THE FUTURIST, September - October 2014

Forecasts, Trends, and Ideas about the Future

www.wfs.org

September-October 2014

FUTURES EDUCATION Teaching and Learning about the Future A special report by members and friends of the World Future Society Page 28 The State of Our Global Future, page 15 7 Big Challenges for Pakistan, page 22 WORLD TRENDS & FORECASTS

Mars Can Wait. It’s Back to the Lunar Future Inequality as a Predictor of Civil War Sharing the Caring: Trends in Child Custody Unraveling the Mysteries of Alzheimer’s Disease

$5.95

About the World Future Society Why explore the future?

The world changes so quickly that it‘s hard to keep up. New inventions and innovations alter the way we live. People‘s values, attitudes, and beliefs are changing. And the pace of change keeps accelerating, ­making it difficult to prepare for t­ omorrow.

By studying the future, people can better anticipate what lies ahead. More importantly, they can actively decide how they will live in the future by making choices today and realizing the consequences of their decisions.

The future doesn‘t just happen: People create it through their action—or inaction—­today.

What can we know about the future?

No one knows exactly what will happen in the future. But by considering what might happen, people can more rationally decide on the sort of future that would be most desirable and then work to achieve it.

Opportunity as well as danger lies ahead, so people need to make farsighted decisions. The process of change is inevitable; it‘s up to everyone to make sure that change is constructive.

What is the World F­ uture Society?

The World Future Society is an association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. The Society was founded in 1966 by a group of private citizens, and is chartered as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization.

What does the Society do?

The Society convenes and connects. Through meetings and publications, it serves as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future, including forecasts, recommendations, scenarios, alternatives, and more. These ideas help people to anticipate what may happen in the next five, 10, or more years ahead. When people can ­visualize a better future, then they can begin to ­create it.

What does membership offer?

• THE FUTURIST, a magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas about the future. Every member receives a subscription to this exciting bimonthly magazine. Experts in various fields share their insights and forecasts in articles directed at a general audience.

• Special rates for all ­annual PHOTOS: KAZ OKADA FOR WFS conferences. These conferences provide members with the opportunity for face-toface meetings with distinguished scholars, leaders, and experts from around the world.

• Access to your local chapter. Cities and regions around the world have chapters for grassroots support of ­futures studies.

They provide a way for members to get involved in their local communities through workshops, discussion groups, and speakers.

A number of special interest groups also offer virtual and local How do I join networking.

Society?

Free e-mail newsletter!

Visit www.wfs.org.

the

Visit www.wfs.org or contact: World Future Society Membership Department 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450 Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA Telephone: 301-656-8274

September-October 2014 Volume 48, No. 5

A magazine of forecasts, trends, and ideas

To Mars, via the Moon.

Page 6

ARTICLES 28 Futures Education: Teaching and Learning about the Future A special report by members and friends of the World Future Society 29 Foresight Education

Programs and Courses Collaborative Futures Education, Peter Bishop Challenges for Futures Studies in the University, Linda Groff

Foresight Education: When Students Meet the Future(s), Willis Goldbeck and Lisa Hasler Waters Experiential Futures: Stepping into OCADU’s Time Machine, Stuart Candy

Teaching the Future in a History Department, David Hochfelder, with Daniel Russo and Alexander Nassrelgrgawi Futures Education in the Caribbean, Haven Allahar

Community Foresight: A Decade of Futures Teaching and Learning, Gina M. Finelli, Steven T. Henick, and Stephen F. Steele

DEPARTMENTS 2

Tomorrow in Brief

4

Future Scope

6

World Trends & Forecasts

• Back to the lunar future • Inequality as a predictor of civil war • Sharing the caring: trends in child custody • Unraveling the Alzheimer’s mystery

54 Consultants and Services 58 Reviews

• Innovating for the Global South, Soman, Stein, and Wong • It’s Complicated, Boyd • Overfished Ocean Strategy, Zhexembayeva • Shocked, Casarett

61 As Blogged

Growing old together, by James H. Lee

about the future

Foresight @ Notre Dame, Sam Miller et al.

Artifacts from the Future: Student Collaboration at the University of Notre Dame, Sam Miller and Michael Elwell

Foresight in Middle School: Teaching the Future For the Future, Katie King

15 Our Global Situation and Prospects for the Future

By Jerome C. Glenn

Humanity is making momentous strides forward in health, literacy, and many other critical areas, but also stalling or moving backward on many others, warns The Millennium Project in its latest State of the Future report.

22 Seven Big Challenges for Pakistan—and the Lessons They Could Teach

By Imran Ali

42 The Houston Experience Transforming a Graduate Futures Program, University of Houston, Oliver Markley

A Training Ground for Professional Futurists, Andy Hines

Houston 2040: The Student Experience, Darci Papell Inside the Houston Futures Strategic Foresight Program, Richard Yonck

46 Real-World Futures Learning Teaching Futures Studies to Ministers, Cassidy Dale Learning and Applying Futures Studies: Leisure and Tourism, Albert Postma Security Futures Research at Freie Universität Berlin, Lars Gerhold and Monika Muszynska

Practice-Oriented Foresight in a Research and Technology Organization, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Innovating for the Future: A Workshop for Future Scientists, Roey Tzezana

Lessons of a Lifelong Futurist, Peter Eder

human civilization. Its complex and dangerous problems are not without possible solutions, and the strategies that the nation chooses provide a model for the rest of the world.

64 Future View: 10 Questions for Machine Intelligence

By Michael Lee

Is the Singularity as near as some believe?

How might we assess its development?

A futurist offers a checklist for comparing machine and human capabilities.

Pakistan may be viewed as a case study of the fight for the survival of modern

COVER ILLUSTRATION: DENISGO / BIGSTOCK

© 2014 World Future Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part without written permission is prohibited. THE FUTURIST is a registered trademark of the World Future Society. Printed in the U.S.A. THE FUTURIST (ISSN 0016-3317) is published bimonthly by the World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Included with membership in the World Future Society (dues: $79 per year for individuals; $20 for full-time students under age 25). Subscriptions for libraries and other institutions are $89 annually. Periodicals postage paid at Bethesda, Maryland, and additional mailing offices. • POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE FUTURIST, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814. • OWNERSHIP: THE FUTURIST is owned exclusively by the World Future Society, a nonpartisan educational and scientific organization incorporated in the District of Columbia and recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a nonprofit taxexempt organization under section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Code. • CHANGE OF ADDRESS: Write or call Membership Department at the Society. 1-800-989-8274.

Tomorrow

in brief ZINA DERETSKY, NSF

Fuel Cells for the Home © FRAUNHOFER IKTS

Natural photosynthesis (left) could be improved by separating the two functions of capturing solar energy and converting it to chemical fuel, with an electrical bridge between the two environments (right).

Better Photosynthesis through Science If trees and other plants could be more productive, then we could grow more food and biofuel, reforestation projects would improve, and we’d have more resources for wood, paper, chemicals, and thousands of other manufactured products that tomorrow’s consumers will demand.

Scientists are now pursuing a variety of strategies to improve the process of photosynthesis, which captures only about 5% of available energy before converting it to food and oxygen. For instance, researchers at Arizona State Uni-

versity are pursuing “plug-andplay photosynthesis,” which strives to capture unused energy before it dissipates from one light-capturing photosynthetic cell, transferring it to a second cell.

These efforts “could transform the way we generate the fuel, food, clothing, and shelter that plants and microbes provide to us,” says Gregory Warr, a National Science Foundation program director.

Source: National Science Foundation, www.nsf.gov.

AI Lenses for the Blind CINVESTAV, COURTESY OF INVESTIGACIÓN Y DESARROLLO

People with vision impairments may soon get navigational assistance from artificially intelligent eyeglasses.

Scientists at ­Mexico’s Center for Research and Advanced Studies of the National Polytechnic Institute (CINVESTAV) have created a system comprising stereo sound sensors, GPS, and a voice-enabled tablet along with the eyeglasses, which together enable a user to maneuver around objects, identify their money, or even recognize colors in clothing.

The new device improves on similar technologies thanks to

We couldn’t have gotten to the Moon without fuel cells, but so far this electricityconversion technology hasn’t been very practical for homeowners on Earth.

Now, a fuel-cell system that could proThin fuel cells arrayed in stacks could convide electricity for a vert enough natural gas to electricity to family of four is unpower a four-­person household. der development in Germany. traditional solid fuel cells.

Scientists at Fraunhofer IKTS The fuel-cell system is now and heater manufacturer Vaillant being tested in private houseare testing a system of stacked holds. The researchers’ next thin fuel cells that convert natugoal is to bring down producral gas into electricity and heat. tion costs and increase the lifeThe system uses ceramics for time of the equipment. the fuel cells’ electrolyte, which transfers oxygen ions rather Source: Fraunhofer Institute for than electrons; the system is thus able to work efficiently at ­Ceramic Technologies and Systems far higher temperatures than IKTS, www.fraunhofer.de.

Socially Responsive Built Environments To test the technologies that will make buildings more emotionally responsive to their occupants, UK engineers have built a garden in which an articulating raw steel structure can be modified by Twitter followers using the hashtag ­#gardenup.

The STAN (Science Technology Architecture Networks) research project at the University of Lincoln, involving computer scientists, architects, and artists, aims to explore ways to make our built environments

adaptable not just to weather conditions, for instance, but also to our emotional conditions.

“The garden essentially points to a future in which buildings could modify themselves in response to monitoring our emotional state via social media,” says Richard M. Wright, senior lecturer in the Lincoln School of Architecture.

Source: University of Lincoln, www.lincoln.ac.uk. Follow @thestanproject on Twitter.

Green Flame Retardants

new algorithms, ultrasound that can see through translucent objects like glass, and artificial intelligence that can learn to recognize signs, places, and so on, according to the researchers.

Source: CINVESTAV, www.cinvestav.mx.

A mix of crab shells, clay, and DNA forms a bio-based coating that could help keep your sofa cushions safe.

Applied to polyurethane foam, a common furniture padding, the green coating reduced flammability after the materials were exposed to open flame, according to the inventors at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The materials in this green mix include montmorillonite, a type of soft clay;

chitosan, a fiber derived from the shells of shrimp, lobsters, and other crustaceans; and DNA obtained from herring sperm.

The natural flame retardant offers a potential alternative to existing retardants that have been linked to human health and environmental risks, the researchers note.

Source: National Institute of ­Standards and Technology, www.nist.gov.

2 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

About

this

Issue

A Publication of the World Future Society

Editorial Staff Edward Cornish Founding Editor

Cynthia G. Wagner Editor

Rick Docksai Senior Editor

Keturah Hetrick Staff Editor

Lane Jennings Research Director

Lisa Mathias Art Director

Contributing Editors Clement Bezold, Government Tsvi Bisk, Strategic Thinking Irving H. Buchen, Training Peter Eder, Marketing and Communications Thomas Frey, Innovation Joyce Gioia, Workforce/Workplace Jay Herson, Futurist Community Barbara Marx Hubbard, Images of Man Joseph P. Martino, Technological Forecasting Matt Novak, Historical Futures Joseph N. Pelton, Telecommunications Arthur B. Shostak, Utopian Thought David P. Snyder, Lifestyles Gene Stephens, Criminal Justice Patrick Tucker, Editor at Large Timothy Willard, Biofutures Richard Yonck, Computing and AI

Contact Us Letters to the Editor: letters@wfs.org Subscription/Address Change: info@wfs.org Advertising: jcornish@wfs.org Submissions/Queries: cwagner@wfs.org Permission/Reprints: jcornish@wfs.org Back Issues/Bulk Copies: jcornish@wfs.org Press/Media Inquiries: info@wfs.org Partnerships/Affiliations: azalman@wfs.org Conference Inquiries: conference@wfs.org Anything Else: info@wfs.org THE FUTURIST World Future Society 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450 Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA Hours: 9 a.m.–5 p.m. eastern time, weekdays except U.S. holidays Telephone: 301-656-8274 or 800-989-8274 Fax: 301-951-0394 www.wfs.org/futurist

Of Time Machines and Foresight Garages One of the most frequently asked questions here at the World Future Society is How do I become a futurist? The first step, of course, is to be interested, but the second, as with any profession, is to learn the required skills. So the next question is Where?

There are no better experts on this subject than futurists themselves, so we invited essays from anyone who has participated in a futures-education program—as a learner, as a teacher, or as an administrator. And we didn’t rule out self-learners!

The range of approaches described in the special report in this issue is truly inspiring. In Toronto’s OCAD University, students may enter a Time Machine to experience an imagined future (say, a Love Museum in Singapore), and then convey what they’ve learned to an audience. And in Finland, the VTT Technical Research Centre puts futurists to work in Foresight Garages, where students learn by creating practical analysis for real-world clients.

It is not surprising that a very large percentage of contributions came from people who have participated in the University of Houston’s futurist-training program, including three of its leaders—Oliver Markley, Peter Bishop, and Andy Hines. We also include essays from several students, such as recent high-school graduate Darci Papell and FUTURIST contributing editor Richard Yonck, whose essay about Houston’s Strategic Foresight Certificate Program inspired us to develop this special report.

The Futures Education special report, beginning on page 28, is not a comprehensive survey of the foresight-learning opportunities out there. We’ve included more essays on the Web and will continue to add to the report’s database of Futures Education experiences, tools, and resources.

Also in this issue is an excerpt from the most recent report from The Millennium Project on the State of the Future, prepared by Jerome C. Glenn. The report provides an overview of where humanity is making progress (health, education, connectivity) and where we’re losing ground (intrastate conflicts, income gaps, climate change, water stress).

Beyond showing us where we stand, Glenn also describes a process by which we can collect our global intelligence on these issues and improve our decision making. (See “Our Global Situation and Prospects for the Future,” page 15.) Glenn, it should be noted, is one of the pioneers of foresight methodologies, whose futures wheel is (or should be) a part of every futures education curriculum.

—Cynthia G. Wagner, editor cwagner@wfs.org

www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 3 © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

Future Scope Trend scanners notebook Consumption | Commerce

Managing an E-waste Explosion in India If current computer ownership trends continue, it will take 30 years for India to reach one computer per capita.

Even with these conservative adoption rates, India— whose population of 1.3 billion is rapidly expanding— will find itself home to a staggering number of electronic devices in coming years.

And, as technology improves, an increasing number of computers, tablets, and mobile phones will become obsolete. India will need to find a way to dispose of 126 million outdated desktop computers and 900 million notebook computers by 2025, researchers Neelu Jain and Pamela Chawla report in the International Journal of Environmental Technology and Management.

Many devices contain arsenic, mercury, and other toxic substances, so proper disposal is crucial for human health and the environment.

Sources: PEC University of Technology, www.pec.ac.in; Surya World Technical Campus, www.suryaworld.edu.in.

Hunger | Humanity

Ending Global Malnutrition Rising incomes and improved diets around the world could mean a dramatic 84% drop in malnutrition by 2050, but much will depend on agricultural productivity and adaptation to climate change.

Projected increases in agricultural productivity— higher yields relative to inputs—could lift a half a billion people out of extreme poverty in places like sub-­ Saharan Africa, South Asia, China, and Mongolia, according to models developed by Purdue University researchers. Additionally, income growth in these reNATALIE VAN HOOSE / PURDUE UNIVERSITY

Purdue University agricultural economists Uris Baldos, left, and Thomas Hertel.

gions is becoming a more significant driver of food security than population.

But—and it’s a big “but”—the complexity of climate change makes this future hard to predict confidently.

“Up to 2050, there could be some pluses for agriculture,” says agricultural economist Thomas Hertel. “But in the longer run, adverse temperatures will likely become overwhelming, and rising carbon dioxide concentrations won’t help after a certain point. Eventually, you drop off a cliff.”

Source: Purdue University, Agricultural Communications, ag.purdue.edu/agcomm/pages/news.aspx.

Oceans | Earth

Should High Seas Fisheries Be Banned?

Fish and other aquatic life in the high seas are more valuable as absorbers of carbon-dioxide than as food, according to researchers at the University of British Columbia. This environmental service is valued at $148 billion a year, compared with the $16 billion paid for the 10 billion tons of fish caught for food.

The study, commissioned by the Global Ocean Commission, calls for a ban on high-seas fisheries.

“Keeping fish in the high seas gives us more value than catching them,” says Rashid Sumaila, director of the UBC Fisheries Economics Research Unit. “If we lose the life in the high seas, we’ll have to find another way to reduce emissions at a much higher cost.”

Source: University of British Columbia, news.ubc.ca.

Budgets | Governance

The Costs of Corruption Government corruption costs U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars a year, and education programs typically end up shortchanged by compromised state budgets, charge Indiana University public policy researcher John ­Mikesell and colleagues.

The most-corrupt states (e.g., Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, and Illinois) tend to spend more on big construction and transportation projects vulnerable to bribery and kickbacks, the researchers report. Meanwhile, these states spend the least on education, as well as public health and hospitals.

Reducing corruption in the 10 most-corrupt states to the U.S. average would lower annual state spending by $1,308 per person, or 5.2% of state expenditures, the report concludes.

Source: Indiana University, indiana.edu.

4 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

❑

Officers

Staff

President: Timothy C. Mack

Business and Advertising Manager: Jeff Cornish

Treasurer: Kenneth W. Hunter

Conference Director: Sarah Warner

Secretary: Les Wallace

Conference Coordinator: Tom Warner

Directors Edward Cornish founder and former president, World Future Society

Nancy Donovan senior analyst, U.S. Government Accountability Office

Joyce Gioia president and CEO, The Herman Group

John Gottsman president, The Clarity Group

Kenneth W. Hunter (chair) senior fellow, Maryland China Initiative, University of Maryland

Timothy C. Mack president, World Future Society

Eric Meade senior futurist and vice president, Institute for Alternative Futures

Robert P. Moran partner, Brunswick Group

Clement Bezold

Julio Millán

chairman and senior futurist,

president, Banco de Tecnologias, and

Institute for Alternative Futures

chairman, Grupo Coraza, Mexico

Arnold Brown

Joergen Oerstroem Moeller

chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

visiting senior research fellow, ISEAS, Singapore

Adolfo Castilla

Ramez Naam

economist, communications professor, Madrid

computer scientist and author

Marvin J. Cetron

John Naisbitt

president, Forecasting International Ltd.

trend analyst and author

Hugues de Jouvenel

Burt Nanus

executive director, Association

author and professor emeritus of management,

Internationale Futuribles

University of Southern California

Yehezkel Dror

Joseph N. Pelton

professor, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

founder and vice chairman,

Esther Franklin

Arthur C. Clarke Foundation

executive vice president and director of cultural

Timothy M. Persons

identities, Starcom MediaVest Group

chief scientist, U.S. Government Accountability Office

William E. Halal

John L. Petersen

professor of management science and

president, The Arlington Institute

director of Emerging Technologies Project,

Mylena Pierremont

George Washington University

president, Ming Pai Consulting BV

Peter Hayward

Carol D. Rieg (Vice Chair)

program director, Strategic Foresight Program,

corporate foundation officer, Bentley Systems Inc.

Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

Les Wallace

Barbara Marx Hubbard

president, Signature Resources Inc.

president, The Foundation for Conscious Evolution

Jared Weiner

Sohail Inayatullah

vice president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.

professor, Tamkang University, Taiwan

Global Advisory Council

Zhouying Jin

Stephen Aguilar-Millan European Futures Observatory

Raja Ikram Azam

president, Beijing Academy of Soft Technology

Francis Rabuck director, Technology Research, Bentley Systems Inc.

Paul Saffo managing director of foresight, Discern Analytics

Robert Salmon former vice president, L’Oreal Corporation, Paris

Marcio de Miranda Santos executive director, Center for Strategic Studies and Management in Science, Brasilia, Brazil

Eleonora Barbieri Masini professor emerita, Faculty of Social Sciences, Gregorian University, Rome

honorary chairman, Pakistan Futuristics Foundation

Sandra L. Postel director, Global Water Policy Proj­ect

Maurice F. Strong secretary general, U.N. Conference on Environment and Development

Graham May

Raj Bawa

principal lecturer in futures research,

president/patent agent, Bawa Biotech LLC, and

Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.

adjunct professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific association dedicated to promoting a better understanding of the trends shaping our future.

Founded in 1966, the Society serves as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future; it takes no stand on what the future will or should be like. The Society’s publications, conferences, and other activities are open to all individuals and institutions around the world.

For more information on membership programs, contact Society headquarters Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time.

7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Telephone: 1-301-656-8274, Toll free: 1-800-989-8274, Fax: 1-301-951-0394 Web site: www.wfs.org • E-mail: info@wfs.org

World Trends & Forecasts Space • Democracy • Families • Health

Space | Sci/Tech

Back to the Lunar Future Even if Mars is our destination, many space scientists argue that we need go back to the Moon first.

WFS PHOTO ILLUSTRATION / ESA / NASA

Mars rises in our imaginations, but before we go, we should get back to work on the Moon, researchers advise.

It’s no secret that NASA aspires to fly humans to Mars. But many of the world’s other space agencies— and a growing chorus of astronomers—call for establishing a permanent presence on the Moon first. They tout the Moon’s potential as a testing ground for the technologies that flying to and settling on the Red Planet will require.

“Many agencies consider human missions to the lunar surface as an essential step in preparation for human Mars missions. Lunar missions are favored by agencies who view the Moon as the next step for human planetary exploration,” states the Global Exploration Roadmap, an August 2013 document authored by the International Space Exploration Coordination Group (ISECG), a forum of NASA and 13 other space agencies working to coordinate international progress on space exploration.

The China National Space Administration is one such agency. Having successfully executed Chang’e 3, a December 2013 mission that landed a robotic rover on the Moon, the Chinese space program is now planning Chang’e 5, which will fly Chinese astronauts to the Moon and bring them back with a sample of lunar soil.

It hopes to follow with the establishment of a lunar base, and further down the road, the jumpstarting of Moon-based energy industries, manufacturing, agriculture, and medicine production.

Meanwhile, Russian space agency Roscosmos plans to launch three lunar rovers between 2016 and 2019: Luna-25, which will land at the Moon’s south pole; Luna-26, which will survey the Moon’s equator; and Luna-27, which will drill for water ice in the sub-polar areas. Afterwards, it will launch Luna-28 and Luna-29, which will bring samples of lunar rock back to Earth.

Roscosmos, like China’s space agency, also hopes to ­e stablish permanent research bases on the Moon’s ­surface.

6 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

NASA

A crew finishes its workday at a site on the Moon, in this artist’s rendering of a hypothetical future lunar workstation.

“Everyone else is galvanized for the Moon; the United States is the holdout on this,” says Jeffrey ­Hoffman, an MIT professor of aeronautics and astronautics who has attended several ISECG meetings.

“The United States is ostracizing itself from its international partners, because its international partners all want to go to the Moon.”

Hoffman himself made headlines earlier this year when he co-authored a proposal for building fuel-­ storage depots in lunar orbit. He told THE FUTURIST that the Moon is a particularly attractive destination, in part because of its proximity and in part because it appears to hold an abundance of raw materials that space habitations could use.

“We know that it has resources, but we also know that it’s close. So testing things on the Moon makes sense,” says Hoffman. “We have places to go, in terms of being able to harvest resources that would generate materials for life-support systems of a permanent base.”

For example, many researchers think that the Moon’s surface rock and dust contain condensed molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. If lunar settlers scooped up and heated enough rock and dust, they might derive air, water, and rocket fuel.

That is in theory, anyway. Hoffman cautions that some exploratory missions that test the lunar soil would be necessary to see if—and where—it has substantial reserves of vital resources.

“If we’re seriously talking about using lunar resources on site, living off the land, then you need to know something about what’s there and what equipment you would need,” says Hoffman.

The Moon may also provide the substrate for those bases. Satellite data indicates that long-ago volcanic activity carved out tunnels beneath the Moon’s surface.

Sergei Krikalyov, head of Russia’s Star City cosmonaut training center, points to these tunnels as perfect locations for lunar bases—their surrounding rock would shelter inhabitants from space radiation, meteor showers, and temperature extremes.

