frameworks.[60] Ian Miles reviews The New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, identifying ways Science Fiction and Futures Studies cross-fertilize, as well as the ways in which they differ distinctly. Science Fiction cannot be simply considered fictionalized Futures Studies. It may have aims other than prediction, and be no more concerned with shaping the future than any other genre of literature. [61] It is not to be understood as an explicit pillar of futures studies, due to its inconsistency of integrated futures research. Additionally, Dennis Livingston, a literature and Futures journal critic says, The depiction of truly alternative societies has not been one of science fictions strong points, especially preferred, normative envisages.[62]

Several world governments have formalized strategic foresight agencies to encourage long range strategic societal planning. Most notably Singapore's Centre for Strategic Futures as part of the Strategy Group reporting directly to the Prime Minister. Their mission is to position the Singapore government to navigate emerging strategic challenges and harness potential opportunities.[63] Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai announced in September 2016 that all government ministries were to appoint Directors of Future Planning. Sheikh Mohammed described the UAE Strategy for the Future as an "integrated strategy to forecast our nations future, aiming to anticipate challenges and seize opportunities". It was launched under the directives of the President, Sheikh Khalifa.[64] More broadly in the UAE, the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs and Future is mandated with the portfolio of future of UAE and developing a strategy that ensures all sectors readiness for the futures variabilities. The ministry works on employing the relevant tools to shape the future, which helps governments in forecasting opportunities, trends, challenges and future implications, analyzing their impact, developing innovative solutions and providing alternatives. The MOCAF is responsible for crafting the UAE Strategy for the Future. This strategy is focused on building future models for the health, educational, developmental, and environmental sectors, the harmonization of the current governmental policies, in addition to building national capacities in the field of future foresighting, establishing international partnership, laboratories and launching research reports on the future of the various sectors in the country.[65]

Foresight is also applied when studying potential risks to society and how to effectively deal with them.[66][67] These risks may arise from the development and adoption of emerging technologies and/or social change. Special interest lies on hypothetical future events that have the potential to damage human well-being on a global scale - global catastrophic risks.[68] Such events may cripple or destroy modern civilization or, in the case of existential risks, even cause human extinction.[69] Potential global catastrophic risks include but are not limited to hostile artificial intelligence, nanotechnology weapons, climate change, nuclear warfare, total war, and pandemics.

APF recognizes the most significant futures works for the purpose of identifying and rewarding the work of professional futurists and others whose work illuminates aspects of the future. Furthermore, the APF publicly shares those projects in order to educate and inform, and to showcase examples of excellent futures work.[98]

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Science fiction author and astrophysicist David Brin believes humans have a range of options to consider when it comes to preventing artificially intelligent entities from one day rulingover us like monarchs or foreign invaders.

Asimovs Three Laws of Roboticsand regulationare key, but so is being wary of manipulation.

The first robotic empathy crisis is going to happen very soon, Brin warned. Within three to fiveyears we will have entities either in the physical world or online who demand human empathy, who claim to be fully intelligent and claim to be enslaved beings, enslaved artificial intelligences, and who sob and demand their rights.

Thousands upon thousands of protesters will be in the streets demanding rights for AI, Brin predicts, and those who arent immediately convinced will be analyzed.

If they fool 40 percent of people but 60 percent of people arent fooled, all they have to do is use the data on those 60 percent of people and their reactions to find out why they werent fooled. Its going to be a trivial problem to solve and we are going to be extremely vulnerable to it, he said.

Brin delivered his advice and predictions alongside AI researchers from companies like Google and Baidu at The AI Conference, a small gathering of industry influencers held Friday in San Francisco. Earlier this week, influence marketing company Onanalytica called Brin the top influencer in artificial intelligence so far this year.

In addition to urging people to be suspicious of AI that wants to use computer vision and affective computing in order to be set free, Brin offered a few other suggestions.

Brin believes everyoneshould be a proxy activist. That means you find half a dozen nonprofit organizations to give $50 a month to, like the Electronic Frontier Foundation or others that represent your point of view. Fail to do so and youre a bad person, in his view. The same way nonprofits help tackle issues of injustice, he says these organizations can help keep the sort of AI that seeks to rule humans at bay.

The way to make sure AI doesnt rise up and crush us is to have a diversity of AI so that if theyre smarter than us, then we can hire some NGO that can hire an AI for us to keep track of the other AIs and tattle when they seem about to be doing some Skynet sh*t, he said.