“There wouldn’t be any need to dig the lunar soil and build walls and ceilings,” Krikalyov said at a forum on lunar exploration. “It would be enough to use an inflatable module with a hard outer shell to— roughly speaking—seal the caves.”

Learning to utilize these underground formations might also be a transferrable skill for Mars exploration and development. Clive Neal, a University of Notre Dame planetary geologist, cites images of lunar-like

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

7

World Trends & Forecasts NASA

Astronauts are hard at work constructing a permanent lunar base in this artist’s rendering of future life on the Moon.

formations on Mars. In addition, he looks forward to Moon life teaching us how to maintain life-support systems for indefinite periods of time, how to effectively operate remote-controlled robotic missions far from Earth, and how to protect human settlers from the physically harmful effects of extended stays in lowgravity.

“The Moon, by its proximity, seems a logical place to go to conduct surface operations to conduct new technologies in a hostile environment, and in partial gravity,” says Neal.

The first step would probably be setting up work stations in lunar orbit, according to Kurt Klaus, an aerospace engineer pursuing lunar spaceflight research and development with Boeing. He envisions these floating workstations as venues for storing fuel and lunar materials and as staging grounds for later surface-level construction.

“We have to do what we are able to afford, and right now I think it’s more affordable to first get to the lunar vicinity,” he says. “A human-tended capability in the lunar vicinity enables staging for lunar surface operations, which provide critical deep-space experience needed for exploration beyond our Moon.”

Once we have working infrastructure down on the Moon, we can develop remote-controlled rovers and other systems for exploring the Moon in more depth.

Like Neal, Klaus looks forward to these machines aid-

8

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

ing human missions to Mars, too.

“A habitat in the lunar vicinity demonstrates deepspace operations, while surface excursions provide an opportunity to test hardware and procedures for future voyages to the Red Planet,” he says. “Crews could operate rovers and instrumentation on the Moon’s surface and demonstrate the concept for future deep-space missions to destinations beyond the Earth-Moon system.”

Boeing is currently developing an Asteroid Redirect Mission, in which a robotic spacecraft will capture an asteroid and tow it to lunar orbit for astronauts to study directly. The Lunar Exploration Analysis Group, a space-exploration research group that Klaus serves as an executive committee member, suggests repurposing this spacecraft to be a vehicle that conveys cargo and crews to and from lunar orbit and the surface, and be “a deep-space assembly and servicing site” for further incursions into deep space.

Hoffman foresees private-sector companies taking up much of the groundwork. Tapping into the Moon’s suspected helium and titanium reserves for use on the Moon or for sale back on Earth would be a challenging but potentially hugely lucrative venture for the companies that work through the technicalities. So would the construction of solar-energy installations that capture solar radiation on the Moon’s surface and direct it to Earth in concentrated laser beams.

“The only way that lunar exploration is going to be

sustainable is if there are new resources that can be exploited,” he says. “It makes sense to me that someday the Moon will become a part of Earth’s economy the way that low-Earth orbit is today.”

In time, more human activity might follow. It may even include vacationers looking to really get away from it all.

“We have tourists going to the South Pole now, and it’s a pretty inhospitable place,” says Hoffman. “So if it becomes possible to maintain large numbers of people on the Moon, could tourism be far behind?” —Rick Docksai Sources: Clive Neal, University of Notre Dame, www3.nd.edu/~cneal/.

Jeffrey Hoffman, MIT, aeroastro.mit.edu/faculty-research/faculty-list/ jeffrey-hoffman.

Kurt Klaus, Boeing, www.boeing.com.

Annual Report 2013 and Global Exploration Roadmap, International Space Exploration Coordination Group, www.globalspaceexploration.org.

Democracy | Governance

Inequality as a Predictor of Civil War As the gap grows between rich and poor, so do the chances for violent conflicts.

Ethnic and religious schisms, poverty, political extremism…. There are many factors that can be used to predict the likelihood of a country’s descent into civil war. Researchers at Germany’s University of Tübingen now add income inequality to the list of early signals.

Lack of reliable data during certain periods in history, as well as in developing countries (which are more prone to civil war), has made it difficult to assess a possible correlation between civil war and income inequality. To compensate for missing or inadequate data, University of Tübingen professors Jörg Baten and Christina Mumme estimated Gini coefficients by supplementing established economic datasets with other types of information.

The Gini coefficient is commonly used to measure and compare income inequality on a scale from zero to one. A score of zero represents total economic equality (a society in which each person has exactly the same amount of money), while a score of one represents total inequality (a society in which all wealth belongs to one person). Most countries’ scores fall between 0.30 and 0.60.

Baten and Mumme first looked at changes to the rela-

tionship between GDP per capita and wages of unskilled laborers.

“If wages lag behind income per capita, inequality is probably increasing,” they reason. “Conversely, if wages grow faster than GDP per capita, this points to a decline in income inequality.”

While GDP per capita and other economic information provided the researchers with sufficient data in most cases, the study compensated for data scarcity by calculating a less conventional measure of equality: adult male height. A population’s height distribution correlates to its food and health-care access. Lower heights tend to signal greater health inequality, used by the researchers as a proxy for economic inequality.

The researchers examined the Gini coefficients (both commonly accepted and estimated) from 30 diverse countries over a 200-year span. They considered only civil wars that were fought against a state’s government and that also had at least 1,000 battle-related ­casualties.

Regardless of actual income and poverty levels, higher inequality corresponds to increased risk for civil war, the study found. High inequality in sub-Saharan Africa corresponds to a spate of uprisings in the 1960s through 1980s. Meanwhile, civil war prevalence and inequality have remained relatively low in Asian countries and high in Latin American countries.

Inequality in western and eastern Europe and in North America gradually decreased until about 1990.

While equality remains relatively high in western Europe, inequality has recently increased across eastern Europe and North America, suggesting that civil ­trouble may be ahead.

While the study shows a correlation between wealth and conflict, it’s unproven that income inequality causes civil war. High inequality can be a symptom of or co­ exist with discriminatory government policies, oppressive institutions, or other factors that increase the likelihood of civil conflict.

Nonetheless, growing income inequality in the United States could be cause for concern—and this

For further reading, see: “The Changing Shape of Global Inequality 1820-2000: Exploring a New Dataset” by Jan Luiten van Zanden, Jörg Baten, Péter Földvari, and Bas van Leeuwen, in Review of Income and Wealth (June 2014).

“Does Inequality Lead to Civil Wars? A Global LongTerm Study Using Anthropometric Indicators (18161999)” by Jörg Baten and Christina Mumme, in European Review of Political Economy 32 (December 2013).

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

9

World Trends & Forecasts time, the results could bring more violence than 2011’s Occupy Wall Street protests.

“If this development continues for a long time, it could provide fertile ground for conflict,” warns Baten.

—Keturah Hetrick

DEMOGRAPHY / PAA / SPRINGER

The Outcomes of Child Custody at Divorce in Wisconsin, 1988–2008 Mother-sole custody

Unequal shared custody

Equal shared custody

Father-sole custody

Split custody

100

Source: University of Tübingen, www.uni-tuebingen.de.

90

Percentage

80

Sharing the Caring: Trends in Child Custody As women and men achieve socioeconomic parity, more ­fathers are sharing child custody.

Through most of twentieth-century America, mothers were routinely granted sole custody of children in the event of divorce. Now, research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison suggests a dramatic shift away from mother-only custody in favor of shared custody.

The researchers first recorded the phenomenon in 1998, when their results showed that mother-only custody agreements had dropped from 80% in 1986 to 74% in 1994. New data analysis of nearly 10,000 Wisconsin divorce cases shows that the trend toward joint custody has gained momentum since then: Mother-only custody decreased to 42% in 2008, while shared custody increased from 8% to 45%. Father-only custody remains low and largely unchanged.

“Overall, the trend away from mother-only custody and toward shared custody is dramatic, representing a substantial change in the living situations of children of divorce over a relatively short period,” says Maria ­Cancian, professor of public affairs and social work.

Courts once subscribed to the notion that women are more likely than men to be better caregivers, and many policies discouraged awarding custody to fathers. Now, states aim to make custody decisions based on the best interests of the child and encourage both parents to play a role in raising children.

While fathers are slightly more likely to gain sole custody over sons than daughters, a child’s age or gender does not appear to affect joint-custody outcomes.

Instead, a far more reliable predictor of custody outcomes is parents’ income. Joint custody remains more prevalent among higher-income parents.

“Shared custody is more expensive than sole custody in that parents need to have sufficient resources for both

10

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

60 50 40 30 20 10 0

19 8 19 8 8 19 9 9 19 0 9 19 1 9 19 2 93 a 19 9 19 4 9 19 5 9 19 6 97 b 19 9 19 8 9 20 9 0 20 0 0 20 1 0 20 2 0 20 3 0 20 4 0 20 5 0 20 6 0 20 7 08 c

Families | Humanity

70

Child custody at divorce in Wisconsin, 1988–2008. a Includes a small number of cases from 1994 (12) and 1995 (1). b Includes a small number of cases from 1996 (22). c Includes a small number of cases from 2009 (20) and 2010 (2).

their households to accommodate children being present a substantial portion of the time,” the researchers say.

Similarly, because divorce proceedings are expensive and require a bargaining process, parents in certain situations are more likely to be granted custody. In cases when a father has legal representation and the mother does not, father-only custody and joint custody are far more likely than usual. Meanwhile, as a wife’s income rises relative to her husband’s, so do her chances of being granted sole custody.

The researchers observe that, since the 1980s, the average age for first-time marriages has increased, and marital rates have decreased overall, particularly among those of lower socioeconomic status. It’s possible that divorcees are now older and wealthier than in years past, making joint custody more feasible for a greater percentage of divorcees (but not necessarily for separated parents who were never married to begin with).

Regardless, it’s clear that, at least in Wisconsin, changing social norms have contributed to a dramatic shift in the way child custody is handled in divorce proceedings.

“These changes over time increase the importance of new studies with more recent data, especially studies that consider the extent to which changing characteristics of cases are related to custody outcomes,” the ­researchers suggest.

—Keturah Hetrick Source: “Who Gets Custody Now? Dramatic Changes in Children’s Living Arrangements After Divorce” by Maria Cancian et al., in Demography (April 2014).

World Future Society Professional Membership Tools and Techniques… Leading-Edge Ideas… Highly Productive Collaborations…

AARON M. COHEN

The World Future Society’s Professional Membership is a focused program for individuals involved in futures research, forecasting, corporate or institutional planning, issues management, technology assessment, policy analysis, urban and regional planning, competition research, and related areas. Professional Members include educators, government and business leaders, researchers, think-tank members, corporate planners, and analysts, plus others involved in the study of the future and its impact on their organizations.

World Future Review

In addition to all of the vital benefits of regular membership, Professional Members receive a subscription to the exclusive World Future Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight. This publication offers full-length refereed a ­ rticles, interviews of leading futures practitioners, insightful reviews of important new ­publications, and abstracts of the most critical new foresight-relevant ­literature.

Professional Members Forums

Professional Members also have the opportunity to meet once a year to focus more intensively on crucial topics in our field. The Professional Members Forums feature some of the top thinkers in futures studies, who convene to share insights in a small-group setting that allows for dynamic interaction. Recent forums have been held in Washington, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Boston, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, and Orlando.

Join now, and receive:

• A subscription to World Future Review, the Society’s professional journal. An international editorial board referees all articles for this unique publication, which covers a wide range of futures-relevant subjects.

• Invitations to the annual Professional Members Forums. (Join now to qualify for the 2015 Forum in San Francisco.)

• All benefits of regular membership in the World Future Society, including a subscription to THE FUTURIST, the Society’s bimonthly magazine on the future; discounts on books and other products; the Society’s yearly “Outlook” report of selected forecasts from THE FUTURIST; and a subscription to Futurist Update, a monthly e-mail newsletter.

Professional Membership is $295 per year. A special rate of $195 per year is available for individuals belonging to educational or nonprofit organizations.

Join online at www.wfs.org/professional or call 1-800-989-8274 weekdays (9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time).

World Trends & Forecasts Health | Humanity

Unraveling the Alzheimer’s Mystery Experimental treatments might stop the disease before it starts.

As we learn more about the genetics of the brain, we may draw closer toward developing workable treatments for Alzheimer’s disease. Several internationally coordinated research partnerships are deciphering the genes that give rise to Alzheimer’s. They look forward to using this information to develop treatments that will halt the disease processes before the first symptoms ever show.

Researchers now know of 25 genes that may contribute to a person’s risk for Alzheimer ’s, and further research could turn up as many as a hundred more, according to Jerry Schellenberg, a University of Pennsylvania professor of medicine. Schellenberg is also chair of Penn’s Alzheimer ’s Disease Genetics Consortium (ADGC), which is identifying the genes associated with Alzheimer’s. Finding these genes matters, he explains, because researchers could look for them in individual patients’ genomes and determine which patients are at risk. Those at-risk patients could then start to undergo monitoring for early warning signs of the disease.

Most brain researchers attribute Alzheimer’s-related memory loss, personality deterioration, and cognitive decline to two processes in the brain tissue: the accumulation of beta-amyloid plaques and the clustering of particles of the enzyme tau into entangled clumps.

Beta-amyloid and tau are naturally occurring enzymes that we all have in our brains, but they are not supposed to amass into clumps and tangles. When they do, the brain damage that we recognize as Alzheimer ’s ­results.

“Once the disease process starts, it’s going to be very hard to reverse it. So treating somebody who has the disease might be extraordinarily difficult. But if we could predict who is going to get it, and get in there early with a preventive medication, it might be what we need to do,” says Schellenberg.

Alzheimer’s patients typically die within five years once their symptoms show. But the actual chemical processes begin as many as 10 to 20 years prior, according to Schellenberg. No average person would see the disease emerging, he explains, but certain medical tests potentially could.

New imaging technologies developed in the last several years can illuminate small changes in amyloid and

12

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

tau. Doctors who identify an at-risk patient and spot early amyloid or tau changes within the brain might begin immediately administering drugs that halt buildups of these enzymes. No such drugs exist just yet, but several experimental ones are in the clinical-trials phase now. Schellenberg cites one compound, under development at the pharmaceutical company Merck, which inhibits the production of BACE, an enzyme that plays a role in creating beta-amyloid plaques.

“If you could prevent the plaques, you could hopefully prevent Alzheimer’s of all sorts,” he says.

Experiments in gene therapies for Alzheimer’s are also under way. One study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, for instance, found that a protein called HDAC2 forms in the brain during Alzheimer’s and tightens up DNA strands, thereby locking the genes down and reducing their expression. DNA for cells that form new memories is among the targets of HDAC2, but the researchers were able to counter this effect in mice. Through gene therapy, they inhibited HDAC2 activity and enabled brain neurons to form new connections.

“Part of what happens in Alzheimer’s is that a lot of genes are turned off,” says Roderick Corriveau, program director at NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS). “It’s like if you have a string of Christmas lights, and they become all bundled up in a ball and don’t work anymore. In each of those lights there might be a way to introduce an intervention that could allow that tangle to become untangled. And then the lights could come back on—which is to say, function could resume, and cognition could improve.”

No matter what treatments that doctors use, they will be more effective the earlier that they go into use, says Dean Hartley, director of science initiatives at the National Alzheimer’s Association. Many clinical trials for new drugs to stop the amyloid-plaque buildup have failed. But the problem, he suggests, might not be the drugs themselves; rather, they might simply have been administered too late.

“We now know that the disease actually starts 20 years before the symptoms show, so what you’d like to do is introduce the treatments 15 or 20 more years before the symptoms show, too. And that may be what will keep this disease from developing,” he says.

Hartley’s organization has invested $4.2 million into the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) trial, a global study involving 13 research institutions from the United States, Australia, Great Britain, and Germany. The study is testing Solanezumab and Crenezumab, two new anti-amyloid drugs, on patients with family histories of “early-onset Alzheimer’s.” All the adults in the study participants’ families eventually get

Alzheimer ’s, so the study participants are virtually guaranteed to get it, too. In addition, the adults in each family all get the disease at around the same age. In most, it’s very early—early 40s is the age in some of these families.

Since the DIAN researchers know not only that these participants will suffer Alzheimer’s, but also when the symptoms will appear, they began monitoring each patient at approximately 20 years before he or she is due to show symptoms. According to Niles Frantz, a communications specialist for the National Alzheimer’s Association, DIAN began with the initial goal of documenting what biomarkers—i.e., signs of an emerging disorder—these patients would show.

“The DIAN trial started out purely as observation.

They were observing these families 20 years in advance of the onset, trying to see what was going on in their skin, what was going on in their body fluids, what was

going on in the size of their brains. They were tracking them to see what was going on that could help predict the onset,” says Frantz.

The researchers are now applying the experimental drugs hoping to intervene in the participants’ disease progressions. The drugs may put off or prevent altogether those biomarkers’ morphing into full-scale Alzheimer’s brain degeneration.

Hartley hopes to see funding for Alzheimer’s R&D increase, noting that it lags behind funding for other priorities, such as cancer and heart disease.

“We’re getting glimpses into what’s happening in the brain when this disease strikes. But we’ll need more funding to dive more deeply into it,” he says. —Rick Docksai Sources: Jerry Schellenberg, University of Pennsylvania, www.upenn .edu. Roderick Corriveau, NIH, www.nih.gov. Niles Frantz and Dean ❑ Hartley, National Alzheimer’s Association, www.alz.org.

Network with WFS Join the futurist community online via your favorite social-networking platform! www.twitter.com/WorldFutureSoc The World Future Society’s official Twitter page www.twitter.com/WFSFuturist_Mag THE FUTURIST magazine’s official Twitter page If you Like the future, you’ll Like the World Future Society page and THE FUTURIST magazine page, featuring stories and news from members and friends.

World Future Society members are invited to connect with others on the Society’s official LinkedIn group.

Browse the forecasts playlist, conference highlights, and more on our Youtube channel, www.youtube.com/worldfuturesociety Make wfs.org your futures “home”! Come for the ideas, stay for the inspiration with thousands of fellow future builders. Read the FUTURIST Magazine Blog, your daily link to tomorrow’s world, and sign up for Futurist Update, the free monthly e-newsletter from the World Future Society at wfs.org/content/futurist-update

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

13

Call for Articles and Essays

Calling all futurist writers! The editors of THE FUTURIST and World Future Review are constantly on the lookout for articles, essays, book reviews, and news items of interest to futurists.

THE FUTURIST magazine THE FUTURIST covers a wide range of subject areas— virtually everything that will affect our future or will be affected by the changes the future may bring. Submitted article should have something new and significant to say about the future, not merely repeat what has already been said before. Writers should also remember that the publication focuses on the future, especially the period five to 50 years ahead.

The editors prefer to read completed manuscripts but will consider queries that include a strong thesis, detailed outline, and summary of the author’s expertise on the proposed topic. Articles in THE FUTURIST generally run 1,000 to 4,000 words, but both longer and shorter articles are acceptable. ­Authors should also provide some biographical material, which should indicate their qualifications to write about a particular subject.

Complete writers’ guidelines are available at www.wfs.org/futurist/writers-guidelines

World Future Review The editors of the World Future Society’s peer-reviewed journal, World Future ­Review, invite manuscripts from contributors worldwide whose essays fall within the broad spectrum defined as “futures research.” This encompasses both an evolving philosophy and a range of specific techniques primarily aimed at assisting decision makers to better understand the potential consequences of present and future decisions by developing images of alternative futures.

To facilitate anonymous review, all identifying information about the author(s) should be in a separate attachment. Manuscripts should not normally exceed 6,000 words. Citations and other references should be limited to essential entries, numbered in sequence, and listed on a separate page placed following the last page of text. WFR’s copyeditors use the University of ­Chicago Press’s A Manual of Style and Merriam Webster’s unabridged dictionary as guidelines on spelling and style.

Complete editorial guidelines are available at www.wfs.org/world-future-review-editorial-guidelines Please note that neither THE FUTURIST nor World Future Review offers financial compensation for ­publication of articles; authors are provided complimentary copies (print and PDF) of the issues in which their work appears.

Our Global Situation and Prospects for the Future

BADBOO / BIGSTOCK; NASA

By Jerome C. Glenn Humanity is making momentous strides forward in health, literacy, and many other critical areas, but also stalling or moving backward on many others, warns The Millennium Project in its latest State of the Future report.

The global situation for humanity continues to improve in general, but at the expense of the environment.

Massive transitions from isolated subsistence agriculture and industry to a global, Internet-connected, pluralistic civilization are occurring at unprecedented speed and with

never-before-seen levels of uncertainty.

The indicators of progress, from health and education to water and energy, show that we are winning more than we are losing—but where we are losing is very serious. As The Millennium Project has documented over the past 17 years in its annual State of the Future reports, humanity clearly has the ideas and resources to address its global challenges, but it has not yet shown the leadership, policies, and management on the scale necessary.

On one hand, people around the world are becoming healthier, wealthier, better educated, more peaceful, and increasingly connected, and they are living longer.

The child mortality rate has dropped 47% since 1990, while life expectancy has risen by 10 years to reach 70.5 years today. Extreme poverty in the developing world fell from 50% in 1981 to 21% in 2010, primary-school completion rates grew from 81% in 1990 to 91% in 2011, and only one

transborder war occurred in 2013.

Furthermore, nearly 40% of humanity is now connected via the Internet.

However, water tables on all continents are falling, glaciers are melting, coral reefs are dying, ocean acidity is increasing, ocean dead zones have doubled every decade since the 1960s, and half the world’s topsoil has been destroyed.

Some critical socioeconomic fault lines are worsening, as well: Intrastate conflicts and refugee numbers are rising, income gaps are increasingly obscene, and youth unemployment has reached dangerous proportions. Meanwhile, traffic jams and air pollution are strangling cities. In addition, between $1 trillion and $1.6 trillion is paid in bribes, organized crime takes in twice as much money per year as all military budgets combined, civil liberties are increasingly threatened, and half the world is potentially unstable.

The International Monetary Fund expects the global economy to grow from 3% in 2013 to 3.7% during 2014

www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 15 © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

and possibly 3.9% in 2015. The world population having grown 1.1% in 2013, global per capita income will be increasing by 2.6% or more a year. Our world is reducing poverty faster than many thought was possible.

Nevertheless, the divide between the rich and poor is growing fast: According to Oxfam, the total wealth of the richest 85 people equals that of 3.6 billion people in the bottom half of the world’s economy, and half of the world’s wealth is owned by just 1% of the population. We need to continue the successful efforts that are reducing poverty, but we also need to focus far more seriously on reducing income inequality in order to avoid long-term instability.

Instability has already been erupting and expanding in many parts of the world over the last five years, due to a confluence of rising food and energy prices, failing states, falling water tables, climate change, desertification, and increasing migrations resulting from political, environmental, and economic conditions. And, because the world is better educated and increasingly connected, people are becoming less tolerant of the abuse of elite power than in the past. Unless these elites open the conversation about the future with the rest of their populations, unrest and revolutions are likely to continue and increase.

Although wars between states are becoming fewer and fewer, and the numbers of both nuclear weapons and battle-related deaths have been decreasing, conflicts within countries are increasing: A third of Syria’s 21 million people are displaced or live as refugees, and the world ignores 6 million war-related deaths in the Congo.

Other fault lines are emerging worldwide in the form of rapidly ris-

ing frequency of cyberattacks and espionage, an escalation in territorial tensions among Asian countries, and overlapping jurisdictions for energy access to the melting Arctic. It will be a test of humanity’s maturity to resolve all these conflicts peacefully.

Meanwhile, the world is automating jobs far more broadly and quickly than it did in earlier eras.

How many truck and taxicab drivers will future self-driving vehicles re-

Figure 1 2013 State of the Future Index 1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0 1993

1998

2003

2008

2013

2018

2023

Each of the 30 variables making up the index (Box 1) can be examined to show where we are winning, where we are losing, and where there is unclear or little progress.

Box 1 Variables Used in the 2013–14 State of the Future Index 1. GNI per capita, PPP (constant 2005 inter­ national $) 2. Economic income inequality (share of top 10%) 3. Unemployment, total (% of world labor force) 4. Poverty headcount ratio at $1.25 a day (PPP) (% of population) 5. Levels of corruption (0=highly corrupt; 6=very clean) 6. Foreign direct investment, net inflows (balance of payments, current $, billions) 7. R&D expenditures (% of GDP) 8. Population growth (annual %) 9. Life expectancy at birth (years) 10. Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births) 11. Prevalence of undernourishment

16

THE FUTURIST

12. Health expenditure per capita (current $) 13. Physicians (per 1,000 people) 14. Improved water source (% of population with access) 15. Renewable internal freshwater resources per capita (thousand cubic meters) 16. Ecological Footprint / Biocapacity ratio 17. Forest area (% of land area) 18. CO2 emissions from fossil-fuel and cement production (billion tonnes) 19. Energy efficiency [GDP per unit of energy use (constant 2005 PPP $ per kg of oil equivalent)] 20. Electricity production from renewable sources, excluding hydroelectric (% of total) 21. Literacy rate, adult total (% of people ages

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

15 and above) 22. School enrollment, secondary (% gross) 23. Number of wars (conflicts with more than 1,000 fatalities) 24. Terrorism incidents 25. Number of countries and groups that had or still have intentions to build nuclear weapons 26. Freedom rights (number of countries rated free) 27. Voter turnout (% voting population) 28. Proportion of seats held by women in ­national parliaments (% of members) 29. Internet users (per 100 people) 30. Prevalence of HIV (% of population age 15–49)

place? How many industrial laborers will lose their jobs to robotic manufacturing? How many telephone support personnel will be supplanted by AI telephone systems?

In every industry and sector, the number of employees per business revenue is falling, giving rise to employment-less economic growth. Job seekers will need more opportunities for one-person Internet-based selfemployment and for markets for their interests and abilities in other job markets worldwide. Successfully leapfrogging slower linear develop-

Collecting Our Intelligence These great conversations will be better informed if we realize that the world is improving more than most pessimists know and that future dangers are worse than most optimists indicate. Better ideas, new tools, and creative management approaches are popping up all over the world, but the lack of imagination and courage to make serious change is drowning the innovations needed to make the world work for all.

As a global think tank, The Millen-

The World Report Card

“Because the world is better educated and increasingly connected, people are becoming less tolerant of the abuse of elite power than in the past.” ment processes in lower-income countries is likely to require implementing futuristic possibilities— from 3-D printing to seawater agriculture—and making increasing individual and collective intelligence a national objective of each country.

The explosive, accelerating growth of knowledge in a rapidly changing and increasingly interdependent world gives us so much to know about so many things. Unfortunately, we are also flooded with so much trivial news that serious issues get little attention or interest, and too much time is wasted going through useless information.

At the same time, the world is increasingly engaged in diverse conversations about how to relate to the environment and to our fellow humans, and about what technologies, economics, and laws are right for our common future. These conversations are emerging from countless international negotiations, UN gatherings, and thousands of Internet discussion groups and big-data analyses. Humanity is slowly but surely becoming aware of itself as an integrated system of cultures, economies, technologies, natural and built environments, and governance ­systems.

nium Project gathers insights from a network of more than 4,500 experts who continuously gather and share data via our online Global Futures System (GFS). GFS can be thought of as a global information utility from which different readers can draw different value for improving their understanding and decisions.

The collective intelligence emerges in GFS from synergies among data/ information/knowledge, software/ hardware, and experts and others with insight that continually learn from feedback to produce just-intime knowledge for better decisions than any of these elements acting alone.

In addition to succinct but relatively detailed descriptions of the current situation and forecasts, we also formulate recommendations to address the various global challenges. Some of our recommendations are as follows: • Establish a U.S.–China 10-year environmental security goal to reduce climate change and improve trust.

• Grow meat without growing animals, to reduce water demand and greenhouse-gas emissions.

• Develop seawater agriculture for biofuels, carbon sink, and food without rain. www.wfs.org

• Build global collective intelligence systems for input to longrange strategic plans.

• Create tele-nations connecting brains overseas to the development process back home.

• Establish trans-institutions for more effective implementation of strategies.

• Detail and implement a global strategy to counter organized crime.

• Use the State of the Future Index as an alternative to GDP as a measure of progress for the world and nations with 30 variables that includes indicators for social equity and well-being.

•

The world is in a race between implementing ever-increasing ways to improve the human condition and the seemingly ever-increasing complexity and scale of global problems.

So, how is the world doing in this race? What’s the score so far?

The Millennium Project’s global State of the Future Index (SOFI), produced annually since 2000, measures the 10-year outlook for the future based on historical data on 30 key variables. In the aggregate, these data depict whether the future promises to be better or worse. The SOFI is intended to show the directions and intensity of change and to identify the responsible factors and the relationships among them.

The current SOFI, shown in Figure 1, indicates a slower progress since 2007, although the overall outlook is promising.

Some Key Trends Affecting the State of the Future • Computing. The EU, United States, Japan, and China have announced programs to understand how the brain works and apply that knowledge to make better computers with better computer–user interfaces. Google also is working to create artificial brains that could serve us as personal artificial-intelligence assistants. Another great race is on to make supercomputer power available to the masses with advances in IBM’s Watson and with cloud computing by Amazon and others.

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

17

Figure 2 Where We’re Winning, Where We’re Losing Winning Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 live births)

School enrollment, secondary (% gross)

Electricity production from renewables, excl. hydro (% of total)

2023 2013

Number of wars (conflicts with more than 1,000 fatalities)

2003 1993

Seats held by women in national parliaments (% of members)

Losing Ecological footprint/ biocapacity ratio [×10]

Economic income inequality (share of top 10%)

Terrorism incidents [/100]

CO2 emissions from fossil fuel and cement production (billion tonnes; GtCO2)

Forest area (% of land area)

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

Note: Some data has been amended to fit the graph: [/100] means the real number has been divided by 100, while [×10] means a multiplication by 10.

18

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

About 85% of the world’s population is expected to be covered by high-speed mobile Internet in 2017.

• A Web-connected world. More than 8 billion devices are connected to the Internet of Things, which is expected to grow to 40 billion–80 billion devices by 2020. According to the UN’s International Telecommunications Union, nearly 40% of humanity now uses the Internet. This global network is close to becoming the de facto global brain of humanity.

So what happens when the entire world has access to nearly all the

attacks over 24 hours on July 24, 2013, the majority of which attacked targets in the United States. Cyberattacks can be thought of as a new kind of guerrilla warfare. Prevention may involve an endless intellectual arms race of hacking and counterhacking software, setting cyber traps, exposing sources, and initiating trade sanctions.

• Civil strife. The long-range trend toward democracy is strong, but Freedom House reports that world political and civil liberties deteriorated for the eighth consecutive year

“It is not yet clear that humanity will grow from short-term, me-first thinking to longer-term, we-first, planet-oriented decision making.” world’s knowledge, along with instantaneous access to artificial brains that can solve problems and create new conditions like geniuses, while blurring previous distinctions between virtual realities and physical reality? We have already seen brilliant financial experts—augmented with data and software—making the short-term, selfish, economic decisions that led to the 2008 global financial crisis, continued environmental degradation, and widening income disparities. It is not yet clear that humanity will grow from shortterm, me-first thinking to longerterm, we-first, planet-oriented decision making.

Humanity may become more responsible and compassionate as the Internet of people and things grows across the planet, making us more aware of humanity as a whole and of our natural and built environments. Yet multi-way interactive media also attracts individuals with common interests into isolated ideological groups, reinforcing social polarization and conflict and forcing some political systems into gridlock.

And although the Internet’s growth may make it increasingly difficult for conventional crimes to go undetected, cyberspace has become the medium for new kinds of crimes: According to the cloud-services provider Akamai, there were 628 cyber-

in 2013, with declines noted in 54 countries and improvements in only 40 countries. At the same time, increasing numbers of educated and mobile-phone/Internet-savvy people are no longer tolerating the abuse of power and may be setting the stage for a long and difficult transition to more global democracy.

• Climate change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report found that world greenhouse gas emissions grew by an annual average of 2.2% between 2000 and 2010, up from 1.3% per year between 1970 and 2000. Each decade of the past three was warmer than the previous decade. The past 30 years was likely the warmest period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1,400 years.

Furthermore, even if all CO2 emissions are stopped today, the IPCC report notes that “most aspects of climate change will persist for many centuries.” Hence, the world has to take adaptation far more seriously, in addition to reducing emissions, and creating new methods to reduce the greenhouse gases that are already in the atmosphere.

Without dramatic changes, UN Environment Program projects a 2°C (3.6°F) rise above preindustrial levels in 20–30 years, accelerating changing climate, ocean acidity, changes in disease patterns, and saltwater intruwww.wfs.org

•

sions into freshwater areas worldwide. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that 87% of global fish stocks are either fully exploited or overexploited. Oceans absorb about 33% of human-generated CO2, but their ability to continue doing this is being reduced by changing acidity and the die-offs of coral reefs and other living systems.

• Energy needs . The world also needs to create enough electrical production capacity for an additional 3.7 billion people by 2050.

There are 1.2 billion people without electricity today (17% of the world), and an additional 2.4 billion people will be added to the world’s population between now and 2050.

Compounding this is the requirement to decommission aging nuclear power plants and to replace or retrofit fossil fuel plants. The cost of nuclear power is increasing, while the cost of renewables is falling—wind power passed nuclear as Spain’s leading source of electricity. However, fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) will continue to supply the vast majority of the world’s electricity past 2050 unless there are major social and technological changes. If the long-term trends toward a wealthier and more sophisticated world continue, our energy demands by 2050 could be more than expected. However, the convergences of technologies are accelerating rapidly to make energy efficiencies far greater by 2050 than forecast ­today.

• Water stress. Major progress was made over the past 25 years that provided enough clean water for an additional 2 billion people. But as a result of water pollution, accelerating climate change, falling water ­tables around the world, and an additional 2.4 billion people in just 36 years, some of the people with safe water today may not have it in the future unless significant changes occur. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), half the world could be living in areas with severe water stress by 2030.

• Population growth. The UN’s mid-range forecast is that the world’s population, which now totals 7.2 billion people, will number 9.6 billion by 2050. By that date, the

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

19

number of people over age 65 will equal or surpass the number under 15.

Average life expectancy at birth has increased from 48 years in 1955 to 70.5 years today. Future scientific and medical breakthroughs could give people longer and more productive lives than most would believe possible today. For example, uses of genetic data, software, and nanotechnology will help detect and treat disease at the genetic or molecular level.

direct regard for social issues? On the other hand, might social considerations impair progress toward a truthful understanding of reality?

• Gender equity. Violence against women is the largest war today, as measured by death and casualties per year. Globally, 35% of women have experienced physical and/or sexual violence. While the gender gaps for health and educational attainment were closed by 96% and 93% respectively, according to the 2013 Global Gender Gap report by

“It is unreasonable to expect the world to cooperatively create and implement strategies to build a better future without some general agreement about what that desirable future is.”

• Accelerating technologies. Science and technology’s continued acceleration is fundamentally changing what is possible, and access to this knowledge is becoming universally available. For example, China’s Tianhe-2 supercomputer is the world’s fastest computer, at 33.86 petaflops (quadrillion floating point operations per second)—passing the computational speed of a human brain. Individual gene sequencing is now available for $1,000—and the price could go down much further in coming years—a development that will enable individualized genetic medicine for every patient.

Although advances in synthetic biology, quantum entanglement, Higgs-like particles, and computational science seem remote from improving the human condition, such basic scientific endeavors are necessary to increase the knowledge that scientists can use to develop and improve technologies to benefit humanity. But with little news coverage and educational curricula, the general public seem unaware of the extraordinary changes and consequences that need to be discussed: Is it ethical to clone ourselves, to bring dinosaurs back to life, or to invent thousands of new life forms through synthetic biology? Should basic scientific research be pursued without 20

THE FUTURIST

the World Economic Forum, the gap in economic participation has been closed by only 60%, and the gap in political outcomes by only 21%: Women account for only 21.3% of the membership of national legislative bodies worldwide, up from 11.3% in 1997.

• “Hidden” hunger. Food markets in much of the developing world exhibit an increasing problem of hidden hunger—that is, the intake of calories is sufficient, but those calories contain little in nutritious value, vitamins, and minerals. Although the share of people in the world who are hungry has fallen from over 30% in 1970 to 15% today, concerns are increasing over the variety and nutritional quality of food. The FAO estimates that some 30% of the world population (2 billion people) suffers from hidden hunger.

• Vulnerable urban coastal zones.

Human construction is diminishing the land structures that the world’s coastal zones rely on to blunt the impacts of hurricanes, tsunamis, and pollution. This is a harmful outcome, not only for flora and fauna, but for us, as well, since more than half the world’s people live within 120 miles of a coastline. Without appropriate mitigation, prevention, and management of the natural infrastructure within urban coastal zones, billions

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

of people will be increasingly vulnerable to a range of disasters.

• “Lone wolf” terrorism. Individuals acting alone can wield increasing amounts of damage. The number of terrorism incidents increased over the past 20 years, reaching 8,441 in 2012 and more than 5,000 in the first half of 2013.

Of all terrorism, the lone-wolf type is the most insidious, because it is exceedingly difficult to anticipate, given the actions and intent of individuals acting alone. The average opinion of our international panel is that nearly a quarter of terrorist attacks carried out in 2015 might be by a lone wolf, and that the situation might escalate: About half of the participants that we surveyed thought that lone-wolf terrorists might attempt to use weapons of mass destruction by around 2030.

“Global Collective Intelligence Systems” Bring It All Together It is unreasonable to expect the world to cooperatively create and implement strategies to build a better future without some general agreement about what that desirable future is. Such a future can only be built with awareness of the global situation and of the extraordinary possibilities.

What we need is a global collective intelligence system to track science and technology advances, forecast consequences, and document a range of views on them. The accelerating rates of changes that the world now experiences call for new kinds of decision making with global realtime feedback. The Global Futures System is an early expression of that future direction. ❑

AARON M. COHEN

About the Author Jerome C. Glenn is CEO of The Millennium Project and The Global Futures System, www.themp.org. This article is adapted from 2013-14 State of the Future, co-­ authored by Glenn with ­Theodore J. Gordon and Elizabeth Florescu (published by The Millennium Project, millennium-project.org/millennium/201314SOF .html).

Calling All Students!

Susan Echard Student Scholarships for 2015 In order to encourage more secondary school and college students to take an active role in shaping the future for themselves, their community, and the world, the World Future Society offers scholarships and grants to cover WorldFuture 2015 conference registration fees, lodging, and expenses for students from around the globe.

Thanks to the generosity of members and friends of the World Future Society, discounted conference registration assistance at the student registration rate ($150) is available to full-time students under age 25; you must be prepared to provide appropriate documentation.

However, if you are in need of additional financial assistance, you may apply online for a scholarship. Applications are due by May 15, 2015.

Funding will be awarded on a case-by-case basis after all requests have been received, but it may include: complimentary or reduced conference registration, funds to cover lodging or meals, or reimbursement for transportation.

When your application has been approved, you will automatically be registered for the conference. If you choose not to attend, you must notify the conference coordinator immediately so that the scholarship may be awarded to another applicant.

Apply online at: www.wfs.org/worldfuture-2015-scholarship-application To donate to the Susan Echard Student Scholarship Fund, please visit www.wfs.org/support or send a check (payable to World Future Society) to: Susan Echard Student Scholarship Program World Future Society 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450 Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA

seven Big Challenges for Pakistan— and the Lessons They Could

By Imran Ali Teach Pakistan may be viewed as a case study of the fight for the survival of modern human civilization. Its complex and dangerous problems are not without possible solutions, and the strategies that the nation chooses provide a model for the rest of the world.

22

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

H

umans have made enormous advancements in technology. Unfortunately, the challenges to human civilization are also rising quickly. Our ignorance and mismanagement of resources have led us down the path of uncertainty, and we now need all of our available technology to ­survive.

Pakistan is perhaps most known for its struggle with terrorism.

Meanwhile, few associate the country with the fight for modern civilization’s survival. Dwindling natural resources, continuous natural disasters, disease outbreaks, and economic instability in the region make for a worst-case scenario for human development.

Pakistan is neighbored by China and India, the most populous nations on the globe, so its failure would start a chain reaction of global

catastrophe. On the other hand, the country’s success in meeting current challenges could make it a model for counteracting the problems of modern civilization.

This article offers an overview of the major challenges confronting Pakistan, along with possible solutions that provide lessons for the rest of the world.

Challenge 1: Population Explosion An average Pakistani woman gives birth to five children, thanks to a preference for large families and a particular desire for sons. Because of high birthrates and increasing life expectancy, Pakistan has one of the highest population growth rates in the world and is expected to become

mobility. Along with free supplies of contraceptives, government incentives to limit childbearing can also motivate couples to use birth control.

Challenge 2: Food Security Nearly 75% of Pakistan’s population resides in rural areas, where agriculture is the way of life. Unfortunately, Pakistan has not developed its foodsecurity policy at the national level.

The agricultural sector has slowed by 2.7% from 2000 to 2010, and the country now struggles to provide its people with a sufficient amount of food. Calorie availability is, on average, 26% lower than that found in developed countries. Due to an inadequate food supply, many Pakistanis face the problem of malnutrition.

“RISING POPULATION TRIGGERS MANY OTHER CRISES, INCLUDING FOOD SHORTAGES, ENERGY AND RESOURCES CRISES, AND DISEASE OUTBREAKS.” the fourth-most-populous country by 2050. Rising population triggers many other crises, including food shortages, energy and resources crises, and disease outbreaks.

Possible solutions: Pakistan’s rapid population growth highlights the need for effective family planning.

Although the government has shown serious interest in the issue, the effects of its efforts are limited.

According to one survey, each family welfare center is visited by an average of two couples per day. The main reasons behind the problem are the overall low education and literacy rate and the inadequate mobility of Pakistani women.

Pakistani society is dominated by men; women are scarcely seen in any walks of life, making them an in­ visible and inactive segment of the country. To help balance society, the government must require education for all citizens. Similarly, increasing the proportion of women in the workforce would increase women’s

Unmanaged slaughtering of animals, unregulated livestock smuggling to neighboring countries, and a shortage of livestock feed make it impossible for the poor population to access beef and other meat. Approximately 17,000 acres are deforested every year, causing the depletion of wild resources from the forest, unprecedented ecological misbalance, and loss of biodiversity.

The main factors involved in decreased food production are overpopulation, water shortage, energy deficiency, poor soil, and natural disasters. Most of the soil in Pakistan is deficient in macro- and micronutrients. Salinity and waterlogging add to the problem. More than 70% of Pakistan is arid and semiarid regions, where rainfall is insufficient for irrigation of crops; most rain­ water is lost due to rapid evaporation and surface runoff, while floods and droughts cause further damage.

Rapid urbanization also contributes to food shortages, as fewer

people are now available to work on farms in rural areas. Meanwhile, with almost no technology inputs in many parts of the country, traditional farming cannot meet the increasing demand for food. A lack of infrastructure makes it very difficult to transport food from farm to fork.

Possible solutions: Pakistan has enormous potential to increase its food supply with agricultural reforms. Nearly 20 million acres of cultivable land are unused. Construction of major dams could provide an additional 2.5 million acres of land suitable for agricultural purposes.

Pakistan has the chance to become self-sufficient if it can reach even 30% of its potential.

National agriculture policy is needed to counteract the low food supply. The government has focused primarily on increasing wheat production, but in order to tackle malnutrition, it must focus on other nutritious crops, livestock, and fruits.

To keep up with the increasing population, the agriculture sector must maintain an annual growth rate of more than 5%. The government, with the help of the international community, must improve rural infrastructure in order to develop Pakistan’s agricultural sector. Similarly, poor farmers need access to easy, corruption-free loans to increase their crop yields and improve agricultural practices.

Challenge 3: Energy Crises Among developing countries, demand for electricity will rise 40% by 2030. In Pakistan alone, the demand for energy is expected to increase sevenfold. Yet the oil- and gas-reliant country, which currently imports 75% of its energy, lacks the necessary infrastructure, long-term planning, and institutional frameworks to meet current needs, let alone future energy requirements.

The energy crisis badly affects the country’s agriculture, economy, way of life, and technological advancement. A continuous rise in oil prices and electricity is causing inflation and devaluing the currency. Energy is becoming increasingly inaccessible

www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 23 © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

water mismanagement. In Pakistan, wastewater use in agriculture carries a wide risk of diseases.

Food-borne diseases are also a concern, and natural calamities such as frequent floods add more severity to the out breaks.

One study of south© UMAR FAROOQ / IRIN ern Punjab, Pakistan’s A dengue fever ward at a hospital in northern Pakistan. most populous province, found that diarrhea and hookwormrelated diseases were for the average person. These condi- common among farmers working in tions are raising agitation, anger, and farms fed by wastewater. Other disriots in the frustrated people of eases run rampant: Several types of hepatitis are very common. Due to ­Pakistan.

Possible solutions: Fossil fuels com- political propaganda and misinforprise 80% of the world’s energy sup- mation, the fight against polio is ply. Rising fossil fuel prices highlight much tougher. HIV is on the rise. the need for renewable energy And typhoid, malaria, and tubercusources in Pakistan. Hydropower, losis are still uncontrolled.

Currently, the most serious disease solar energy, biomass utilization, and wind power are some of the best outbreaks are dengue hemorrhagic sustainable energy options for ­Pakistan. fever (DHF) and Crimean-Congo Pakistan’s location is blessed with hemorrhagic fever (CCHF). DHF is unending sources of solar energy. mostly found in the eastern part of Pakistan receives up to twice the so- the country, while CCHF is mostly lar radiation needed to power solar found in the west. From 2005 to photovoltaic appliances, such as wa- 2006, more than 3,640 patients were ter pumps. It is estimated that Paki- found to have DHF symptoms.

Possible solutions: Proper waste­ stan’s hydropower is operating at water management can minimize the only 15% of its potential.

Biomass utilization, especially bio- risks of many diseases, such as hepafuel production, can fulfill the oil re- titis, malaria, dengue, and typhoid. quirements of energy. About 70% of Although using wastewater in agriPakistan’s land is uncultivated and culture can be beneficial for Pakicould be utilized to grow crops with stan’s nutrient-deficient soil, its use high biofuel potential. Livestock in must be coupled with the pretreatPakistan is a good source of wet ment of water to get rid of any dung and can yield substantial bio- chemical and microbial contaminagases for fuel purposes. Addition- tion. Diseases that are spread by hually, Pakistan has the capacity to pro- man contact, such as CCHF, must be duce 400,000 tons of ethanol per year handled with proper care when dealing with patients, as well as from its sugarcane crops. ­animals.

Education and awareness by religious scholars can help to lift the fight against polio and HIV. Health must be given priority in rehabilitations after natural disasters. Along Pakistan’s rapid urbanization is cre- with the global community, Pakiating numerous problems, the most stan’s government must built meathreatening of which is disease out- sures for fighting disease outbreaks. Water sources in and near breaks—especially ones that may big cities are at risk due to waste­ bring global catastrophes.

Challenge 4: Disease Outbreaks

24

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

Challenge 5: Socioeconomic Instability According to the Ministry of Finance’s annual economic survey, Pakistan’s GDP growth in 2013 was 3.6%, down from 4.4% in the previous year. The economy is severely affected by the energy crisis, terrorism, and the global economy, and the country operates with a large deficit, thanks to the administration’s reluctance and inability to cut spending or raise taxes. Meanwhile, the value of the Pakistani rupee has decreased in recent years. Each time the rupee falls, both inflation and foreign debts increase.

More than 60% of Pakistan’s population lives below the poverty line, leaving many unable to obtain or pay for food, health care, education, and energy.

While many factors contribute to the country’s rampant poverty, the energy crisis in particular has a strong effect, because of its negative impact on Pakistan’s agricultural and industrial sectors. Entire factories are often outsourced, which leads to unemployment and disturbs supply and demand and the balance of imports and exports.