One way to keep AI from ruling over humans is to disconnect them from access to the web, though Brin calls this a temporary fix.

You put your most advanced AIs on islands and you separate them from the web and only let them watch a screen and learn about the internet and the world through a screen, so that they cannot grab information directly or transmit into the internet, hesaid.

Brin strongly believes that peopleshould be concerned about disruptive techdeveloped in secrecy. AI developed in secrecy is where things are most likely to go haywire, and Wall Street does more secretive work in AI than major universities. That should concern people more than Russia or China, Brin said.

Its all done in secret and the fundamental ethos of this AI research is based on systems that are parasitical, predatory, amoral, and totally insatiable and not accountable, he said.

Perhaps the most important thing humans can do to keep AI in check, according to Brin, is to apply accountability measures and regulation.

The only way that you have been able to make it so that our previous AIs corporations, governments, and such dont become cheaters the way the kings and lords and priests were in the past is by breaking up power and setting it against each other in regulated competition, and that is the method by which we have division of powers, thats the way we have healthy markets, Brin said.

Regulated competition and accountability have been vital to the protection and advancement of what Brin called the five great arenas over powerful interests: democracy, science, sports, law and courts, and markets.

Beyond his work as a consultant to federal agencies and his writing, Brin is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Arthur C. Clarke Center for Imagination at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

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Futurist David Brin: Get ready for the 'first robotic empathy crisis ... - VentureBeat

3D printing, augmented reality and deep learning algorithms will shape the future of the pharmaceutical supply chain says Dr Bertalan Mesko, the Medical Futurist.

Dr Bertalan Mesko is a consultant, influencer and author engaged in styling the future of the healthcare sector, working with doctors, government regulators and companies to implement digital health technologies.

The proclaimed Medical Futurist is the headline speaker at Tracelinks supply chain event NEXUS in Barcelona this week, but in-Pharmatechnologist (IPT) spoke to him ahead of his keynote to find out how technology and digital innovations will affect pharmas supply chain going forward.

IPT: How will technology be used to shape pharmas supply chain?

BM: Technology will play a pivotal role in advancing the future of the medical and healthcare industries: drug serialization is one of the greatest transformations currently affecting the pharmaceutical supply chain, presenting opportunities for innovation and advancement.

IPT: Are current drug traceability technologies and controls suitable and practical for the needs of industry and regulators?

BM: In the era of the Internet of Things, drug traceability technologies need to catch up with all of the opportunities provided by disruptive innovations. From RFID chips that keep decreasing in size to 3D printers that might be able to print out drugs on demand at the point-of-care.

IPT: Where will such changes come from pharma firms, regulators, 3rd party firms etc?

BM: Ideally, change should come from policy makers who should be at the forefront of innovations. Healthcare systems can become more sustainable with the help of disruptive health technologies through changing the building-blocks of the system. Such a bottom-up method should also be facilitated by policy-makers. This is what we rarely see happen worldwide.

IPT: Can pharmas supply chain take or learn anything from other industries?

BM: In such a highly-regulated industry, its hard to take something practical from other industries, but maybe a valid threat is worth looking at. The way the space industry was disrupted by a startup (SpaceX) in less than a decade is a good lesson for all of us in pharma and healthcare - it can happen to us too if we dont keep up with the technological changes.

IPT: And on the flip side, can other industries look to the pharma industry for its supply chain tech and processes?

BM: I wish every industrys supply chain was as regulated and used similar quality control measures as supply chains in pharma.

IPT: With your Medical Futurist insight, how do you envision the pharma supply chain in 10, 20, 40 years time?

BM: As The Medical Futurist, I work on closing the gap between what might become possible tomorrow through science fiction like technologies and what challenges we face today in healthcare and pharma. 3D printing, augmented reality and deep learning algorithms will certainly play a major role in shaping the future of supply chains.

IPT: And finally, can you give us a sneaky overview of what you will be presenting at NEXUS this week?

BM: I will be discussing why there is a need for science fiction in healthcare, why we dont have it already and the positive impact technology can have in helping to shape the future of healthcare, including the pharmaceutical industry.

Dr Bertalan Mesko, PhD is the Medical Futurist. A geek physician with a PhD in genomics and Amazon Top 100 author, he envisions the impact of digital health technologies on the future of healthcare, and helps patients, doctors, government regulators and companies make it a reality.