Unemployment and poverty have led to high rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide, as well as an increase in crime. Unemployed youth are frequently targeted for recruitment by terrorist organizations, who offer them the means to afford food and an opportunity to show their anger against society. Most of the country’s suicide bombers are under 20 years old.

Possible solutions: Pakistan has to deal seriously with its energy crisis.

Consistently available and affordable energy would lubricate agriculture and industry, which would, in turn, raise GDP and increase employment opportunities. Coupled with reforms to corrupt government spending and tax collection policies, increasing tax rates on certain sectors would provide the country with much-needed growth. Improved infrastructure would result in better trade opportunities with China and central Asia, while better trade be-

tween India and Pakistan could bring enormous economic benefits to both countries.

The government needs to focus efforts on decreasing suicides and improving mental health. Public sports programs and technical education for unemployed youth would provide the country with young, healthy, and skilled laborers and members of society. And laws aimed at improving income inequality could help to eliminate hate throughout society.

Challenge 6: Natural Disasters Mother Nature seems unhappy with Pakistan, which faces severe crises with continued floods, earthquakes, drought, and global warming.

Despite heavy investment in irrigation, Pakistan is vulnerable to continuous floods. Due to climate change, the intensity of floods in the Himalayan rivers has increased in the past 20 to 30 years. Human intervention in Pakistan has worsened scenarios by building unnecessary embankments and improperly using land. The Indus flood of 2010 was one of the greatest disasters in the history of mankind, affecting more than 14 million people and killing nearly 2,000, with approximately US$9.5 million worth of losses to

business, agriculture, and other parts of the economy. According to the UN, the humanitarian crisis caused by the flood was even greater than Japan’s 2011 tsunami and the disastrous earthquakes of Haiti and ­Kashmir.

Nearly all the world’s glaciers are on the verge of disappearance, including the Himalayan glacial reserves. Billions of people in the In­ dian subcontinent rely on this water reservoir, which supplies the Indus, Ganges, and other rivers. Over the past century, the average global temperature has increased by 0.6°C (1°F) and continues to rise. The Himalayan glaciers have begun to melt, threatening frequent floods, loss of water reservoirs, and a rise in sea levels. Climate change has also been observed as a trigger for the increase in the outbreaks in northwest Pakistan of Plasmodium falciparum, a parasite that causes malaria. Similarly, a continuous decrease in precipitation, especially in arid and semiarid areas, is causing a long-term drought.

Pakistan is located in a region that experiences frequent earthquakes. In 2005, a devastating, 7.6-magnitude earthquake killed more than 82,000 people and injured more than 126,000. The earthquake also triggered massive landslides and caused dams to break.

Possible solutions: Natural calamities cannot be avoided, but their in-

Flood victims are forced from their homes.

tensities, frequencies, and effects can be minimized. Floods in Pakistan are caused by excessive monsoon rain and global warming. Construction of dams can help to store the excess floodwater, which can be used for agriculture and to generate hydroelectricity. Global warming must be fought at the global level by controlling greenhouse gas emissions and by using a carbon credit system.

The government of Pakistan must ban the extensive deforestation in the country, as well as solve the energy problem, because the trees are mostly cut for energy requirements.

Improving public transport systems would minimize individual car usage. There is also a need for nationwide applicable building construction policy to control the effects of earthquakes. Earthquake-proof houses have proven effective, and nationwide quick-response emergency teams equipped with modern technologies can minimize the aftereffects of natural disasters.

Challenge 7: Nuclear War Threats Pakistan is of great geostrategic importance. India and Pakistan have fought three major wars and many small military conflicts. The warrior minds are visible as both sides spread the hate and push for war at

Outside of Islamabad, a young girl draws water from a well. © ABDUL MAJEED GOYARA / IRIN

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

© REBECCA CONWAY / IRIN

September-October 2014

25

all times. It may be that they simply do not fully understand the consequences of a war between two countries. The outcomes will not be regional; they will bring global suffering.

India is a big country with superiority in conventional weapons and instruments of war. However, Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal compensates for this disparity. Each country has more than 100 nuclear warheads at its disposal. A nuclear war between the two countries could kill more than 20 million people in the region, while a nuclear winter caused by the generation of smoke could cripple agriculture of the whole world.

Possible solutions: Both Pakistan and India—and in fact, the entire

problems, including employment, food production, and underdeveloped infrastructure. The long-term strategy should focus on health care, education reforms, infrastructure development, promoting agriculture, and counteracting explosive population growth.

Conditions in Pakistan are not perfect, but not all is bad. Pakistani society looks well aware of the challenges they are facing. Thousands of new PhD scientists generated by Higher Education Commission of Pakistan look committed to providing scientific solutions to the problems Pakistan is facing. For instance, researchers have introduced drought-resistance crops to counter the food shortage. High-yield seed

“MOST OF THE WORLD’S COUNTRIES WILL FACE THE SAME SCENARIOS THAT ARE NOW HAPPENING IN PAKISTAN.” world—are left with no option but to resolve all their issues by dialogue.

War is never a solution to any problem and always a trigger for other problems. The international community must insist that both countries sit together and have a dialogue under UN mediation. There are better uses for nuclear technology than bombs. In the winter, winds are blown from Pakistan to India, and in the summer, Pakistan receives winds from India, making it impossible for these neighbors to think that they will be unaffected by nuclear war.

Strategies, Prospects, and Hope Pakistan is facing huge, interconnected problems in many areas. The problems begin with people, and, in Pakistan’s case, with overpopulation. The increasing population will require more energy, food, employment, and health facilities. The availability of energy can solve many 26

THE FUTURIST

varieties are being used to increase the production of food and fodder crops. There is a considerable amount of ongoing practical and applicable research on renewable energy, and food-safety experts are doing considerable research to ensure safe food handling.

Pakistani authorities are serious about mitigating the country’s challenges. For years, Pakistan’s government has tried to control the population. The Lady Health Worker (LHW) program has succeeded by providing basic maternal health facilities in rural areas. The LHWs provide guidance in contraception processes and lead to jobs and mobility.

Even given the tumultuous world economy, the Karachi Stock Exchange is showing exceptional progress. In 2013, exports increased slightly, while imports declined. The federal budget looks promising in raising tax net and revenue, controlling inflation, and improving development projects. The government is working to build new dams for controlling floods, as well as to increase hydropower.

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

In light of the recent disastrous floods and earthquakes, the role of Pakistan’s people and government has been appreciable. Establishment of the country’s National Disaster Management Authority looks like a good initiative by the government to manage the effects of natural disasters. And the international community’s responses have shown that it is ready to stand with Pakistan.

The Pakistani political regime looks promising in promoting good relations with India. As reported by The Indian Express, Pakistan Premier Nawaz Sharif has said that he is looking to make a new beginning with India in pursuit of disarmament and nonproliferation, and that Pakistan is getting out of the arms race. Such statements are encouraging for the peace process between the two countries.

We humans have been given brains more tremendous than any other creature’s. The only destruction we can inflict on ourselves is to be ignorant of what is happening around us. Most of the world’s countries will face the same scenarios that are now happening in Pakistan. Pakistan’s geographic centrality means that any crisis can quickly spread to neighboring countries.

Even though its problems are great, there are solutions that are applicable for the rest of the world.

Pakistan still has the strength and opportunities to fight back. The country’s failure or survival will symbolize the defeat or success of the fight for modern humanity. ❑ About the Authors Imran Ali (lead author) is a postdoctoral fellow at the Plant Biomass Utilization Research Unit at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and a lecturer at the University of Balochistan in Pakistan.

Co-authors include Ali Akbar (University of Balochistan, Pakistan), Hunsa Punnapayak (Chulalongkorn University), Sehanat ­Prasongsuk (Chulalongkorn University), and Benjawan Yanwisetpakdee (Chulalongkorn University).

The authors thank Chulalongkorn University in Thailand for providing access to literature. The Research Grant Funds have been provided by agreement on Post-­ Doctoral Research Grant Allocation from the Ratchadaphisek Somphot Endowment Fund.

Businesses, Nonprofits, Foundations, Educational Institutions, and Governments Get the Most Out of the World Future Society!

The Institutional Membership Program of the World Future Society will help you lead your organization into the future by participating in the Society’s activities to a greater extent than would be possible with an individual membership.

Key Benefits of Institutional Membership: • Subscriptions to THE FUTURIST, Futurist Update, and World Future Review.

• Web access to wfs.org, including THE FUTURIST archives, for up to 20 team members.

• Invitations to Professional Members Forums, held at least once per year.

• Invitations to Society meetings at special members’ rates, extended to up to 20 team members.

• Free copies of any books published by the World Future Society during the term of your membership.

• Preferential rates for advertising and promotional opportunities. (Contact World Future Society business manager Jeff Cornish, jcornish@wfs.org, for details.)

• Recognition as a forward-thinking institution, acknowledged in THE FUTURIST and online at wfs.org.

• Contacts! Institutional membership will help your organization make valuable connections with other professionals and organizations. The Society also helps Institutional members ­locate sources of information, consultants, and speakers for conferences and meetings, tailoring information specifically to your organization’s needs.

Heiko A. von der Gracht of EBS Business School SMI, an Institutional Member of the World Future Society.

AARON M. COHEN FOR WFS

Yes! I’d like the World Future Society’s support in leading my organization into the future.

Please enter my membership as follows: ❑ New

❑ Renewal

❑ One Year Corporate or for-profit ($850)

❑ One Year Nonprofit/educational ($450)

Method of Payment ❑ Check or money order enclosed (payable to World Future Society) ❑ Please charge my: ❑ VISA

❑ MasterCard

Card number

❑ Discover

❑ American Express Exp. date

Signature Name Organization Address City/State ZIP/Country E-mail (for receiving Futurist Update electronic newsletter) Mail to: Institutional Membership Program, World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, U.S.A. Telephone 1-800-989-8274 or 1-301-656-8274 • E-mail info@wfs.org • To order online, go to: www.wfs.org/benefits

Futures Education: Teaching and Learning about the Future A special report by members and friends of the World Future Society DENISGO / BIGSTOCK

Introduction F u t u re s S t u d i e s a s i t h a s evolved since the early 1970s is both a discipline and a meta-discipline. It is a set of skills and applied methodologies that can be learned—in impressively diverse ways—and it is a dynamic way of coming to understand the world that is practical and empowering.

As Alvin Toffler wrote in 1974, “A focus on the future is relevant to all learners, regardless of age.”

For this special report, we called for essays from futurists who have experienced futures education, be it in a K-12 class project, a professional certificate program, a workshop, or a full degree program. We received an overwhelming response from students, educators, and several people who have been on both sides of the learning and teaching experience.

This report will be added to the Resources available at wfs.org, and we hope readers will continue to share their experiences with us—and with tomorrow’s futures learners.

—THE EDITORS

Foresight Education Programs and Courses 29 Collaborative Futures Education, Peter Bishop 29 Challenges for Futures Studies in the University, Linda Groff 30 Foresight Education: When Students Meet the Future(s), Willis Goldbeck and Lisa Hasler Waters 34 Experiential Futures: Stepping into OCADU’s Time Machine, Stuart Candy 37 Teaching the Future in a History Department, David Hochfelder, with Daniel Russo and Alexander Nassrelgrgawi 38 Futures Education in the Caribbean, Haven Allahar 39 Community Foresight: A Decade of Futures Teaching and Learning, Gina M. Finelli, Steven T. Henick, and Stephen F. Steele 40 Foresight @ Notre Dame, Sam Miller, Tim Blako, Chad Harms, John Michel, Karen Slaggert, and Michael Whitt 40 Artifacts from the Future: Student Collaboration at the University of Notre Dame, Sam Miller and Michael Elwell 41 Foresight in Middle School: Teaching the Future For the Future, Katie King

The Houston Experience 42 43 44 44

Transforming a Graduate Futures Program, University of Houston, Oliver Markley A Training Ground for Professional Futurists, Andy Hines Houston 2040: The Student Experience, Darci Papell Inside the Houston Futures Strategic Foresight Program, Richard Yonck

Real-World Futures Learning 46 Teaching Futures Studies to Ministers, Cassidy Dale 46 Applying Futures Studies: Leisure and Tourism, Albert Postma 48 Security Futures Research at Freie Universität Berlin, Lars Gerhold and Monika Muszynska 49 Practice-Oriented Foresight in a Research and Technology Organization, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland 50 Innovating for the Future: A Workshop for Future Scientists, Roey Tzezana 51 Lessons of a Lifelong Futurist, Peter Eder 33 Futures Education Glossary 51 Directory of Foresight Programs 52 On the Web

28 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

Futures Education Special Report

Foresight Education Programs and Courses Collaborative Futures

next generations to manage change and anticipate and KAZ OKADA FOR WFS Education influence the future systematically and

By Peter Bishop effectively. Educators claim to be preparing their stuIt is time for all dents for the teachers to teach future, but they the future. We are rarely mention the at a point in history future at all. At the when the increassame time, the lack ing rate of change of futures educais about to overtion in schools towhelm the influenday is understandtial and the rest of able, given that us alike. teachers were not The technologiintroduced to the cal revolution has f u t u r e e i t h e r. increased the rate Nevertheless, it is of innovation, time to change that. which, in turn, dis- Peter Bishop leads the World Future A s a re s u l t , a Society’s master course, Futuring: r u p t s o r g a n i z a - Introduction to Futures Studies. number of us have tions, industries, launched an initiaand whole societtive called Teach ies. We have althe Future to enready witnessed the collapse of the courage and support teachers and Soviet Union, the rise of China and administrators who want to include the developing nations, and the per- the future in their classes and their sistent turmoil in the Middle East schools. Many of those contributing and elsewhere. Soon, biotechnology to this special section of THE and nanotechnology will sweep in FUTURIST are already part of this with medical cures and new ways of movement. doing everything, from growing The initiative is just beginning. We food to manufacturing things. have an embryonic Web site (www As a result, we educators have a .teachthefuture.org), whose purpose unique opportunity and, indeed, a is to: clear responsibility to include the 1. Identify those who are already future in the curriculum at all lev- teaching the future. els—secondary, college, professional, 2. Gather their materials into one and continuing education. place.

During the 2011–12 academic year, 3. Encourage others to use those five universities with graduate pro- materials to teach the future in their grams in foresight and futures stud- classes and schools. ies (Hawaii, Houston, Ontario ColYou can join us today by visiting lege of Art and Design in Toronto, the Web site and telling us about Regent in Virginia, and Swinburne your experience and/or your interin Melbourne) engaged in a series of est in teaching the future. teleconferences to share their curricula. We found a great deal of com- Peter Bishop is formerly associate profesmon ground. (Resources from this sor of Strategic Foresight at the University project may be accessed from the of Houston, where he was the director of the Futures Studies program until 2013. His World Future Society’s Web site.)

However, graduate programs will Teach the Future project, www.teachthe always be limited in teaching the future.org, is an initiative to bring futures general public about the future. We thinking to secondary, collegiate, and proneed a greater effort to prepare the fessional schools. www.wfs.org

•

Challenges for Futures Studies in the University

By Linda Groff Futures studies has had difficulty establishing a firm foothold in universities around the world, largely because we still organize our universities based on the old Newtonian worldview of dividing reality into a bunch of separate parts. Different university disciplines and departments are where the hiring is done, and their focus is on self-preservation and credentialing.

Futures studies, on the other hand, is inherently big picture, interdisciplinary, and systems-oriented. It focuses not only on where trends are taking us, but also on designing more preferable alternative futures— another focus that traditional academia often ignores. The result is that futures studies does not easily fit within the framework of our traditional university structures.

Futures studies usually enters a university curriculum because some individual professor—in any given discipline or department—discovers the field, finds it fascinating, and decides to create a course with a futures focus, usually within his or her department. Such courses have popped up in almost every different discipline and school within a university, including not just the social sciences (political science, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and economics), but also the humanities, education, business and management, and even the natural sciences.

Thus, there is no inherent home where futures studies always or usually fits within a university.

The two top U.S. futures studies programs now, which have survived for a number of years, are the University of Houston at Clear Lake, which later had to move to a Technology School within the university to survive, and the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s futures concentration within the Political Science De-

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

29

partment. In both cases, these programs were the result of dedicated professors—Oliver Markley, Peter Bishop, and Andy Hines at the University of Houston and Jim Dator at the University of Hawaii.

At California State University, Dominguez Hills, in Carson, California, I brought together faculty in the 1970s from all different schools on campus to propose an MA in Futures Studies, which was approved and put on the master plan for the university. Later, the plan had to be abandoned when the university decided to convert from a quarter to a semester system, and some of the core courses required for the MA program were dropped from their curriculum.

I myself have been fortunate to still find ways to keep teaching some futures studies courses over the years—two within political science (Global Planning and the Future, and Technological Policy and the Future), as well as a senior seminar in behavioral science (a program that I coordinated for many years). This BEH course must be integrative across the social-behavioral sciences on some theme selected by the professor teaching it. I have focused on different topics, but in recent years on futures and evolution as a theme.

My advice for a faculty member who wants to create and teach a futures studies course is to work within your own department. Start with an elective “special topics” course, and then get it approved by your department and via the university curriculum process. If a whole program in futures studies is not ­v iable, at least try to create one or two futures studies elective courses within your own department.

If—a big if—you can find other related futures studies core courses, or courses on specialized topics related to the future, then you might be able to create a futures studies undergraduate major or minor, or even an MA program, on your university campus. You will need to get other interested faculty from different departments willing to work with you in this effort. The trend today is also to replace “Futures Studies” with “Foresight,” as a more preferable name for the field.

30

THE FUTURIST

The biggest problem for futures studies within universities is that the major organization and power rests with departments representing different disciplines. Interdisciplinary programs and institutes are thus vulnerable if budget cutbacks occur, or if a donor ceases to support such efforts (as happened with the Futures program within the Business School at USC some years ago), or if the faculty member who was the driving force leaves, retires, or otherwise is no longer available.

Nonetheless, many issues today require teams of people with expertise in different disciplines to work together to come up with more holistic, systems solutions to problems.

So that is the ongoing challenge, which makes futures studies more relevant than ever, but also more difficult to promote within the traditional structures of most universities today.

Linda Groff is director of Global Options and Evolutionary Futures Consulting (www.tiptopwebsite.com/globalops). She is emeritus professor of political science and futures studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her e-mail is evolvingworlds@gmail.com.

Foresight Education: When Students Meet the Future(s)

By Willis Goldbeck and Lisa Hasler Waters • The American School of Asunción, Paraguay, created “Project

2023” to help students explore educational and career goals. The school uses foresight in twelfth-grade comparative government classes and has started a special course to explore alternative futures for the country in 2032: “The Role of Paraguay in the 21st Century.”

• The International School Manila, Philippines, uses foresight in an eighth-grade social-studies course, “Changing Our World.” A student futures team has been invited to work with faculty and the school

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

board on a school priority concerning sustainability.

• The International School of Brussels, Belgium, has used foresight in tenth-grade humanities and twelfth-grade International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge. The school has initiated a student Foresight Club, has modeled a one-day mini foresight program, and is planning for the introduction of foresight into the arts program.

• The UN International School in New York City used the foresight seminar to introduce students to major industry and government leaders related to their topics—e.g., meeting with the head of the New York Times to discuss the future of print newspapers.

These schools are among more than thirty schools around the globe implementing Foresight Education.

Since 2009, as many as 500 students have attended courses, workshops, or presentations developed by Foresight Education, a nonprofit organization working with the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF), the U.S. Department of State, and the Global Issues Network.

To date, more than 50 teachers— from Bulgaria to Uganda, from China to the United States—have attended professional development training in Foresight Education methods, implementing foresight into their curricula. Collectively, these educators represent the spectrum of elementary and secondary school subject matter areas: geography, science, history, English language arts, and more. They teach students at all academic levels.

Most in-depth learning of foresight methods has occurred within core courses where students often select their own topics—e.g., animal testing, automobile transportation, stem-cell research, the role of women in the media, the death penalty, and nuclear power.

Students are required to explain their selection, provide resources they expected to be valuable, author an “Aspiration statement” for their topic in 2040, research and write a history “chapter” and a current conditions “chapter,” relate their topic to the six major trends (environment, government, economics, demo-

Futures Education Special Report IMAGES COURTESY OF GOLDBECK AND HASLER WATERS

Sample projects by students participating in the Foresight Eduation program, covering subjects ranging from the NFL …

… to species extinctions.

graphics, technology, and culture), and then develop three scenarios (expected, decline, and preferred or transformational) for each of the three time periods: 2020, 2030, and 2040. The projects typically culminate with the students presenting their topics to an audience of peers, teachers, and sometimes parents.

Then, the group maps the interaction of all the topics for the year 2030.

From the range of topics that students have pursued, it is clear that they are well aware of future uncertainties. Teachers have often commented on how enthusiastically students approach their futures studies, noting that they embrace the opportunity to create statements of their preferred futures. The quality of their work and their dedication to present what they have found to be most aspirational should serve as a benchmark for bringing futures in school education to all students.

The Foresight Education program began in 2009 as a pilot project developed for the Institute for Alternative Futures. The idea was to share foresight expertise with high-school stu-

… to immigration …

An Aspiration Statement for the year 2040 focuses students on their topics.

dents, teaching them ways to engage in futures methodologies. The program was integrated into a U.S. government course for seniors at La Jolla Country Day School in San ­Diego.

The pilot culminated in a forum where students presented their final projects to an audience of their peers, teachers, and parents. The program was deemed a success by participating teachers and students.

With support from the U.S. State ­D epartment’s Office of Overseas Schools, and collaboration with the Association for the Advancement of International Education (AAIE), the program was expanded to include other schools around the globe.

Foresight Education aspires to train the next generation to responsibly and compassionately handle the hard, ethically challenging decisions and complex issues and demands of the future in which they will live. On a tactical level, our goal is to help students engage in a global conversation about the future without being encumbered by today’s problems. We encourage them to believe that they can make a difference. And www.wfs.org

•

we hope to empower them with the skills needed to influence their own future opportunities.

The program’s Guide for Curriculum was built on research and pedagogical practices drawn from foresight practitioners and futurists, and uses the Institute for Alternative Futures’ Aspirational Model as a way to guide students when they develop their alternative futures. It incorporates elements from innovative educational frameworks, including 21st Century Skills and Knowledge, project-based learning, and studentcentered learning. It is aligned with Common Core States Standards for English Language Arts. In 2014, the College Board announced that it was adding foresight to the essential skills, or lenses, to which all students will be exposed in the new College Board course offerings.

The curriculum employs an experiential-based approach in which teachers and learners share knowledge to build their understandings.

Foresight Education recognizes that there are many pathways to thinking about the future and dealing with

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

31

uncertainties, so it encourages teachers and students to explore their own pathways. Most importantly, the program is flexible and adaptable so that teachers can mold the program to fit their own classroom needs. (Details for the Guide for Curriculum may be found at www .foresighteducation.info/page/cur riculum-guide.)

What Have We Learned?

Teaching students about foresight works best when it is taught within an existing unit of study or incorporated within a core subject area, according to teachers who have implemented a Foresight Education program over the past four years.

Some teachers have layered Foresight Education into their AP physics or science classes as a way to view science with a “future” lens. Others have used it to explore implications and outcomes related to earth sciences; and others, to conduct service-learning projects, in which students explored alternative futures for their own communities. Starting in 2013, there has been a significant growth of foresight programs being adapted by teachers for use in the

middle and lower school grades.

In early 2014, we conducted informal interviews with teachers and students to collect feedback on the Foresight Education program.

• Perceptions from Students.

Some students reported that engaging in a foresight project opened their eyes to worldviews that they never would have imagined. Others said it gave them the confidence to trust their own interpretations and understandings. One student commented, “Foresight has taught me that what matters isn’t the past, but what we can learn from it. I now know how to analyze the past to understand the possible future, and that is an invaluable skill to understand how our world is going to evolve.”

Students also reported that they felt proud of their projects and that the program helped them to build confidence in their own abilities to discover important information and to make sense of it on their own terms. One student said that Foresight Education “has taught me how a certain subject [bioengineering] has evolved and changed for the better or worse throughout time. It has made me aware that my generation,

my companions and I, have the opportunity and responsibility to lead our world so that all our technologies, actions, sciences, educational systems, etc., have a positive effect on our humanity. This project has been hard, but also quite enjoyable.”

The creative aspects of foresight projects, such as envisioning preferred futures and writing futures narratives, were the most exciting and fun part of engaging in futures, according to many students. Sharing their projects with classmates, teachers, and parents was also a way for students to validate their own findings. Students rise to the intellectual challenges and offer reflections that seem wise beyond their years.

• Perceptions from Teachers.

Teachers equally found the creative elements of the Foresight Education projects to be one of the most rewarding aspects of the program.

Several also said that their ability to tailor the duration and pace of the foresight projects has been extremely beneficial. Others appreciated the freedom to teach a curriculum that is not bound by rigid guidelines and “right answers.”

And, notably, a few teachers commented that the program allows

Futures in Education—A Review Since Alvin Toffler first called attention to the need for futures curriculum (Learning for Tomorrow: The Role of the Future in Education, Random House, 1974), futures education has existed in schools in various forms.

Future Problem Solving Program International is one of the

earliest and most enduring programs. The program was started in the 1970s by the late Paul Torrance; today, more than 200,000 students from around the globe have been engaged in it. Students learn to use the problem-solving model to explore global and community issues and to engage in scenario writing.

Top-scoring teams are invited to participate in regional programs and move on to the annual international conference.

32

THE FUTURIST

Many global futures-education programs resulted from the work of World Futures Studies Federation members. In Australia during the mid-1990s, Richard Slaughter and Kathleen Rundell developed a program in futures for years 11 and 12. In the United Kingdom, David Hicks developed curriculum for futures in classrooms. His work evolved into the national curriculum area for citizenship education in the UK. Under the auspices of UNESCO, John Fien created a CDROM for teachers that included a futures perspective in the curriculum for teaching and learning sustainable futures.

During the late 2000s, Cole Jackson developed a program called Creating a Preferred Futures. This was an interactive, project-based

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

learning experience that linked students worldwide to interactive futures education.

In 2009, a workshop called Fu-

turizing the K-12 Teaching Practice was developed by a group of

collaborators, including the Texas Association for the Gifted and Talented, the Houston Independent School District, and the University of Houston. The workshop provided schoolteachers an introduction to Futures Inquiry, an interdisciplinary method for teaching higher-order thinking skills to young students. Leadership was and continues to be provided by Peter Bishop, who is also the founder of Teach the Future (www .teachthefuture.org).

—Willis Goldbeck and Lisa Hasler Waters

Futures Education Special Report

Futures Education Glossary Causal Layered Analysis, developed by Sohail Inayatullah, is a method of relating values to trends to develop alternative scenarios that will yield more effective (that is, deeper, inclusive, and longer term) policies. CLA consists of four levels: the litany, social causes, discourse/worldview, and myth/ metaphor. For an example of CLA in action, see “Water Futures: An Islamic Perspective” by Syeda Mariya Absar in the JanuaryF e b ru a r y 2 0 1 4 i s s u e o f T H E FUTURIST. DEGEST (see STEEP).

Delphi polling solicits and aggregates the opinions of groups of experts to arrive at a consensus judgment about some aspect of the future. The polls will often go through several rounds as the group members respond to each other’s (usually anonymous) opinions. A further refinement of the Delphi method is the Real-Time Delphi, which narrows the number of participants, reduces the rounds of responses, and uses collaborative software to accelerate the consensus-reaching process.

Futures wheel, invented in 1971

by Jerome C. Glenn of The Millennium Project, is a way of creating a visual trend analysis that draws out the primary, secondary, and tertiary consequences of trends, events, emerging issues, and future possible decisions.

Futuring is “the act, art, or science of identifying and evaluating possible future events,” according to Edward Cornish, author of Futuring: The Exploration of the Future.

It is a broad term for thinking about the future or applying futures-research techniques, though academia may prefer the term futures studies or futures research.

Normative forecasting, as opposed to exploratory forecasting, is a goal-oriented process, involving both envisioning a desired future and creating strategies for achieving it.

Roadmapping is an illustration, step by step, of how a projected

end-point future (whether it is a goal or an alternative scenario) is reached from a starting point (the present). It may also show intersections and side routes that deviate from a normative path, heading toward other future outcomes. As Theodore J. Gordon notes, roadmapping “is both a normative forecasting tool and a planning technique.”

Robust decision making is a framework for working through the many long-term uncertainties in our future environment so that we can make the best possible choices, and take the best possible actions, across the widest possible range of alternative scenarios. By identifying potential vulnerabilities in our strategies, we can alter them and/or weigh trade­offs among imperfect outcomes.

Scanning, or environmental scanning, is the information-gathering process, which may be either a general effort to keep abreast of the world around us or a more focused initiative targeting a specific trend area. The objective is to help decision makers “find early indications of possibly important future developments to gain as much lead-time as possible,” according to Glenn.

Scenarios: Essentially stories about the future, or “very serious fiction,” scenarios are often formulated to describe more than one possible future. Typically, these will include a baseline or businessas-usual view of the future, as well as optimistic and pessimistic views that depend on changes in specific variables. (These alternatives may also be described as expected, decline, preferred, or transformational scenarios.) The United Nations, for instance, uses high, medium, and low projections of population growth to illustrate a range of plausible outcomes of trends in fertility and mortality rates and other factors. See also wild cards.

STEEP (aka DEGEST) refers to the major subject areas examined www.wfs.org

•

in trend analysis: Society, Technology, Economy, Environment, and Politics (or Demography, Economics, Government, Environment, Society, and Technology). There is clearly much overlap in these areas, but futurists find it useful to begin trend scanning and analysis by examining events, decisions, and potential impacts within these specific areas.

Trend pyramid is a type of analysis that structures trends related to a specific field of inquiry, such as a company or industry, or even a social system. Megatrends at the base of the pyramid are those with the widest impacts and/or cover the longest time period (typically 10 to 30 years). Mesotrends or maxitrends in the middle of the pyramid may cover a shorter time period (five to 10 years) or influence a narrower range of society. Microtrends at the top of the pyramid are shorter term (less than five years) and have less overall influence (i.e., fads) but may still be important to understand, for example, in terms of capturing audience or market interest. More at trendsetgo.beki jknu.nl/p/trend-pyramids-55183.

Wild cards are events that have a low probability of occurring but that would have high impacts if they did. The classic example is an asteroid impacting the Earth. Most futurists include wild cards in their forecasts, such as in “disaster” scenarios, to urge their audiences to consider reasonable responses, including actions to deter the event.

Keep in mind that some wild cards can be very good, such as winning a lottery or developing a breakthrough medical treatment or cure.

For more information on these and other ­futures-studies concepts, see Futures Research Methodology, Version 3.0 (CD‑ROM), compiled by ­Jerome C. Glenn and Theodore J. Gordon, The Millennium Project, www.millennium-project.org.

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

33

them to share in the learning processes alongside their students. As one teacher commented, “In this program, teacher and students learn together!”

However, teachers also reported several challenges: assessing student projects, overcoming the need to have “the right answers,” and finding time to fit foresight into their already overwhelming schedules.

Foresight Education is devised as a flexible program, enabling teachers to use all or parts of the curriculum to meet their classroom objectives. It should not replace content, but rather be layered within content areas to engage students in critical thinking, problem solving, and creative thinking processes.

Students can work in teams or individually on futures topics of their choosing or those selected by teachers. The goal is always to bend Foresight Education to the needs of the teachers, and, most importantly, toward the benefit of student learning.

Next Steps for Foresight Education Foresight Education’s new Guide for Curriculum, which includes details on assessments and standards alignment, is going to be distributed for free to educators interested in infusing foresight into their curriculum. Funding is currently being sought to develop a robust Web site where educators, students, and others interested in futures education can access high-quality resources, connect with a community of learners and futurist-mentors, and share their learning experiences.

Additionally, Foresight Education is in discussions to build a gamebased resource for students interested in building their foresight skills. However, one of the highest priorities is getting Foresight Education into public school classrooms across the United States.

That Foresight Education has grown from a one-classroom pilot project to a program imbued in classrooms around the globe may indicate that the time is ripe for futures studies in schools.

Futurists can help continue to drive the momentum by participating as mentors for students and 34

THE FUTURIST

teachers who are new to futures studies. Supporting a student or a teacher does not mean that one has to be an educator, nor does it require special membership into the league of teachers, or some other proprietary groups. It simply means being willing to take a call from a student or a teacher, or to get involved in your own local schools to help them understand the importance of foresight skills.

Foresight Education is about students discovering skills that will last a lifetime. The wonder and imagination of youth is guided by teachers who learn alongside their students.

And they both learn that the pursuit of knowledge is harder and more valuable than the search for right ­answers.

Willis B. Goldbeck is an independent social and economic policy consultant. He founded the Foresight Education Program in 2009 (www.foresighteducation.info). He served as chairman of the board for the Institute for Alternative Futures from 1998 until 2006.

Lisa Hasler Waters is Technology for Teaching and Learning Integrator at Flint Hill School in Northern Virginia and is a collaborator with Willis Goldbeck’s Foresight Education Program at the Institute for Alternative Futures. She earned her PhD in educational technology from the University of Hawaii and studied futures with Dr. James Dator.

A longer version of this essay, including references, course design descriptions, and a list of schools participating in the Foresight Education program, may be found on THE FUTURIST’s Web site.

Experiential Futures: Stepping into OCADU’s Time Machine

By Stuart Candy Why just talk about the future when you could visit it instead?

At Toronto’s OCAD University

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

(formerly the Ontario College of Art and Design), the most effective way I have found for generating engagement with possible, probable, and preferable futures is to manifest them in the present.

This article is mainly about why and how to do experiential futures in the classroom, although my interest in this area is not mainly academic. It is motivated by a concern for impactful foresight both in an organizational setting and in our culture at large.

Each of the scenes described (pages 35-36) was a culminating deliverable for an introductory foresight class. I have called this particular kind of experiential scenario a Time Machine, turning a classroom into a scene from a possible future.

These futures of synthetic biology, love, affluence, and public media are just examples of Time Machine scenario creation. Others have included the futures of religion, energy, govern­ance, and even foreign aid—a scenario in which I found myself on the receiving end of a slick corporate pitch to invest in aid abroad as a profit-making venture. The list goes on. The potential topics are as numerous and varied as the subject matter of foresight itself. That is to say, they are inexhaustible.

The Love Museum scenario described above was created by students at the National University of Singapore in a week-long introduction to futures run in late 2012. The instructors were Aaron ­Maniam of the Singapore Civil Service College, Noah Raford of the UAE Prime Minister ’s Office in Dubai, and I. The other scenes were created by students in the Master of Design program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCAD University. They were part of the core semester-long (13 weeks) Foresight Studio class, which I co-taught in fall 2013 with Suzanne Stein and in winter 2014 with Greg Van Alstyne.

In all of these cases, student groups had four or five members from diverse academic and cultural backgrounds, and limited prior exposure to foresight. As in a typical foresight class, we guided students through the generation of scenarios on various topics chosen by the

Futures Education Special Report IMAGES COURTESY OF STUART CANDY

Scenario: Exploring Synthetic Biology Three figures in white lab coats welcome you to the facility.

They ask you to take a seat and turn off all devices. As a volunteer, you are free to withdraw at this stage, until each participant signs a three-page boilerplate agreement covering confidentiality and risk waivers. Then the clinical trial may begin.

OCAD University’s Design xBiology Lab is testing #Collexitor, a drug to remedy social-media addiction. Implants are placed carefully on your inner arm, and a medical cocktail is orally administered. The impulses that you and other participants may have to share potentially newsworthy items are then monitored. So far, the drug seems to work.

groups. Then they selected one story from the set, and we provided support as they translated it into a live experience, 20–30 minutes long, for the whole class plus visitors (typically 30–35 people in total).

Although the Time Machine was the culminating moment of these courses, it was not the focus. Budgets were shoestring, and production schedules were tight. These time and resource constraints are worth noting, because they go to the question of replicability. Events produced by experts and costing thousands of dollars do not necessarily offer a vi­ able model for most foresight teachers or practitioners to use in their own contexts. In contrast, what my collaborators and I have done with students in Singapore and Toronto can readily be done elsewhere.

If pressed to name one thing as the key to creating experiential futures, and certainly Time Machines, I

Scenario: The Love Museum The Romancing Singapore exhibit—which runs until January 15, 2033, according to the sign—documents the astonishing and eventful recent history of love, sex, and relationships.

As you enter the Singapore Discovery Center, a docent reminds you that it is only in the past 20 years that the separate roles of Sexer and Soulmate were mandated to replace the bafflingly long-lived (and now obsolete) institution of marriage, in which these functions had always been fused.

The exhibit includes posters, newspaper reports, an educational slideshow, and video from a 24-hour news channel. Some of the most intriguing artifacts are fragments of a vanished past: Take, for instance, the condom, a personal device formerly needed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease. Or the rose, which was once used by couples as a gift to symbolize their affection. These days, it’s just another pretty flower.

The Center’s staff members are happy to answer the stream of questions from visitors eager to learn just how Singapore managed, in the span of a generation, to reinvent marriage, sex, and the family unit.

would say it is this: diegetic integrity.

This scary-looking bit of terminology is worth knowing. Diegesis is the term that Plato and Aristotle used to refer to a story-world. The trick to designing experiential futures is putting people into your diegesis—your story-world—as seamlessly as possible. Diegetic integrity means that your scenario holds together on its own terms: no gaps in logic, no clumsy flashing arrows.

It is profoundly valuable for design/futures students and practition­ ers alike to think about diegetic integrity. Doing so requires us to imagine the future at hand more concretely, coherently, and compellingly than we otherwise would.

Creating a seamless and immersive scenario around participants is www.wfs.org

•

challenging. Students can bring all of their interests and skills to the ­t able—writing, painting, music, lighting, graphic design, carpentry, fabrication, facilitation, performance, and more. I encourage them to make an inventory of these as resources to inspire thinking about how to put us into their world. Whatever emerges will become testimony to the particular contributions of all team ­members.

As a design activity, building a Time Machine calls for significant ingenuity, holistic thinking, and re-

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

35

IMAGES COURTESY OF STUART CANDY

Scenario: Collective Affluence You have been invited to playtest the beta version of ­Nousopoly: Toronto Edition.

A classic board game based on the winner-takes-all dynamics of capitalism has been redesigned to reflect the multiplecurrency landscape of 2053. It still includes the good old dollar, alongside credits for attention, social influence, skill, and time. Its name is pronounced “New-opoly,” invoking not only novelty but also the French pronoun nous, meaning “we” or “us.”

Seated at tables of four to six, you and the other players readily adapt to rules built on the familiar old ones. But this version more faithfully mirrors the emerging social and economic reality. For instance, you quickly find that shared ownership of property brings benefits to both players that individual ownership does not.

sourcefulness. It is profoundly fun and engaging for participants—both those who create these immersive scenarios and those who experience them. It’s also good for teams, and it deepens understanding of how a scenario holds together—and with what strategic implications.

Part of the power of a Time Machine design brief is its minimalism.

I tell students that they can do anything (legal) that they like in order to take us into their future for the duration. This leaves a huge range of options open, hence the variety of scenes described above. It also gives the students a more powerful kind of educational leverage; they are not fed, but taught to feed themselves, improving their capacity to design experiential futures and other strate36

THE FUTURIST

Scenario: Media and Content Crimes Together with 30 or so others, you are ushered into rows of seats in a darkened room by stern, uniformed officials. “All rise!” The Content Crimes Tribunal is now in session.

Against the backdrop of an information war, Marigold Lee has been charged with producing and distributing unapproved content. Before your eyes, the prosecutor’s case is mounted, backed by alarming video evidence. Lee has sought to influence international audiences by peddling such subversive staples of “liberal” ideology as same-sex relationships and universal health care. With the nation’s very morality at stake, it is clear that Lee—and her organization, the Canadian Content Corps—must be stopped.

gic interventions.

The results are typically far more impactful and innovative than what most professional futurists currently sell to most clients. Practitioners should pay attention to experiential futures as a frontier of foresight pedagogy—tomorrow’s practice is being incubated in the classroom. Moreover, and more importantly, scaling up futures skill is a critical route to effecting cultural change. This relates to what Richard Slaughter called “social foresight.” Experiential futures is a practice for increasing accessibility and impact, accelerating the creation of shared mental models, and scaffolding both organizational and public imagination.

For these reasons and others, I believe that experiential futures will

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

continue to flourish. Of course, as the pragmatists should remind us, the final court of appeal is experience for what I say here, too, and I hope that some practitioners and teachers may be moved to try something that they have not before.

The heart of the futurist’s job is to create spaces of heightened understanding, strategic engagement, and creativity. Our work is fundamentally about enabling insights that can be useful to others, rather than merely dispensing such insights.

This means that the role is more facilitative than communicative, more exploratory than predictive, and more about process than product. It is often usefully framed as the design of strategic conversations, but zoom out one level from that and we

Futures Education Special Report

Teaching the Future in a

IMAGES COURTESY OF STUART CANDY

History Department

By David Hochfelder, with Daniel Russo and Alexander Nassrelgrgawi

Students debrief on their Futures of Governance Time Machine project.

Another Time Machine project created a customized textbook called Thought Box to help individuals start their careers quickly.

find the design of catalytic situations.

At this point in human history, futurists need to do far more than gesture at humanity’s options across the experiential gulf—that yawning abyss between the full-blooded experience of what life is like to live, and the thin ways in which we commonly represent possible futures. We must push beyond the limitations of the talks and texts that are the most routine outputs of the field. We should embrace the much wider range of interventions that becomes available with all media and the whole of experience as our canvas.

And, building on what we have learned over the last decades, we

need to—and it is now apparent that we can—use these to design more powerfully catalytic situations to enable wiser action today. In short, we need to up our game.

Take me to your future, and let me take you to mine.

Stuart Candy (@futuryst) is director of the Situation Lab and assistant professor of strategic foresight and innovation at OCAD University in Toronto, the world’s first academic program at the intersection of futures and design, www.ocadu.ca. He holds an MA and PhD in futures studies from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and is a past member of the Executive Board of the World Futures Studies Federation.

www.wfs.org

•

I teach U.S. history at University at Albany, SUNY. A major creative tension in history is the interplay between continuity and change. Historians must understand long-term processes and trends while reconstructing the lives of ordinary people who experienced them. Because of our training and mind-set, historians can bring a unique perspective to studying the future.

To test this proposition, I offered a course in spring 2013 called History and Future. The course explored three main questions: • How can historians be relevant to today’s policy debates?

• How can historical thinking enhance citizenship?

• How can we apply historical methods and skills to analyze prob­ able futures and to help create preferred futures?

The course required students to choose a subject, maintain a scanning blog, write a mid-semester trend analysis, and produce a final project containing a set of three to five scenarios.

Teacher ’s perspective (Hochfelder): The course was a mixed success. On one hand, several students did great projects and deepened their understanding of the relationship between past and future. On the other hand, I am not a professional futurist, and this lack of experience was obvious at points during the semester. So I asked two of my students to contribute their evaluations of the course.

Student’s perspective (Russo): I chose to participate in a futures studies course because I believe in the importance of being prepared for a variety of outcomes in any given situation. Whether I’m at my job, following world events, or making important life decisions, being prepared for many different scenarios is important.

One of the most useful things I learned in the course was the differ-

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

37

ence between forecasts and predictions. Predictions deal with specific future events, such as the movements of planets. Forecasts, on the other hand, allow you to view the entire landscape of possible events and determine which ones are more probable. You are, therefore, able to take note of many scenarios and have a more complete understanding of the issue you are researching.

Student’s perspective (Nassrelgrgawi): I took David Hochfelder’s futures studies class because I always believed that historical trends can provide insight on how the future might unfold. Before this class, I was unsure of how to make these connections. The class exposed us to tools such as futures wheels, trend analysis, and the formulation of scenarios from the interpretation of relevant trends.

These tools proved their usefulness personally when I witnessed my forecasted probable scenario for drone technology begin to reach actuality. I read in a recent news article that Amazon.com is planning to implement drone technology for commercial uses in the next five years.

This class had such an impact on me that I plan to attend the 2014 World Future Society conference so that I can learn to apply futures insights to my chosen field of Industrial/Organizational Psychology.

David Hochfelder is an associate professor of history, with a concentration in public history, at the University of Albany, SUNY. Daniel Russo graduated in 2013 with a history degree and is a research analyst at the Empire Center for Public Policy.

Alexander Nassrelgrgawi is a graduating senior planning to pursue a PhD in industrial/organizational psychology.

Futures Education in the Caribbean

By Haven Allahar Formal futures learning in higher education is nonexistent in the Ca38

THE FUTURIST

ribbean Community (the former British islands plus Guyana and Surinam). Ten years ago, however, the University of the West Indies Graduate School of Business (UWI-GSB) introduced the concept of futures studies in the Executive MBA program, focusing in particular on the need for business students to consider alternative scenarios. And by 2014, a module on futures studies and strategic foresight was deemed critical to the study and practice of entrepreneurship, enhancing a toolkit that included the development of creative thinking and innovative ­behavior.

I did not undertake a formal course in futuring, but was armed with insights from the online course in Fundamentals of Foresight offered

by World Future Society President Timothy Mack in 2010. I also participated in the Society’s Chicago (2009) and Boston (2010) conference sessions on futuring, creativity, and ­innovation.

So at the University of the West Indies, the development of our course content relied heavily on the information sources provided by WFS, the works of Mack and of Society founder Edward Cornish, and current articles published in THE FUTURIST. The introductory course in futures studies and strategic foresight focuses on the nine common techniques utilized in the practice of ­futuring: • Scanning.

• DEGEST (demography, economics, governance, environment, society, technology).

• Trend analysis.

• Scenarios.

• Delphi polling.

• Modeling.

• Simulation and games.

• Brainstorming.

• Visioning.

• Anticipating wild cards.

In particular, the DEGEST method was emphasized because of its relevance for monitoring business trends, which is critical in the Caribbean. For instance, the economy of Trinidad is highly dependent on the production and refining of crude oil and natural gas.

The futures studies and strategic

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

foresight module also incorporated the six-step guide proposed by Andy Hines in his September-October 2006 article in THE FUTURIST, “Strategic Foresight: The State of the Art.” These six steps are: • Framing.

• Scanning.

• Forecasting.

• Visioning.

• Planning.

• Acting.

This guide was demonstrated to be very relevant to the business environment in the Caribbean Community and was applied in several exercises to validate the system.

The course also required participants to prepare a foresight method canvas, drawing from the paper “Foresight Method for Enhancing Competitiveness of Brazilian Industrial Sectors” by Cláudio Chauke Nehme et al. in the World Future Society’s 2009 conference volume, Innovation and Creativity in a Complex World. This technique provided realworld application to business students with managerial experience and was found to be a vital tool.

This is the only such initiative in the 65-year-old UWI system, which serves as the premier tertiary institution of higher learning for the Caribbean Community. The UWI system comprises four country campuses and satellite facilities in most of the member countries.

The economies of small islands are invariably dominated by the state sector, and the increasing interest in identifying global megatrends imposes a responsibility on both the private and public sectors in emerging countries to adopt a scenarioplanning approach. Therefore, the futures studies technique of scenario planning will be incorporated in future entrepreneurship courses conducted at the UWI-GSB. Haven Allahar is the managing director of the development planning consulting firm APDSL and an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at the University of the West Indies Graduate School of Business based in Trinidad & ­Tobago. He has been a member of the World Future Society since 1997.

He may be contacted at havenallahar4@ gmail.com.

Futures Education Special Report

Community Foresight:

PHOTOS BY GINA M. FINELLI

A Decade of Futures Teaching and Learning

By Gina M. Finelli, Steven T. Henick, and Stephen F. Steele Foresight education at the Institute for the Future at Anne Arundel Community College (IF@AACC) has taken many paths: academic halls, prisons, elementary schools, and national defense agencies. With its partner, the World Future Society, IF@AACC has been promoting futures thinking and the art of foresight for over a decade. The Institute uses an interdisciplinary team of fac- IF@AACC’s Exploring the Future course brings students together with a client in the Idea Incubator. ulty, staff, students, and participants from the community to expand futuring and foresight.