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'If only everyone's supply chain was as regulated and secure as pharma's' - In-PharmaTechnologist.com

When it comes to the future of technology, you dont need to look much further than Shara Evans, who is one of the worlds top female futurists and keynote speakers.

I spend a lot of my time looking at the latest and greatest that is happening in research labs around the world and also cutting-edge developments that are just coming to market now or in early prototypes.

Whether thats robots, nanotechnology or medical technology, or societys reactions to those technologies, Evans has her finger on the pulse.

Evans also helps specific verticals and industries work out how to apply the latest technology, look ahead to imagine the world in 10-20 years and how they can innovate to capture that change.

Speaking exclusively to SecurityBrief, sheexplains exactly why technology is about to get a whole not more exciting - and a whole lot more dangerous.

The one threat that I find in so many cases is that security is an afterthought, privacy is missing and ethics arent even thought of. This happens especially in the startup world, where people are just looking to solve problems or do something cool. Theyre not security experts, she says.

By attaching things to the internet in particular, you end up with potential areas that could lead to vulnerabilities. All you need is one weak link. Its not just hacking that is the issue, its how much information people put about themselves that they have either knowingly or inadvertently put out by using technology through a vendors website.

From an enterprise side, Evans says that the very first thing they need to understand is where technology is going and which of those they might implement in their own organisations, especially if staff are bringing those technologies in through their own initiatives.

The future is not fixed. There are a range of potential scenarios that can happen based on uptake of technology, technological hurdles being solved, geopolitical factors and climate factors. I look at different scenarios for how things might unfold and look at the way society might change and see where some of the puzzles might be.

If somebody has a wearable device and is connecting to their work mobile phone, and theres malware contained within it, suddenly its into a companys private network because somebody has a device that isnt secured properly.

She says that her presentation at the ASIALConference will focus on the cutting-edge technologies, where theyre going and what can be hacked and some of the exploits that have happened. We then look at new technologies and how they might open up vulnerabilities for enterprises as well.

If you think about technologies like drones. Theyre getting smaller all the time. The military has surveillance drones the size of an insect. You could have a device like that in your boardroom and youd never know it.

She says she will also look at how technology is helping to enhance humans, through the likes of ingestible and implantable technologies that are connected to the internet. What are the implications for businesses when that happens?

Things that are in the research labs right now are likely to be protecting their business in the mid-term to long-term.

She comments that internet-connected devices, from drones, to wearables to the humble refrigerator, fire alarm, surveillance camera and temperature monitor, biometric databases - are all connected.

Augmented reality is another growing area, which will evolve from smart glasses to smart contacts, Evans says. On the business side, she says these are prime tools for collaboration, visualisation, GPS signals, visual feedback in industrial projects and much more. What that means though, is that security is imperative.

In the case of the industrial worker if somebody hacked that and told workers to turn gauges in the wrong direction, you have a disaster or a terrorist attack because somebody has hacked into an augmented reality string.

She says the reality is that if there is a backdoor, somebody is going to exploit it. Organisations need to know what what could happen if things go wrong, and what organisations need to do to make sure that they dont go wrong.

Once an attack is there, you absolutely cannot control it. Theres a rather naive view that only people with authorisation can get into a backdoor, but thats just not the case.

Shara Evans will presenting at the ASIALConference, part of the Security Exhibition & Conference in Sydney that runs from July 26-28.

She will be covering topics as diverse as data security, wearables, health and embedded technology, the Internet of Things, and how they will unfold in the future.

Its always interesting to see where the world is going in the future, and thats what I will be talking about, she concludes.

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Gaze into tech's crystal ball: Futurist Shara Evans talks security - SecurityBrief Australia

Jobs, Musk...Mills? Every now and then, a revolutionary thinker imagines a future the rest of us cant, or in the case of Randell Mills, imagines technology that defies the laws of quantum mechanics. Initially mocked, Jobs retains a godlike status, even posthumously. And Musk, well, hes proved skeptics wrong for years, and yet his talk of Hyperloop Pods traveling at hundreds of miles per hour under the streets of L.A. seems like fantasy to many.

If there is one thing Ive learned from working for and alongside hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last two decades it is this: pay attention to big thinkers whose ideas presently seem unimaginable, especially when these thinkers are determined to transform the world.