Colleges traditionally deliver turing—help atcourses, and IF@AACC is no differ- tendees apply ent. Its bread-and-butter course is futuring techFTR 105: Exploring the Future, a niques to their three-credit course that is cross-listed personal lives. in the business, sociology, and psy- O t h e r s t r a i n chology departments. FTR 110: Glo- faculty in all balization and its Future follows as disciplines and the first “topics” course. Both areas of study courses are consistently offered on- to build futures thinking into line and in the classroom.

These same courses are also ex- their curricula.

Seeking to tended to those seeking noncredit, personal growth, and training op- “push foresight portunities through the college’s up, down, and out in the comcontinuing-education program.

IF@AACC also supports a fledg- m u n i t y, ” I F @ IF@AACC course presentation for a client, the Volunteer Center. ling student club, Futures Interest AACC connects group (FIG), and it hosts a Brown t h e c a m p u s Bag Lecture Series open to the entire with a commucommunity on relevant futures top- nity. A premier ics. The speakers are often members example is IF@ of the AACC faculty, demonstrating AACC’s Idea Incubator. Clients from young minds in futures thinking. that thoughtful local futures thinkers the surrounding community present IF@AACC faculty presented “ways challenges to students or faculty and to think about” foresight; students are all around us.

Foresight at the college extends be- staff, and the students form creative then completed activities to help yond credit and noncredit students. problem-solving teams to discuss so- them “do foresight.”

The Institute also partnered with IF@AACC coordinates with the col- lutions.

Another way that the Institute has the International Baccalaureate (IB) lege’s office of Institutional Professional Development to offer future- connected with the community is program to teach futures thinking in thinking workshops and training through its continued partnership local public high schools. IB faculty courses to faculty and staff, as well. with the county’s elementary and received training from IF@AACC Some workshops on basic futuring secondary schools. A pilot after- staff on futures studies, tools, and skills—such as scenario building, school enrichment program for foresight.

Community organizations as well strategic planning, and personal fu- third- through fifth-graders involved www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

39

as local and national government agencies call on the IF@AACC to provide training and presentations on specific futures subjects. Clients range from local nonprofits to national defense agencies.

Two valuable vehicles tie local futuring at the Institute to the larger world scene. Futureportal is a monthly e-zine edited by AACC faculty, reaching more than 800 subscribers in 20 countries and 45 U.S. states. And, extending their institution’s academic influence, AACC faculty members Jill Loukides and Lawrie Gardner authored Workbook: Building the Future, a primer to accompany WFS founder Edward Cornish’s seminal work, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future.

The IF@AACC’s own future will be a busy one. Its faculty and staff will continue to focus on maintaining and expanding its credit and noncredit curriculum and providing workshops, training, and programming to futurists of all ages—from elementary school to college—as well as to community organizations, businesses, and local and national governments.

Gina M. Finelli is an assistant professor of sociology and director of the Institute for the Future at Anne Arundel Community College (IF@AACC), www.aacc.edu/future.

Steven T. Henick is a collegiate associate professor and academic director at University of Maryland University College and a former director of IF@AACC. Stephen F. Steele is a retired professor of sociology and futures studies, Anne Arundel Community College, and an adjunct professor of sociology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Foresight at Notre Dame

By Sam Miller, Tim Balko, Chad Harms, John Michel, Karen Slaggert, and Michael Whitt Undergraduate business programs today are under fire for not preparing their graduates to effectively work and lead amid the complex 40

THE FUTURIST

and turbulent change of real-life business. Critics also question the moral character being fostered in many programs, given the business scandals that have shaken the public’s trust in business over the past decade. The Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame recognizes these challenges and is addressing them head on.

Mendoza has just completed its fifth year of teaching a required course in foresight at the undergraduate level. The course, titled Foresight in Business and Society, evolved out of a speaker series titled Ten Years Hence. The university launched this new course to challenge our future business leaders to proactively search for opportunities to use business as a force for good in the world. Approximately 3,000 students—averaging 600 a year—have completed the course so far.

The course provides students a framework based on foresight skills for thinking critically and creatively about change and its future implications. In the semester-long “deep dive,” student teams conduct exploratory futures research on emerging change in a wide variety of areas, including water, energy, education, emerging technology, health, poverty, and sustainability-related issues around the world. More than 500 team foresight projects were completed during these first five years.

The course strives to get students to stretch beyond the traditional research approach and to uncover truly insightful findings regarding future possibilities. In addition to challenging students to conduct evidence-based research regarding the interaction and trajectory of forces of change, the course cultivates the mind-set to think—really think— about how businesses and business leaders might create better futures for society.

To facilitate these objectives, the university taps its experts within the alumni network to serve as project mentors. Student teams have the opportunity to be matched with executive mentors from organizations like GE, IBM, McDonald’s, Chrysler, Murray Capital, and many others.

This expert outreach gives the course an experiential element that the stu-

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

dents consider a valuable takeaway.

Another key consideration in building the foresight mind-set is creating a multidisciplinary approach. The Mendoza team has thus developed such initiatives as the “Design Futures” collaborations between the foresight students and students from the Notre Dame School of Industrial Design. More pilot initiatives may emerge in coming years to pursue other opportunities for creating alignment across the colleges under the university umbrella.

Other new foresight courses are also joining the curricula. Foresight at Mendoza has already been introduced into our graduate business programs, and plans are taking shape to offer a senior-level advanced foresight experience for undergrads. Through all of these courses and programs, students gain a better understanding of how business is addressing global trends and issues, and how they as future business leaders can leverage the power of business for societal good.

Sam Miller, Tim Balko, Chad Harms, John Michel, Karen Slaggert, and ­Michael Whitt are all foresight faculty in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, bizcourse.nd.edu/foresight/.

Artifacts from the Future: Student Collaboration at the University of Notre Dame

By Sam Miller and Michael Elwell The Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business’s Design Futures program is an attempt to rethink traditional approaches in business school education and make foresight-based learning more accessible.

The goal is to bring together students from multiple disciplines to imagine and visualize the future in the form of “Artifacts from the Future.”

This collaboration blends the efforts of business students (as part of their required Foresight in Business and Society course) and industrial design

Futures Education Special Report students (as part of their Digital Solid Modeling course) to define future societal needs and to design the technologies that might address them.

The collaboration occurs at the midway point of the business student teams’ futures research projects, after they have conducted background research and completed some forecasting and scenario development. As the design students are introduced into the process, the combined interdisciplinary group explores implications of change, seeking to gain empathy with the “future user” and to spot and interpret the needs that will emerge five to 10 years from now.

The teams then brainstorm on potential opportunities for business, and then they present them in 2-D and 3-D renderings. The artifacts are then synthesized into the final foresight reports that the business students submit.

Here are some examples of student artifacts:

Foresight in Middle School: Teaching the Future For the Future

By Katie King

The Future of Energy: Pollutionsensing drones monitor environmental quality around powergeneration plants to ensure energy producers’ compliance with zero-emission energy regulations.

Students report that the cross-­ disciplinary approach helps to expand their thinking.

“Sometimes it can be difficult to think outside of our business training,” says undergraduate business student Mike Darche, “but the Artifacts from the Future collaboration helped us improve our ideas by providing access to very diverse perspectives. Working alongside a cross-disciplinary group helped us arrive at new, creative solutions that we may never have discovered without these different perspectives.”

The Business/Industrial Design collaboration is an example of Notre Dame’s efforts to stretch the learning experience to fully immerse students i n t h e f o re s i g h t — a n d d e s i g n futures—mind-set.

Sam Miller is the director of the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame and a concurrent instructor for courses in strategic foresight, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

The Future of Telemedicine: In a world of scarce health-care availability, remote devices perform blood tests and scan for health abnormalities, then transmit results to artificial-intelligence-based processing centers.

Michael Elwell is a visiting assistant professor of industrial design at University of Notre Dame.

www.wfs.org

•

People like to tell me what my job is. I teach middle-school English, so policy makers, education bloggers, colleagues, administration, parents, and students will all offer their two cents. I welcome it—teaching requires an endless stream of new ideas and a healthy dose of humility.

The information overload can become overwhelming, though, and I often have to stop looking outward and reflect on what I believe my students need.

What I believe is that my students’ inventions, hobbies, careers, and ultimately their lives lie at the nexus of creativity and critical thinking, and that I must foster both. So, I will teach my eighth graders to think about the future.

I don’t anticipate that my students will become professional futurists, but I will embark on this experiment, because I have taught for four years and studied foresight in the University of Houston master’s program. I can think of no discipline that requires such a mix of imagination and observation, as media futurist Art Kleiner has described it.

Futurists must stay rooted in observable possibilities but also reach beyond the expected and into the imaginative unknown, which is exactly what I hope my students can do once we’re done.

By the time you read this, “The Future World” unit will have come and gone, but for now, I can only share my hopes for this eight-week project-based learning plan.

Students gaze at an image of a future world and craft a short narrative that shows what that world might be like. They share, and we discuss why people like to think about the future (The Hunger Games and Divergent are only the tip of the young-adult, dystopian-fiction iceberg). We learn terms like expected future, alternative, signal, implications, imagination, and observation.

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

41

And we read. Groups of students choose their own futuristic novel— Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot, for example—and read it side-by-side with news articles like one from Hemispheres magazine about Google’s recent acquisition of several robotics companies. What themes do we notice in Asimov’s story? What ethical dilemmas do the characters face? And which dilemmas do we face as technology advances? What possibilities might come to pass in the future?

We discuss, question, and write.

We write what we observe and what we imagine. We create our own fictional future worlds based on what we’ve learned and design objects that might exist in that world. We keep discussing and writing and thinking, all the while meeting new Common Core State Standards by reading and comparing rigorous fiction and nonfiction and using evidence to support ideas.

In my classroom, teaching the future will prepare students for the future—not because they will predict what will happen, but because they will awaken their imaginations and observations and open themselves up to new possibilities. As it turns out, that’s what I think my job is.

Katie King is a seventh- and eighth-grade ­English/language arts instructor in Northern California and a student in the University of Houston Master of Science in Foresight program. She has a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from the University of Southern California and is a native of Houston, Texas.

42

THE FUTURIST

COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON

The Houston Experience Transforming a Graduate Futures Program, University of Houston

By Oliver Markley In 1978, I left my position as a senior futurist at SRI International to join the faculty of the first formal degree-granting academic futures program in the world—the new Master of Science program in Studies of the Future at the University of Houston– Clear Lake. Soon thereafter, when I was asked to chair the program, it became clear that, although the program’s liberal arts orientation during its first years was academically interesting, it didn’t do much to help the students get jobs as professional ­futurists.

To demonstrate what I hoped I knew—but had never actually practiced—about the process of participatory, futures-oriented organization development (applied strategic planning), I enlisted the help of graduate students in a semester-long course to

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

redesign the program, along with the oversight of an ad hoc committee made up of the dean, prior program chair and senior faculty, former students (both graduates and dropouts), and community representatives.

Our interviews with former students made it clear that the mission of the program needed to be radically transformed into one that prepares students for practical employment as futurists in all sectors of society—business, government, and voluntary associations at the international and domestic levels. Thus, we surveyed the core curricular content of related programs on things like operations research, organization development, economic forecasting, and cybernetic systems. In consultation with the faculty, we made 33 formal recommendations, all but one of which were accepted and implemented. After these changes were made, the enrollment jumped from 15 to 45, although this number declined when the oil glut and related economic problems hit Houston in the mid-1980s.

Thereafter, I was glad step aside

Futures Education Special Report from administrative duties for the program. I handed the reins to Peter Bishop, who was eager to move from being a professor of sociology and statistics to the much more interesting field of futures studies. Bishop founded an Institute for Futures Research at UHCL, and later helped found the Association of Professional Futurists. Subsequently, after I retired, Bishop moved the program to the main campus of the University of Houston. With former UHCL futures student Andy Hines now leading since Bishop’s retirement, the program has appropriately recast its name as “Foresight,” rather than “Studies of the Future.”

The program has produced 350 graduates over the years, and perhaps ten times that number have taken a course or courses in the program. We have graduates working in Fortune 500 companies such as ­D isney, in influential international organizations such as the World Economic Forum, in foresight consultancies, and in inspiring entrepreneurial activities. In addition, a week-long Certificate program (affectionately known as “Foresight Boot Camp”) was launched in 2010 that has attracted more than 300 participants.

As Andy Hines says, “Our program’s goal has always been to spread high-quality foresight practice—we look forward to deepening this vital service.”

Oliver Markley is a professor emeritus and formerly chair of the graduate program in Studies of the Future at the University of Houston–Clear Lake (UHCL). He is a visiting fellow at the Center of Excellence for National Security, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His Web site is www.olivermarkley.com.

A Training Ground for Professional Futurists

By Andy Hines Readers of this magazine likely agree that the world needs more foresight and futurists. We agree on

the ends but not necessarily on the means. One area where we might start to diverge is whether we need professional futurists. After all, one could argue that foresight should be a part of all disciplines, and that everyone should be a futurist. Noble goals indeed, but how do we get there? How can the spread of highquality, rigorous, and useful foresight be catalyzed? This is where the plot thickens.

The University of Houston Foresight Program long ago adopted the mission of preparing professional ­f uturists. We remain committed to providing high-quality foresight training to help individuals and organizations in business, government, education, and nonprofits. I recently assumed leadership of the program after more than two decades of practicing in the field as a professional futurist, following my graduation from the program in 1990. I have worked alongside many fellow alumni, as well as countless other professionals who did not receive formal training. In my experience, a lack of formal training by no means precludes one from doing excellent foresight work.

Our mission of increasing the number of trained professionals is intended as “additive” rather than exclusionary. Put plainly, our goal is to increase the supply of professional futurists, and we believe formal training helps to do that. Period.

I proposed the formation of—and am currently working with—a task force exploring the role of “professionalization” for the Association of Professional Futurists. My personal motivation is to look for ways to spread the use of high-quality foresight. The task force is exploring whether professionalization can help with that. My view is that it can, but only if the goal is to expand our reach—to craft an ecosystem with allies—rather than build walls that ­exclude.

The Houston program has designed a curriculum that incorporates a blend of the essential theory, a framework and methods for doing the work, and a relentless focus on application for clients in business, government, nonprofits, and society in general. The work of defining our www.wfs.org

•

COURTESY OF ANDY HINES

An alumnus of the University of Houston’s master’s program in futures studies, Andy Hines is now the program coordinator, focusing the Houston Foresight Program on professional training.

“core competencies” is just beginning, but it may be less difficult than we think. Part of that work is defining what is meant by “professional futurist”—for present purposes, at Houston, we include consulting futurists and organizational futurists, as well as the “futurizers,” whose mixed responsibilities include trying to spread foresight within their organizations.

We believe that trained professional futurists can help catalyze the spread of high-quality foresight. We believe that the work we are doing at the Houston Foresight Program is important. The world needs more foresight, and it’s our job to help provide that.

Andy Hines is the program coordinator of the University of Houston Foresight Program, www.uh.edu/technology/programs/ graduate/foresight/. Among his books are two collaborations with Peter Bishop: Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (Social Technologies, 2007) and Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

43

Houston 2040: The Student Experience

By Darci Papell During the first semester of my senior year of high school at the ­Emery/Weiner School, I chose to take a new history elective called Houston 2040, offered for the first time at my school this year. One of the first futures studies high-school courses in the United States, this class was taught

by Peter Bishop, the newly retired director of the Future Studies program at the University of Houston.

The course began with an in-depth introductory unit on futures studies, during which Bishop taught us the basics of futurism and laid out the plan for the semester. After gaining an extensive understanding of futures studies, we learned about Houston’s history and major industries. Throughout this process, several prominent figures in both futures studies and Houston’s industries came to the school to speak to us and provide firsthand insight on the material we learned in class.

Each student selected a domain and researched past trends and current conditions in order to forecast Houston’s future. Our nightly homework was tailored to our individual domains and was designed to help us think both analytically and creatively. In-class quizzes covered broad ideas about futures studies and information about the city of Houston.

At the end of the semester, we presented our research and predictions to the Center for Houston’s Future in the form of student-generated PowerPoint presentations, videos, and newspaper articles. This presentation provided us with firsthand experience presenting material to large groups and helped us develop our public-speaking skills. As a class, we were able to combine our individual research and predictions to piece together our large-scale forecast for Houston’s future.

I chose to study health care in Houston, the health-care system and the legislation that shapes it, and access to health care. My findings indi44

THE FUTURIST

cated that, in the year 2040, many of today’s “death-sentence” diseases will be curable and preventable as a result of increased technological advances, and that almost all Houstonians will have access to health care as a result of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and expanded Medicaid coverage.

I presented my findings in the form of a self-directed documentary, exploring the lives of future Houstonians, the problems they face, and the widening socioeconomic disparity. Over the course of the semester, my interest in health-care policy surged. Although I plan to explore multiple interests as I begin college, the knowledge I have gained in Houston 2040 has greatly stimulated my intellectual curiosity, and I hope to continue learning about healthcare policy next year.

The most significant concept that I learned from Houston 2040 is that understanding how to predict the future and how our predictions should shape our current actions is extremely beneficial for virtually every profession. Because of this, futurism should be incorporated into every field of study. By examining past events and trends, we can create fairly accurate estimates for the standards and conditions of the future of our industries and societies. If we allow these estimates to impact the decisions we make and the paths we follow, we can not only further utilize the resources of our future cities, but also prepare for inevitable, un­ expected obstacles.

Darci Papell is a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley.

Inside the Houston Futures Strategic Foresight Program

By Richard Yonck I’ve been immersed in the futures field for several years and utilize many foresight tools, but I wanted to

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

develop and apply a more rigorous framework to my process. So I recently enrolled in the Certificate in Strategic Foresight program at the University of Houston.

This seminar is an intense, weeklong, highly abbreviated version of Houston’s world-class master’s degree program in futures studies, which is nearing its 40th year. While this certificate program began considerably more recently, it draws from the same theory and experience as the two-year program.

I arrived in Houston on a sunny, but unseasonably chilly Sunday afternoon last January. I had just enough time to check into my room at the Hilton located on the central campus before joining Peter Bishop and a handful of enrollees for an informal pre-course get-together. It was a pleasant way to ease into what would soon be an intense week of study.

Monday’s first class began at 8:00 a.m., and from the outset, it was evident this course was going to be different from others I’ve taken in the past. The morning opened with Bishop giving an energizing lecture about what strategic foresight is and isn’t and the roles that data and assumptions play in it.

Then came the obligatory self-­ introductions of the students. But rather than resort to the standard “Hi, I’m John Smith and I work for MegaCorp,” Bishop presented us with a series of questions that allowed us to explore the different ways we ranked among our classmates—alphabetically, chronologically, and geographically. As he pointed out, this utilized a set of data and assumptions on our part, while challenging what could be done with them, all while getting to know our fellow students. I thought it was a very inspired approach.

My 30 classmates covered a broad range of ages, disciplines, and occupations. There were analysts and marketers who already routinely used some foresight tools in their work, and there were professionals for whom this was all new territory.

A team of NATO advisors were very much at home with many of the concepts, as were three officers from the recently formed Marine Corps

Futures Education Special Report COURTESY OF RICHARD YONCK

Peter Bishop leads a session during the Certificate in Strategic Foresight program at the University of Houston.

Futures Assessment Division.

Regardless of whether someone was from a think tank, the energy sector, or an international media powerhouse, everyone was engaged and brought a unique perspective to the table. This diversity was acknowledged repeatedly during the week. Again and again, I heard people comment about how beneficial it was to be exposed to so many different viewpoints, to see the future from so many perspectives.

Outside of the actual tools and models, this may be the big take away from the course. Futures work is at its heart a systems approach to viewing the world. What better way to do this than as a group of individuals from multiple disciplines applying a set of well-defined foresight tools?

On the second day, Andy Hines took the reins, guiding us step-bystep through the foresight process.

We were soon split into groups, which we stayed in for two and a half days as we explored a range of possible futures for a particular domain. I found myself with the NATO advisory team, a midcareer media maven, and the head of the Chattanooga library system, who would be named Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year later that week. It was a smart group of people with a range

of perspectives for every task. In so many ways, it was exactly what you want to bring to the systems-thinking table.

Our team’s focus was 3-D printing, an area that I’ve written about in the past and that I may explore in completing my certificate project. We decided our client was the National Association of Manufacturers and quickly began to investigate the impact that 3-D printing could have on its member industries.

Proceeding through a series of exercises, we established and presented a scenario of a baseline future. As Hines noted, this scenario is usually “the boring one”—business as usual. It’s what happens if none of the current trends change.

But while this baseline is more likely than any other future, as he explained, it isn’t more likely than every other future combined. So we began to explore alternate futures.

This is essential. The future can’t be known, but a range of well-­ considered futures can allow us to anticipate and be prepared for many of the events to come. Even if nothing similar to our scenarios occurs, at least we’ve explored significant change and so are ready to respond when our world requires it.

To be sure, there are parts of the www.wfs.org

•

foresight process that could be said to be as much art as science. While trend analysis and projection are very data driven, a tool such as Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is considerably more open to interpretation. In exploring models of social change, Bishop, who has a master’s and doctorate in sociology, has identified and categorized more than a dozen different types. As we soon found during an exercise, the way we interpret the underlying causes of change is heavily influenced by which model we choose to apply. In many cases, more than one model is valid and should be explored, while it’s unlikely that all of them could ever be applied to a single situation.

Similarly, the identification of weak and early signals of change during the scanning process is inherently subjective in nature. Combined with the amount of time that scanning itself requires and the difficulty of identifying the signal amidst the noise, this tool can be a difficult for most organizations to implement well.

Of course, all of this information and insight is of little use if you’re not going to act on it. Identifying what an organization needs to prepare for and how this knowledge should influence its long-term strategies is important, but no more so than building ways to effect that change.

As a result, an entire segment of the course focuses on leadership and change management—tools to actually help shape the future. This segment focused on different approaches to developing a vision that’s inspirational, which is essential to transformational change; systematic planning that bridges the gap from vision to action; and methods and strategies to implement those plans.

Quite simply, the future doesn’t just spring from the imagination.

One way or another, we make it happen. How the future manifests, the degree to which it affects us, is not entirely out of our hands. Forecasting and anticipating the future gives us power over it, at least to some ­degree.

The week’s lessons extended well beyond the formal course itself.

There was extra reading, conversa-

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

45

RICHARD YONCK

Real-World Futures Learning Teaching Futures Studies to Ministers

By Cassidy Dale

Author Richard Yonck, a participant in the University of Houston’s Certificate in Strategic Foresight program, takes the opportunity to visit the Johnson Space Center.

tions over lunch and dinner, shared epiphanies. During one free period, I had the opportunity to sit in on ­B ishop’s session with the NATO group and the Marines as they explored the application of the tools we’d been discussing to real-world problems. While outside my purview, it was exciting to follow the logic and challenges this pre sented—the more so because it extended beyond the official curriculum. I can only assume that all of these experiences are even more pronounced within the two-year master’s program.

If there was one central premise that ran throughout this course, it was that there is no one tomorrow; there are only sets of probable, plausible, and preferable futures. The essence of futures work is to identify what those tomorrows might look like before they coalesce and converge into one single present. This is the art and science of the foresight specialist: to discover the message among the weak signals; to anticipate the world that is yet to exist; to explore many futures, so that we may live in a better present today.

Richard Yonck is a foresight analyst for ­Intelligent Future Consulting in Seattle ­(intelligent-future.com) and is the Computing/AI contributing editor of THE FUTURIST.

46

THE FUTURIST

Teaching futures studies to ministers is a matter first of theology, then of skills. We all possess a lens or ideology through which we look at the future. If you are unaware of that lens, your forecasts wind up simply as projections of your own views and limitations. For ministers, that lens is often theological as well as secular.