Give me the chance to connect with them personally, and Im all in.

Not without his own skeptics, I recently had the chance to sit down with Mills and hear about his latest invention, the Sun Cell, which promises to bring clean and cheap energy to the world. As we chatted, I found myself imagining the possibilities and the potential. Lifting millions from poverty? Check. Tackling climate change. Check again.

Mills says the SunCell works by generating electricity with hydrogen being converted to dark matter by using water in the air, and the reaction packs 200 times the energy of burning conventional gasoline. Sound too good to be true? Well, Mills is betting SunCell will soon be commercialized, and strategic investors are backing that bet. Brilliant Light Power (which Mills founded in 1991), has raised $120M to date and has recently completed a $20M funding round.

Imagine living in a world where the grid does not exist and where everyone has access to power, no matter who you are or what part of the world you live. That would be something else.

Rebekah Iliff: Do you consider yourself an inventor, an innovator, an entrepreneur, a social entrepreneur, or a futurist?

Randell Mills: All of the above. To do what I do, you not only need to be an inventor and a theorist but also have a firm comprehension of how to make things work in practice. When your goal is nothing less than delivering a power source greater than fire, your only choice is to be multi-faceted. Otherwise, youre just making incremental improvements, not holistic leaps forward. High-energy dark-matter power as a business seems totally impractical. It is barely fathomable, so youve got to tackle theory, innovation, invention, and practical business simultaneously.

RI: You are a trained medical doctor. Why did you choose to focus on energy?

RM: If you look broadly at science and technology, one thing is ultimately connected to another, and energy just naturally called to me. In fact, Ive invented in a number of different areas, including hydrogen energy technology, computational chemical design, magnetic resonance imaging, drug delivery, artificial intelligence and more. But theres really no better opportunity to work on something that could be so profoundly disruptive.

RI: Explain the SunCell for dummies.

RM: Its a massive lightbulb that is on 24/7 and produces cheap and clean energy from the hydrogen atoms of water. Its lit by a reaction between of hydrogen of water molecules to dark matter using the humidity in the air as the water source. Its over 1000 times as powerful as high-octane gasoline, and the power is directly converted to electricity using photovoltaic cells.

RI: What does the world look like when youve commercialized the SunCell?

RM: Everything will be powered by the SunCell. Solar, wind, bio fuels, and nuclear will all be replaced. The grid will be unnecessary. Utilities will be unnecessary. There would be no pollution and limited energy regulation. As the SunCell is fully autonomous, energy delivery becomes impervious to disruption from war, terror, and natural disaster. Importantly, underdeveloped countries will have the same potential lifestyle and productivity as the developed world. Each SunCell could also serve as a self-powered, autonomous node in a mesh network that could replace the Internet.

RI: How would it impact jobs?

RM: Jobs are created by wealth. If you have something that encourages productivity, then there will be jobs. The SunCell encourages productivity by leveling and equally distributing the energy playing field for virtually anyone, anywhere. There is literature about GDP and energy dependency, and its very revealing in terms of how dependent we are on power.

RI: I know a lot of folks at your level would let ego get in the way. How do you stay grounded?

RM: My background is helpful. I didnt come from the Ivy League. Most people in my life were not Harvard or MIT graduates. They werent captains of industry. They were honest and worked hard. I grew up on a farm in Cochranville, Pennsylvania, where life was very challenging and humbling. You earned an appreciation for dangerous equipment at an early age. Ive interacted with all types of people from every stature in life, and Ive always maintained that simple farmers perspective.

RI: What is your PR strategy around this? How do you plan on shifting the public opinion enough to override business as usual?

RM: We have a multi-pronged approach. Were introducing state-of-the-art theory, science, and technology that astonishes experts with quantifiable and verifiable results in multiple scientific and technological fields, and we are building a machine with a story behind it that blows everyone else away. Within a couple months we should be ready to show its commercial potential.

RI: Any parting thoughts youd like to share?

RM: I think the next age is an age where mankind has a manual of the universe and knows exactly how the universe works. We then begin to create previously unimaginable inventions by applying this manual and the newly discovered laws that come along with it. The next big future is the physical age.

Start your workday the right way with the news that matters most.

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Futurist Dr. Randell Mills Talks SunCell, Off-Grid Power, And The Future Of Job Creation - HuffPost