A simple example: Crusaders—religious, secular, or political—often make bad futurists. They believe that, if their perspective doesn’t “win” in the future, the whole world will “lose.” Their lens influences them to judge trends and world developments according to benefit or hazard to their cause rather than for their forecasting value or impact.

My students are usually progressive in orientation toward the future (though politically they span the spectrum) because they see a pattern of progression in the overall biblical narrative. The great stories of the ­Bible are of people leaving an inadequate present, venturing across the unknown, and arriving at (or creating) a new future: Adam and Eve left the Garden. Cain went east of Eden. Noah created a new beginning. Abraham created a people. Moses led a people out of a bad present, and Joshua took them to a new future. The prophets left spiritual corruption, went out into spiritual badlands, and returned with visions of the future. Jesus saw and revealed the Kingdom of God (how to live within the divine way). The Apostle Paul left zealotry and launched the enterprise of the benevolent church.

So training ministers to think like futurists is easy—their theological orientation gets them halfway there already.

In class, we never debate faith versus science, whether religion is ending, or whether fundamentalisms are the future of any religion—those debates are passé. Ministers know that religion is more like art and poetry

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

than science—something doesn’t have to be literally true for it to be spiritually true. Ministers know that the world isn’t “outgrowing religion”—no major religion is fading away any time soon, and the world will continue to seek deeper spiritual truths. Ministers know that fundamentalisms aren’t the core of any religion, and they aren’t the future. Fundamentalist movements flourish when a society is made fearful, and dissipate like vapor when a society finds its courage again.

Sure, in class we discern, discuss, and track trends of all sorts. Sure, we do futures wheels and nonlinear extrapolation. Sure, we do scenario projects. It’s what we address that matters.

Futures work for ministers is about discerning and heading off need and anguish, and pursuing benevolence.

It’s about altruism, not conversion.

So what have I learned? Every religion, every industry, every workplace, every client group, every government has its own theology, its own ideology, its own dreams and aspirations, its own heresies, its own stories about itself, and its own fears.

Learning what those are is the first step of training people to think about the future in the sanctuary, the classroom, and the boardroom.

Cassidy S. Dale has served as an instructor of futures studies in the Doctor of Ministry program at Drew University in Drew Theological School since 1997. He received a master of science degree in Studies of the Future from University of Houston–Clear Lake in 1996. He serves as an advisor to the U.S. government on futures and religious conflict. His e-mail address is cassidy.dale@gmail.com.

Applying Futures Studies: Leisure and Tourism

By Albert Postma Twenty-five years ago, Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands,

Futures Education Special Report PHOTOS COURTESY OF EUROPEAN TOURISM FUTURES INSTITUTE

Faculty at European Tourism Futures Institute conduct seminars for real-world tourism industry clients.

started its undergraduate Leisure Management program. Since its inception, the program has always had a strong focus on research, and its research center for leisure and tourism gave third-year students the opportunity to participate in projects for businesses and organizations in those industries.

In the many projects that the research institute conducted, however, it was often faced with a lack of quality data. Data about supply and demand of tourism in the Netherlands was scattered, incomplete, and difficult to compare. As a consequence, the research center, stimulated by the leisure and tourism business, established a monitoring system under the name Toerdata Noord in 1996.

The aim was to collect data about capacity, occupancy rates, and employment of the nearly 2,500 businesses in the accommodation sector (including hotels, pensions, camping sites, ports for tourist boats, etc.), as well as data about the socio-demographic profile, motivation, and activities of tourists in the northern provinces of Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe. The process aligned the operational definitions of accommodation types and sizes that the three provinces used.

The foundation of Toerdata meant a big step in the supply of consistent data about tourism in the north of

ETFI program manager Jeroen Oskam gives a presentation in Berlin on the Wadden Sea Coast project.

the Netherlands, and after 18 years the system is still in place under the name Tourism Monitor.

The tourism business in the region gradually expressed a new need. While the data provided by Toerdata enabled researchers to monitor past developments, the tourism industry was increasingly facing a vastly changing and uncertain busi- Author Albert Postma participates with other researchers of ness environment the Centre of Expertise Leisure, Tourism and Hospitality and so needed more (www.celth.nl). support with policy and planning. Trade organizations, local and regional governments, and the research center that Stenden UniStenden University decided to de- versity started back in the late 1980s.

We developed a four-year learning velop an institute that would specialize in futures studies and scenario line in the BBA Leisure Management planning specifically for the leisure and the BBA Tourism Management and tourism business in the Nether- programs. The learning lines in both programs aim to teach the students a lands and Europe.

The European Tourism Futures In- contemporary approach to strategic stitute was thus established in 2009. management; to instruct them about As a professor of applied sciences in trend analysis, futures studies, and scenario planning, I was appointed scenario planning; and, indirectly, to to develop a link between education encourage them to develop a pro­ and the business and to ensure active attitude toward the future, knowledge development, dissemina- stimulating creativity and innovativetion, and application. The Institute ness.

At Stenden University, and so in can be regarded as the maturation of www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

47

both BBA programs, problem-based learning is adopted as the educational philosophy. This means that tutors facilitate students working on real-life cases and projects, which increase in complexity from the first till the fourth year.

In the first year, when students are new to the field of leisure and tourism, they are challenged to investigate and analyze trends in leisure and tourism and to organize them into trend pyramids, describing megatrends at the base (long term), mesotrends in the middle (midterm), and microtrends (short term) at the top.

In the second year, students learn to make scenarios. In the third year, students are trained how to use scenarios to develop innovative strategic courses of action. In the same year, students participate in projects from the market coordinated by the European Tourism Futures Institute. In their fourth and final year, students are offered the possibility for an internship at the Institute and/or to write a thesis. Once students are graduated, some are offered jobs as junior researchers/scenario planners.

Bottom line: It is important that the new generation of managers and policy makers is trained to approach the future in less traditional ways, as the society asks for it. Since the 1980s, the approach to knowledge production has been changing from top-down to more bottom-up approaches, with direct involvement of business practice. This is reflected in new views about research methodology, learning, and the learning organization.

One way to adequately prepare students for their future jobs is through problem-based learning.

Providing the students learning experiences with regard to trend analysis, futures studies, and scenario planning according to the methodology of foresight is another way to develop competencies that are required by today’s business. Problembased learning and foresight go well together, as they are both based on the contemporary view of knowledge production.

In this view, it is the people themselves (students, stakeholders of the business, etc.) who interpret and 48

THE FUTURIST

give meaning to the world they live and work in, not external experts (teachers/professors, academics/ consultants, etc.). In group sessions moderated by a tutor or scenario planner, they share and discuss ideas, learn from each other, and cocreate their joint understanding and learning or business strategies.

Albert Postma is a professor of scenario ­planning at Stenden University o.A.S. (www.stenden.com) and the European Tourism Futures Institute (www.etfi.eu).

Security Futures Research at Freie Universität Berlin

By Lars Gerhold and Monika Muszynska The master ’s program in futures studies at the Freie Universität (Free University) Berlin was established in 2010. So far, approximately 100 students have entered the program on futures research.

The master’s program is open for graduates from nearly every discipline. In the first semester, the program covers the basics in futures research, such as theory, methodology, and innovation research. The second semester offers a specialization in society, politics, economy, or technology. The third semester focuses on practical training at an organization, company, or research institute. The last semester focuses on the master’s thesis.

The university’s Research Forum on Public Safety and Security has been involved in teaching at the program from the very beginning. Lessons on the future of security are offered, as well as lessons on Delphi techniques and relevant practical content such as third-party funding in futures research.

Additionally, practical training at the Research Forum allows students to learn what futures research in the field of security means. They are involved in empirical studies and given the opportunity to realize their own studies, and their master’s the-

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

sis is involved in one of the thirdparty-funded research projects at the institute.

• Teacher ’s perspective (Gerhold): On one hand, the variety of the students’ experiences is fruitful for discussing topics from different perspectives. On the other hand, the students have very different levels in thinking about the future. So it takes some time to define the bottom line of what we are discussing when we speak about “the future.”

There is a lack of knowledge and literature about standardization and quality criteria in futures research.

Presentations and papers by students often show very low impact on these aspects. But especially for futures research, it is important to explain to the audience of one’s research how the findings are developed, which methods are used, and on what statistical and theoretical basis the study is made.

If you are teaching a master ’s course, it is a very successful model to integrate your students in your daily work as trainees. Supervising a master ’s thesis that is based on a half-year practical training in a research project is a win–win for both sides. The engagement of both sides is more intensive because you have more time to go into details of specific research questions.

Futures research needs to be involved in thematic frameworks (like “security” in this instance). Only by reflecting on the future in the context of specific theories and data can we develop futures in an appropriate way.

• Learner’s perspective (Muszynska): Futures studies is an entrance for “thinking about the future” and doing “out-of-the-box-thinking,” but you actually collect the most knowledge in practice.

As a student, you are pressured from the beginning to choose one side, academic or commercial: You aim either to become a scientist and do “serious” futures research, or to do quick-and-dirty foresight in a company. Which side you choose decides in the end who will become the beneficiary of your futures work. It is great to have teachers from both sides (academia and industry), but sometimes teachers from companies

Futures Education Special Report tend to advertise rather than restrict themselves to their foresight working experience.

Futures studies is not about foretelling the future, but a way we can shape various outlooks through exploring possible, probable, and preferable futures. To do all of this, you need a basic knowledge about the methods.

In the master’s program, I had the opportunity to use the knowledge that I had gained during my bachelor’s work and give it a new touch— thinking about the future through the eyes of a social scientist. Besides the studying, we have the opportunity to work, collect great experiences, and get some goal orientation—shaping our future!

Lars Gerhold is head of the Research Forum of Public Safety and Security at the Freie Universität Berlin. He has been a part of developing the process of the master’s program and teaches several courses. He is a member of the board of the Netzwerk Zukunftsforschung (Network Futures Research) and the German Node of The Millennium Project.

Monika Muszynska is a student of the master’s program in futures studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. She is also working at the Research Forum of Public Safety and Security and is as an active member in the Netzwerk Zukunftsforschung (Network Futures Research).

Practice-Oriented Foresight in a Research and Technology Organization

By VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland

Rather, the goal was to create an understanding of futures thinking both through the use of methods and explicitly as part of lectures and their reflection.

The training was organized in six sessions: introduction, futures knowledge and Delphi, designing foresight processes, evidence-based foresight and quantitative methods, roadmaps, and scenarios. Each of the sessions lasted a half a day and included a short lecture with case examples, group work, and final reflection and discussion on what was learned and how to apply it.

The lecture was aimed to give the basics of the topic, so that the participants would be prepared to do the group work. The lecturers were from the organization and had deep

The need to systematically anticipate the developments in the operational environment of an organization or a domain of research is as topical as ever. To increase the futures-orientation at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, we launched a foresight training program in the spring of 2013 as part of a larger initiative to integrate and improve the foresight competencies.

The goal was to bring foresight methodology and thinking to the researchLayers of foresight activities in VTT ers, so that they could apply them in Layer 2: their work. ThereForesight in action widely in VTT. fore, the focus was Target group: All researchers in from the start very an organization application-oriented, and a lot of emphasis was put on applying Layer 1: the methods to realForesight network and life cases. foresight agents However, this does not mean that the training focused Core: solely on the many Enlarged foresight team methods of foresight.

VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND

Group work in the Foresight Garage at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

49

knowledge and experience on the subject. They could thus present the topic and key messages in a way that the participants could relate to and directly apply in their own work.

The group work was always based on real projects, giving the participants an example of how to apply foresight in their research work. In the final discussion, participants had the opportunity to reflect on what they learned, what was interesting and new, and how they would use this new knowledge in their work.

The training sessions were supplemented by project-specific workshops aimed at solving a foresight-related problem that a project within the organization might have and then generalizing that to the organizational level by considering how the solution might be used in other projects.

These half-day workshops, named “Foresight Garages,” were found to be useful also for customer works, as they offer a focused, swift, and inexpensive introduction to the benefits of foresight.

The feedback from the training was largely positive. The main suggestion for improvement was to have more of this sort of training organized, and with more time for reflection. The close connection to the participants’ everyday research work was considered extremely beneficial, and something that set our foresight training apart from that typically offered by other organizations.

The training and the Foresight Garages, as well as some other activities—such as a foresight seminar— helped to develop a foresight community within the organization.

This community was strengthened by the creation of a “foresight agent” network—a diverse group of experts who were interested in applying foresight and acting as a bridge between the different parts of the ­organization.

This network was essential in enhancing the foresight culture in the organization, because, in our view, the source of futures knowledge is not solely the “futurists” or foresight experts, but also the interaction between these experts and other domain area experts. Therefore, educating the domain area experts in the basics of foresight supports their col50

THE FUTURIST

laboration with the foresight experts and thus increases the future-oriented mind-set of the organization.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland’s Foresight, Organisational Dynamics and Systemic Change team focuses on foresight and management of societal and organizational phenomena related to technology development and business utilization. Web site www.vtt.fi. Corresponding author Mikko Dufva, research scientist.

Innovating for the Future: A Workshop for Future Scientists

By Roey Tzezana A recent activity organized by Tel Aviv University gave a highly esteemed group of high-school students the opportunity to spend a day thinking and innovating for the future. The group, called Scientists and Inventors of the Future, was formed in advance and had been endorsed by the president of Israel.

Students were selected based on excellence in their studies and high motivation in general, and were encouraged to take university courses as part of their studies.

Under the guidance and hosting of the Noar Shocher Mada (Science Loving Youth) department in Tel Aviv University, we arranged for these students a day of thinking and innovating for the future. Following a keynote lecture about disruptive innovation and the challenges of the present, the students were divided into groups and were tasked with the difficult challenge of proposing and developing ideas that can answer to one of the challenges presented in the lecture.

Instructors were tasked with providing consultation to each of the groups and offering help where needed. Various methods were used in the groups to promote lively discussion, such as structured circles of thinking, where each student had to add his or her variation to the last

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

idea, or free-for-all discussions.

The ideas suggested by the students were far-reaching and imaginative, such as: • 7 Billion Advisors: Development of an AI system that can understand users by monitoring their dayto-day lives. The system will provide decision-making capabilities for the minor decisions of life: where to eat next, which movie to see, etc.

• Building Upwards: Developing ideas for building upwards, and encouraging the public to support such ventures.

• Boxociety: Creating a novel social trend that will encourage people to place their smartphones in a reception-proof box titled Boxociety when they meet together, to help them focus better on each other in real time instead of playing with their phones.

The excitement of the students was palpable throughout the entire day. They exchanged ideas, discussed them loudly with their teammates and instructors, and debated how best to present their ideas in hastily made PowerPoint presentations, sculptures, and drawings. We kept the innovation “heat” high by constantly stimulating them with live hands-on demonstrations of novel technologies such as Google Glass, 3-D printers, and Oculus Rift simulators. In short, this was a day of discovery for students, as much as a day of innovation.

At the end of the day, the groups delivered their ideas in the form of a presentation to each other, and five ideas were selected (by the students themselves) to be presented in front of a panel of judges from the academy and business sector in Israel. The winning team suggested engineering bacteria and algae to filter contaminants out of polluted water, making it drinkable. The rest of the ideas will be compiled soon in a paper.

This activity, which encourages young students to think about the future, discuss the future, and innovate for the future, has been highly successful. Both the students and their teachers left the premise feeling that they experienced and took part in some aspects of the innovation process. They opened their minds to the possibilities that the future holds

Futures Education Special Report for them, and seized them wholeheartedly. And at least one group is looking into actually commercializing and bringing their idea to life.

We urge our fellow futurists to initiate and support similar activities around the globe.

Roey Tzezana is a futures researcher at Yuval Ne’eman Workshop for Science, Technology and Security at Tel Aviv University, sectech.tau.ac.il/en.

Lessons of a Lifelong Futurist

By Peter F. Eder For me, learning the future has been a lifelong journey, following a six-step process.

1. Living in a vibrant, multicultural community. Growing up, living, and

learning and working on Manhattan Island, I was exposed to and inculcated with innumerable multicultural forces—immigrants fleeing persecution, Park Avenue dwellers, Washington Heights tenement residents, my fellow Harlem high schoolers, grandparents sharing apartments with their children, and newly minted couples.

Each had a different background, way of life, and vision.

2. Experiencing a diverse employment history. My employment in 11

companies over 51 years exposed me to advertising, marketing, public re-

lations, and publishing for goods and services as diverse as Singer sewing machines, roofing and siding products, telephone stores, and global satellite communications systems. This work took me from fabrics and sewing notions that could be found in five-and-dime stores to multimillion-dollar digital switching systems; from a print magazine covering do-it-yourself fashion to a publication targeted to 2,500 global chief marketing officers. Each of these experiences required a unique vision, approach, execution, and research, with time frames ranging from next week’s sale to what might be needed in 20 years.

3. Extending a liberal arts education. Three liberal arts degrees as a re-

sult of evening education stretched over four decades (1956–1984) gave me a rich repository of broad theories, practical examinations, and innovative analysis in an array of disciplines. A grounding in industrial sociology—from the study of the collective behavior of Trobriand Islanders to the beginning of the social media aspects of Internet usage—led me to explore many aspects of diverse wants and needs, viewed in past, present, and future time frames.

4. Traveling globally, developing multilingual capability. Travel for

business and leisure to 16 European countries, Canada, and China, and visits to all but five states of the United States, provided a candid and insightful view of citizens’ lifestyles and aspirations. It also helped

to have a working knowledge of English, German, Spanish, Mandarin, and Latin.

5. Interacting with futurists. Involvement with the World Future S o c i e t y, i t s c o n f e re n c e s , T H E FUTURIST magazine, and World Future Review for more than 40 years has provided me a living laboratory and observatory on futurism, its thinkers, tools, and interactions. My first article for THE FUTURIST, “Telecommuters: The Stay-at-Home Work Force of the Future,” was published in the June 1983 issue, at a time when that meant telephone connections and the just-emerging world of ­Telenet. And at the Fourth General Assembly in July 1982, my first presentation on “Meta-Information: Through the Information Maze” came at a time when clouds were just weather condition elements.

6. Fueling a curious mind. The final step was perhaps created and certainly fueled by the five preceding ones: It is to maintain a mind that likes to roam, think outside the box, and explore new subjects. I recall the famous ad man Bill Bernbach’s observation about successful creativity: “It is with the ad man as with the cow: No grazing, no milk.”

So, also, with this futurist.

Peter F. Eder, a decades-long member of the World Future Society, is the contributing marketing and communications editor to THE FUTURIST magazine and an abstractor for the World Future Review.

Foresight Program Directory Here is a partial list of active undergraduate and graduate futures studies programs. Information used in this list is provided courtesy of Global Foresight, www.globalforesight.org.

• University of Advancing Technology, Tempe, Arizona, www.uat.edu Offers an undergraduate Foresight Development course.

• Anne Arundel Community College, Arnold, Maryland, www.aacc.edu/future Offers undergraduate futures studies courses in its Institute for the Future.

• University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, www.uat.edu Offers an undergraduate Anticipating the Future course.

• California State University–Dominguez Hills, Carson, California, www.csudh.edu Offers undergraduate futures studies courses in its Global Options program.

• Freie Universität Berlin, Future Institute Berlin, Germany, www.fu-berlin.de/en Interdisciplinary, practice-oriented program. Students can do futures research in (for example) child and adult education, political participation, technology assessment, www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

51

climate, and sustainability. The Future Institute is an educational workspace for interdisciplinary futures research, innovation, and knowledge transfer.

• Fullerton College, Fullerton, California, www.fullcoll.edu Offers undergraduate futures studies courses in its Center for the Future.

• University of Hawaii at Manoa, Manoa, Hawaii, www.futures.hawaii.edu MA, PhD in Alternative Futures (Political Science).

Long-lived, well-regarded program (since 1976). Strong in visioning, scenarios, and alternative futures development. MA students often go on to the PhD. • University of Houston, Houston, Texas, www.uh .edu, www.houstonfutures.org MT in Studies of the Future (Technology). Long-lived, well-regarded program (since 1975). Trains professional futurists for the marketplace. Strong in sociology, methods; largest practitioner alumni network.

• Notre Dame University, Mendoza College of Business, Notre Dame, Indiana, business.nd.edu Undergraduate course taught in Foresight in Business and Society.

• OCAD University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, www.ocadu.ca MDes in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Students apply anticipatory design concepts to projects in the arts, media, and user experience, and to some extent to technology, business, and the social sciences.

• Oxford University, Saïd Business School, Oxford, UK, www.sbs.oxford.edu/scenarios Designed for executives and teams from all fields— business, government, academia, NGOs—the Scenarios Program offers intensive, one-week training in strategic scenario planning.

• Queensland University of Technology, Institute for Future Environments, Brisbane, Australia, www.qut .edu.au/institute-for-future-environments Housed within the University’s Science and Engineering Centre, the Institute unites “researchers and students from across science, engineering, law, business, education and the creative industries” to “collaborate on largescale research and development projects” geared toward building a sustainable future.

• Regent University, Virginia Beach, Virginia, www.regent.edu MA in Strategic Foresight (Business Administration).

New program for mid-career leaders, consultants, and strategic managers. Christian university, but mostly ecumenical learning context.

• University of Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch, South Africa, www.sun.ac.za/home.aspx MPhil and PhD in Futures Studies (Economics/Management). Futures perspective on organizational strategy, long-term planning, development philosophy, global change, forces, and trends. African context. Includes an online program, with six in-person events.

• Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorne, Australia, www.swinburne.edu.au/index.php MS and PhD in Strategic Foresight. Strong applied program in foresight development, stressing implemen52

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

tation over theory. PhD students can specialize in Strategy and Foresight.

• Tamkang University, Taipei, Taiwan, english.tku.edu.tw, future.tku.edu.tw/en MA in Futures Studies (Education). Broad interdisciplinary academic approach. Tamkang is the world leader in integrated futures curricula. All 27,000 undergrads must take three of 15 Futures Studies courses. Globalization, IT, and futures emphasis. PhD program now under development.

• University of Turku, Turku, Finland, www.utu.fi/ en/units/ffrc/Pages/home.aspx MS, PhD in Futures Studies (Economics and Business Administration). Strong interdisciplinary general foresight skills. Business and social responsibility/ sustainability orientation. Mix of academic and applied.

On the Web The following Futures Education essays may be accessed at www.wfs.org/futurist: • Susan W. Alman: The Emerging Future: Technology Issues and Trends Offered as MOOC and Graduate Course at San José State University’s School of Library and Information Science • Byron C. Anderson: Scenario Development for Teaching the Futures of Technology • Kari M. Arfstrom: The Future of Futuring ­Education • Kay Lynn Harris Fenn: Incorporating Futurism into K-12 Curriculum • Margaret Fitzgerald: Capprensi Futures Studies Program • Udo Greinacher: FUTURE+living: ScenarioBased Design Instruction @ the University of Cincinnati • Otto J. Loewer: Teaching the Linkages among Technology, Economics, and Societal ­Values • Manuel Au-Yong Oliveira: The Future ­Fascinates Me—But How Can I Predict It? • Neill Perry: The Education of a Futurist: ­Nature or Nurture?

• Jeremy Pesner: How to Predict the Futures: A Brief Summary • Juha Saukkonen: Notes from the Futures Teacher’s Office • Jason Siko: Futures for Faculty Development • John Stanfield: Adventures in Futures Methodology; also, Lessons for Self-Learning Futurists • Alexandra Whittington: Futures 101: A Personal Journey from Learning to Teaching Undergraduate Futures • Alexandra Whittington and Amir Bar: Teaching Futures via Mobile Device

Student Membership Program The World Future Society is proud to offer students a specially reduced membership rate of just $20 per year. Student membership in the World Future Society is open to all full-time students under the age of 25.

Student members receive all of the benefits of regular membership in the World Future Society, including subscriptions to THE FUTURIST magazine (6 issues per year) and Futurist Update, the monthly e-mail newsletter.

Studying the future gives students the tools they need to: • Select a career path and plan for the journey.

• Choose courses that will enrich their life—and their prospects.

• See the big picture—what’s happening outside the classroom that will have an impact on their life.

• Learn to ask the really important questions about the future and the trends shaping it—and start finding answers to them!

Attention parents, teachers, counselors, and others: Adults who would like to give gift memberships to the young futurists in their lives are welcome also to use the student rates.

❏ YES! I am a full-time student under age 25. Please sign me up for a one-year membership in the World Future Society.

❏ YES! I would like to give a one-year gift membership to the following full-time student under age 25:

Name

Name

Age

Address City/State/ZIP School

Age

Address City/State/ZIP Grade level

E-mail (for receiving Futurist Update)

School

Grade level

E-mail (for receiving Futurist Update)

❏ Send gift card.

[Additional names may be sent on a separate page.]

Total student memberships ordered ($20 for each one-year membership)

Contribution to Susan Echard Student Scholarship Program for WorldFuture 2015 ❏ Check is enclosed for (payable to World Future Society) ❏ Please charge to ❏ VISA ❏ MasterCard ❏ American Express ❏ Discover Account No. Expiration Date

Signature

Purchaser’s Name Address City/State/ZIP Daytime telephone

E-mail

Send to: World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814, USA Telephone: 1-800-989-8274 or 301-656-8274 • Fax: 301-951-0394 E-mail: info@wfs.org • Web site: www.wfs.org Order online at

www.wfs.org/renew

S P E C I A L

A D V E R T I S I N G

S E C T I O N

CONSULTANTS AND SERVICES

A

listing of consulting futurists. For infor­mation about being listed in the directory, published in every issue of THE FUTURIST and available on the Web at www.wfs.org, call Jeff Cornish toll free at 1-800-989-8274 or 301-656-8274, or e-mail jcornish@wfs.org.

Karl Albrecht International

Center for Strategic Futurist Thinking

San Diego, CA U.S.A. Phone: 858-836-1500 E-mail: futures@KarlAlbrecht.com Web: KarlAlbrecht.com Contact: Dr. Karl Albrecht Planning a conference? Include a “Futures Update” keynote by renowned futurist Dr. Karl Albrecht.

46 B/4 Jerusalem St., Kfar Saba, Israel 44369 Phone: 972-54-558-7940 Fax: 972-9-766965 Web: www.futurist-thinking.co.il E-mail: bisk@futurist-thinking.co.il Contact: Tsvi Bisk Strategic futurism: “Getting from Here to There” (Keynote speaker) Jewish, Mid-East and Mediterranean Futures (consulting).

Alsek Research Economic Futures

Christensen Associates, Inc.

7650 S. McClintoch Dr., #103-233 Tempe, AZ 85284 Phone: 480-225-2507 E-mail: jfoltz@alsekresearch.com Web: www.alsekresearch.com Contact: Joan Foltz Keynotes, workshops, and anticipatory analysis of global markets, investing, and business structures. Author of Market Whipped: And Not By Choice.

8168 Manitoba St., No. 2, Playa Del Ray, CA 90293-8291 Phone: 310-578-0405 Fax: 310-578-0455 E-mail: chris@camcinc.com Web: www.camcinc.com Contact: Chris Christensen, CMC Avoid devastating surprises! Exploit ANY future! Stimulating and entertaining keynotes, workshops, assessments, and consulting.

Common Sense Medicine Alternative Futures Associates

shops. Keynotes. Facilitation.

FutureManagement Group AG Wallufer Strasse 3a, Eltville, Germany D-65343 Phone: 49-6123-7 55 53 Fax: 49-6123-7 55 54 Web: www.FutureManagementGroup.com E-mail: Office@FutureManagementGroup.com Contacts: Pero Micic, Claudia Schramm Use the “Eltville Model” of FutureManagement to see more of the future than your competitors!

Future Problem Solving Program International, Inc. 2015 Grant Pl., Melbourne, FL 32901 Phone: 321-768-0078 Fax: 321-768-0097 E-mail: mail@fpspi.org Web: www.fpspi.org Contact: Marianne Solomon, Executive ­Director FPSPI is an established educational program that provides a 6-step problem solving process to assist students as they think about the future.

2331 Mill Rd., Suite 100, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134 Phone: 703-684-5880 Fax: 703-684-0640 E-mail: futurist@altfutures.com Web: www.altfutures.com Contact: Clement Bezold, Jonathan Peck Vision and scenario development, strategic planning, trend analysis, workshop design and facilitation, presentations, keynotes, consulting.

812 W. 8th St., Suite 2A, Plainview, TX 79072 Phone: 806-291-0700 Fax: 806-293-8229 E-mail: drjonzdo@yahoo.com Web: www.commonsensemedicine.org Contact: Lon Jones DO, Jerry Bozeman M.Ed., LPC Adaptations today are the future. The authors of The Boids and the Bees tell how to guide adaptations in our living systems: healthcare, education, economy, even us.

Atlas Safety & Security Design, Inc.

CREO Strategic Solutions

The Futures Lab

770 Palm Bay Ln., Suite 4-I, Miami, FL 33138 Phone: 305-756-5027 Fax: 305-754-1658 E-mail: ratlas@ix.netcom.com Web: www.cpted-security.com Contact: Dr. Randall Atlas, AIA, CPP Pioneers in crime prevention through environmental design. Design of jails, prevention of premises liability lawsuits.

PO Box 840, Kittery, ME 03904 Phone: 415-450-1515 Contact: Kevin Fickenscher, MD Email: drkevin@creostrategicsolutions.com Healthcare is undergoing dramatic change that extends far beyond the financing of healthcare.

Understanding and embracing the future is critical. Keynotes, workshops, leadership training, strategic advisory services and consulting.

2130 Goodrich Ave., Austin, TX 78704 Phone: 512-468-4505 E-mail: dwoodgate@futures-lab.com Web: www.futures-lab.com Contact: Derek Woodgate International futures-based consultancy specializing in consumer, business futures. Leaders in the future potential business.

1109 Main St., Ste. 299A, Boise, ID 83702 Phone: 208-345-5995 Fax: 208-345-6083 E-mail: JLuthy@futurescorp.com Web: www.futurescorp.com Contact: Dr. John Luthy Strategic thinking/planning; evolving leadership; organization redesign/development; trend analysis; scenario planning; business growth ­strategies.

Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey

Aviv Consulting 15363 NE 201st St. Woodinville, WA 98072 Phone: 425-415-6155 E-mail: avivconsulting@gmail.com Web: www.avivconsulting.com Contact: Aviv Shahar Helping leaders and teams develop their vision and design the future. Innovation, strategy, coaching, consulting, retreats.

The Futures Corporation

de Bono For Business 248 W. Loraine St., #103, Glendale, CA 91202 Phone: 818-507-6055 E-mail: info@LyndaCurtin.com Web: www.deBonoForBusiness.com Contact: Lynda Curtin, the Opportunity Thinker Lift your thinking. Learn breakthrough futurist tools—lateral thinking, six thinking hats. Work-

DaVinci Institute, 511 E South Boulder Road, Louisville, CO 80027 Phone: 303-666-4133 E-mail: deb@davinciinstitute.com Web: www.futuristspeaker.com Contact: Debra Frey Thomas Frey is Google’s top-rated futurist speaker and IBM’s most award-winning engi-

54 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

neer. Author of Communicating with the Future —the book that changes everything.Speaking topics: future of business, work, education, transportation, government, and more.

The Greenway Group 25 Technology Pkwy. South, Suite 101, Norcross, GA 30092 Phone: 678-879-0929 Fax: 678-879-0930 E-mail: jcramer@di.net Web: www.greenway.us Contact: James Cramer, chairman Strategic change, trends, forecasts, research.

Architecture and design technology. Journals: Design Intelligence. Publications: The Almanac of Architecture & Design, How Firms Succeed, Design + Enterprise, Leadership by Design, Communication by Design, Value Redesigned.

H.G. Hudson and Associates 34 Warren Dr., Newport News, VA 23608 Phone: 757-874-5414 E-mail: HUDSON2059@msn.com Contact: Henry G. Hudson, president and CEO Management consulting help in advanced administrative services, operations, systems, methods, procedures, policies, strategy, and management.

Innovation Focus Inc. 111 E. Chestnut St., Lancaster PA 17602-2703 Phone: 717-394-2500 Web: www.innovationfocus.com Contacts: Christopher W. Miller, Ph.D.; Anne Orban, M.Ed. Innovation Focus is an internationally recognized consulting firm that brings innovation to all stages of product life cycle management and provides proven processes for deep customer understanding and meaningful innovation. Clients include: Kraft Foods, Kimberly Clark, WD-40, Bristol-Myers Squibb.

Institute for Alternative Futures 2331 Mill Rd., Suite 100, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134 Phone: 703-684-5880 Fax: 703-684-0640 E-mail: futurist@altfutures.com Web: www.altfutures.com Contacts: Clement Bezold, Jonathan Peck Uses research reports, workshops, scenarios, and visioning to help organizations understand future possibilities and create their “preferred future.”

Institute for Global Futures

Minkin Affiliates

2084 Union St., San Francisco, CA 94123 Phone: 415-563-0720 Fax: 415-563-0219 E-mail: info@globalfuturist.com Web: www.GlobalFuturist.com Contact: Dr. James Canton Futures based keynotes, consulting and research for any vertical industry by leading futurist James Canton.

135 Riviera Dr., #305, Los Gatos, CA 95032 Phone: 408-402-3020 E-mail: barryminkin@earthlink.net Web: minkinaffiliates.com Contact: Barry Minkin Keynote speaker, bestselling author, global manage­ment consultant, three decades linking emerging trends to consumer and market strategy.

Institute for Participatory Management and Planning

Next Consulting

P.O. Box 1937, Monterey, CA 93942-1937 Phone: 831-373-4292 Fax: 831-373-0760 E-mail: ipmp@aol.com Web: www.ipmp-bleiker.com Contacts: Annemarie Bleiker, Hans Bleiker, Jennifer Bleiker We offer a Leadership Boot-Camp for guiding complex problem-solving and decision-making efforts.

104 Timber Ridge Rd., State College, PA 16801 Phone: 814-237-2575 Fax: 814-863-4257 E-mail: g7g@psu.edu Web: nextconsulting.us Contact: Geoffrey Godbey, Ph.D. Repositioning leisure/tourism organizations for the near future. Speeches, ideation, imagineering. Client list on request.

Jim Pinto Technology Futurist KAIROS Future AB P.O. Box 804, S-10136 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: (46 8) 545 225 00 Fax: (46 8) 545 225 01 E-mail: info@kairosfuture.se Web: www.kairosfuture.se Contacts: Mats Lindgren, Anna Kiefer Values, work, technology, marketing. Methods: scenarios, studies, lectures, seminars, consulting. Public and private sectors.

Leading Futurists LLC 4420 49th St., NW, Washington, DC 20016 Phone: 202-271-0444 E-mail: jbmahaffie@starpower.net Web: www.leadingfuturists.biz Contacts: John B. Mahaffie, Jennifer Jarratt Futures consulting, workshops, scenarios, research, keynote talks to help organizations ­discover new opportunities and challenges.

Members, Association of Professional Futurists.

MG Rush Performance Learning 1301 W. 22nd St., Suite 603, Oak Brook, IL 60523

Phone: 630-954-5880 Fax: 630-954-5889 E-mail: futurist@mgrush.com Contacts: Terrence Metz, 630-954-5882; Kevin Booth, 630-954-5884 Facilitation of, and facilitator training for: scenario planning, strategy development, group decision-making, workshop design, ideation, option development and analysis, and training of facilitative leadership.

2805 Ocean St. #2, Carlsbad, CA 92008 Phone: 858-353-5467 E-mail: jim@jimpinto.com Web: www.JimPinto.com Contact: Jim Pinto Speaker and consultant: technology futures, industrial automation, global business trends, ­Internet business relationships.

Pinyon Partners LLC 140 Little Falls St., Suite 210, Falls Church, VA 22046 Phone: 703-651-0359 E-mail: pshoemaker@pinyonpartners.com Web: www.pinyonpartners.com Contacts: Peter B.G. Shoemaker; Dan ­Garretson, Ph.D. Quantitative and qualitative. Art and Science.

However you want to characterize it, our distinctive combination of the hard-nosed and the deeply intuitive is perfectly suited for those navigating over the horizon. Expansive explorations of what’s next; engaging engagements with change; consultations, workshops, research, and talks aimed at creating future-oriented clarity, purpose, insight, and confidence. Member, Association of Professional Futurists.

More consultants and services, next page www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

55

Consultants

and

Services

Qi Systems 35 Seacoast Terr., Apt. 6P, Brooklyn, NY 11235 Phone: 718-769-9655 E-mail: QiSys@msn.com Web: www.qisystems.org Contact: Ronn Parker, Ph.D. Spectrum Counseling: conflict resolution, conscious evolution, martial arts, meditation methods, mindbody strategies, transformational learning.

David Pearce Snyder, Consulting Futurist The Snyder Family Enterprise, 8628 Garfield St., Bethesda, MD 20817-6704 Phone: 301-530-5807 Fax: 301-530-1028 E-mail: david@the-futurist.com Web: www.the-futurist.com Contact: Sue Snyder High-impact motivating presentations.

Strategic assessments, socio-technologic forecasts/scenarios. Keynote addresses, strategic briefings, workshops, surveys.

Strategic Futures® Strategic Futures Consulting Group, Inc. 113 South Washington St., Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: 703-836-8383 Fax: 703-836-9192 E-mail: info@strategicfutures.com Web: www.strategicfutures.com Contact: Ron Gunn or Jennifer Thompson Strategic planning, succession planning including mentoring, executive coaching, organizational change facilitation, and matrix management assistance.

SynOvation Solutions 455 Hazelwood Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94127 Phone: 415-298-3008 E-mail: info@synovationsolutions.com Web: www.synovationsolutions.com Contacts: Bruce L. Tow, David A. Gilliam Future-is-now resources to help you achieve key and mission-critical breakthroughs or creatively evolve your business to meet future challenges.

strategic sense-­making, scenarios, vision building, assumption testing, and strategy formulation, either as expert input or by co-production directly with leadership teams.

The TechCast Project Department of Information Systems & Technology Management, George Washington University, Washington, D.C. 20052 Phone: 202-994-5975 E-mail: Halal@gwu.edu Web: www.techcast.org Contact: William E. Halal, professor, George Washington University; president, Techcast LLC TechCast is an online research project that pools the knowledge of 100 experts worldwide to forecast breakthroughs in all fields of science and technology. Results are updated in real time and distributed to corporations, governments, and other subscribers to aid in their strategic planning. The project has been featured in The Washington Post, Newsweek, The Futurist, and various journals. The National Academies consider TechCast among the best systems available, and Google ranks it No. 2 or 3 out of 45 million hits. TechCast also gives presentations, conducts customized studies, and performs most types of consulting related to technology and strategic change.

Town and Gown Relations Kemp Consulting, LLC P. O. Box 342, Meriden, CT 06450-0342 Phone: 203-686-0281 E-mail: rlkbsr@snet.net Web (consulting): www.rogerlkemp.com Web (background): www.rogerkemp.org Contact: Roger Kemp, MPA, MBA, PhD, ­President Dr. Kemp has been author and editor of over a dozen books dealing with issues relating to cities (towns) and colleges (gowns). He gives keynote speeches, strategic briefings, and does futures research and consulting on emerging trends dealing with the dynamic and evolving field of town-gown relations.

Synthesys Strategic Consulting Ltd. Belsize Park, London NW3 UK Phone: 44-207-449-2903 Fax: 44-870-136-5560 E-mail: www.hardintibbs.com Web: www.synthstrat.com Contact: Hardin Tibbs, CEO Synthesys specializes in using futures research to develop innovative strategies. Based in London UK, with international experience in both the public and private sectors, across many different industries. Projects include horizon scanning,

56

THE FUTURIST

Skills, Character, and Metacognition. Keynotes and seminars on global education; education technology; neuroscience of learning; creativity & innovation; artificial intelligence & augmented intelligence.

21st Century Learning LLC 10 Jamaicaway, Suite #18, Boston, MA 02130 Telephone: 978-204-2770 Email: charlesfadel@gmail.com Web: www.21stcenturyskillsbook.com Contact: Charles Fadel, founder and best-selling author: 21st Century Skills; visiting scholar, Harvard GSE and MIT ESG. Education’s futures, as impacted by Technology, and along the dimensions of Knowledge,

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

van der Werff Global, Ltd. 4958 Crystal Circle, Hoover, AL 35226 Phone: 888-448-3779 Fax: 888-432-9263 E-mail: terry@globalfuture.com Web: www.globalfuture.com Contact: Dr. Terry J. van der Werff, CMC Confidential advisor to corporate leaders worldwide on global trends, executive leadership, and strategic change.

Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. 200 E. 33rd St., Suite 9I, New York, NY 10016 Phone: 212-889-7007 Fax: 212-679-0628 E-mail: info@weineredrichbrown.com Web: www.weineredrichbrown.com Contact: Edie Weiner For over two decades, the pioneers in detecting emerging trends and linking them to a ­ ction.

Xland sprl 111 Av Grandchamp, Brussels, Belgium 1150 Phone: 32-475-827-190 Fax: 32-2-762-46-08 Web: www.xland.be E-mail: xland@skynet.be Contact: D. Michel Judkiewicz Trend analysis, scenarios, forecasting opportunities/threats based on strong and weak signals for resilient strategies.

Special Reports from the World Future Society In case you missed it … PDFs of THE FUTURIST magazine’s special reports are available to download from www.wfs.org/specialreports at a modest price (and they’re free for Members of the World Future Society).

Futures Education: Teaching and Learning about the Future How do you become a futurist? And where can you learn the required skills? Futurist teachers and learners from around the world describe a wide variety of futures-learning experiences, from middle school to graduate school, from professional workshops to lifelong learning. This special report, originally published in the September-October 2014 issue of THE FUTURIST, includes contributions from more than 30 authors, plus a glossary and a directory of active foresight education programs.

Futures Education [Download PDF] $5

Outlook 2014 Species long extinct may one day be revived. Doctors will detect signs of brain disorders many years before symptoms emerge. And consumers will give up owning stuff in order to lighten the loads of their lifestyles. These are just a few of the most thought-provoking possibilities and ideas published in THE FUTURIST magazine in 2013. Outlook 2014 was originally published in the November-December 2013 issue.

Outlook 2014 [Download PDF] $5

Top 10 Disappearing Futures A special report by members and friends of the World Future Society. Smartphones may have a more limited future than you think (or hope) today. And the stores we buy them in could also disappear by 2030. Doctors and schools could go, too. But so might intolerance, insecurity, and other problems, according to contributors to this special “crowdsourced” report, published in the September-October 2013 FUTURIST. Contributors include Paul Saffo, Thomas Frey, William E. Halal, Brenda Cooper, John M. Smart, ­and more.

Top 10 Disappearing Futures [Download PDF] $5

The 22nd Century at First Light: Envisioning Life in the Year 2100 A child born in 2012 will only be 88 years old in the year 2100. During this child’s lifetime, technology, the environment, and civilization itself may change radically. THE FUTURIST editors invited WFS members and friends to submit forecasts, scenarios, wild cards, dreams, and nightmares. This 22-page report features contributions from Paul Saffo, David Brin, Brenda Cooper, Michael Marien, and Denmark’s House of Futures, among two dozen other futurists. “The 22nd Century at First Light” was originally published in the September-October 2012 issue of THE FUTURIST. 22nd Century at First Light [Download PDF] $10

Reviews Edited by Rick Docksai Strategies for Appropriate Development Innovating for the Global South: Towards an Inclusive Innovation Agenda edited by Dilip Soman, Janice Gross Stein, and Joseph Wong. University of Toronto Press. 2014. 185 pages. $22.95

The world has made some progress in relieving poverty and improving health in the world’s poorest countries, but it will take new methods and tools to achieve more in the years to come, in the view of University of Toronto scholars Dilip Soman, Janice Gross Stein, and ­J oseph Wong. The three—all members of the university’s Global Innovation Group—call for scalable new solutions for improving life in the Global South.

They discuss what these solutions might look like and what ground rules might guide their development with 10 contributing authors, including scholars of medicine, economics, political science, global health, and other relevant fields.

Wong pinpoints the key challenge as being the delivery of new technologies rather than their development.

Endemically poor populations need scalable solutions that can make existing amenities accessible and affordable to them. He cites Aravind Eye Hospital, which has been treating tens of thousands of cases of blindness in India for free, as a promising example.

Yu - L i n g C h e n g a n d B e v e r l y ­Bradley, both affiliated with the University of Toronto’s Centre for Global Engineering, note that many new technologies that are intended for users in the Global South fail to be of benefit because they were not well-suited to their users’ specific needs. The two distinguish some “appropriate” technologies from inappropriate ones.

Other contributors share ideas for driving down the costs of pharmaceuticals in the Global South, modi-

fying the innovation processes for all types of products in order to cater to the poorest would-be consumers, and working through the challenges of funding innovation and scaling successful innovations up for widespread use. The problems surrounding rising economic inequality worldwide, the opportunities for fostering entrepreneurial and technical skills in the Global South’s youth, and the changing nature of development assistance and North–South relations also get attention.

Innovating for the Global South integrates academic theory with everyday practices to offer a farranging and enlightening discussion on the right ways and wrong ways to attempt to improve life for the world’s poorest. It is commendable reading for professionals in business and global development worldwide.

Teens and Social Media: ­Debunking the Myths It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by Danah Boyd. Yale.

2014. 281 pages. $25.

Social media plays a huge role in young people’s lives and will continue to do so, but how exactly are its young users using it? And what should the adults in their lives know? Danah Boyd, a researcher for Microsoft who also researches and teaches Internet-relevant courses at Harvard and New York universities, interviews 64 middle-school and high-school students from across the United States to compile a detailed snapshot of young people and their social lives online.

In It’s Complicated, Boyd busts numerous misconceptions that many adults have about teen social-media

activity. For example, she reports that teens are not oblivious to the need for privacy. Her interviewees find a variety of ways to limit what adults and strangers see of their profiles, and to type in code words or hidden references that only their friends will understand.

Nor are most teens “addicted” to social media. Boyd finds that young people’s online communications with each other affirm and expand upon their interactions in real life, rather than subtract from them.

Their spending so much time online with their friends has less to do with the Internet being addicting, and more to do with extracurricular commitments taking up their “free” time and parents placing too many limits on when they get to socialize outside the house.

Boyd also takes aim at the widespread fear of online sexual predators. Actual instances of older adults soliciting children through the Internet are far less common than most parents think. And rates of victimization have declined over the past decade, in some part as a result of social-media sites aiding law-­ enforcement efforts to track down predators and keep young people safe.

She also dispels the assumption that all young people are “digital natives.” Widespread differences exist in digital literacy and access to digital media from one socioeconomic group to another. And all youth, no matter what group they are in, need guidance from adults on how to critically analyze and understand the vast gamut of information—and misinformation—that they encounter in the digital domain.

The youths that Boyd depicts are demonstrably more resourceful and independent than many adults might give them credit for, and yet they are also vulnerable and technology-­challenged in ways that adults need to recognize.

58 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

Written with concerned adults in mind—parents, teachers, policy makers, and anyone else who takes a vested interest in young people’s safety and well-being online—It’s Complicated is an engaging and vivid, but nuanced and thoroughly researched, survey of young people and their online lives.

Strategies for Doing Business When Resources Are Few Overfished Ocean Strategy: Powering Up Innovation for a Resource-Deprived World by Nadya Zhexembayeva. BerrettKoehler. 2014. 195 pages. $27.95.

Fish populations across the world are withering under unrelenting pressure from human population growth and rising demand for sea-

food. If some studies prove correct, there will be no more wild fish left to catch by mid-century. It’s arguably a global crisis, but within this crisis lies a golden opportunity, argues Nadya Zhexembayeva, a business owner and professor of sustainable development at the IEDC-Bled School of Management in Slovenia: We c a n m a k e i t t h e springboard for jumpstarting radical innovation ­toward energy-wise and resource-­e fficient business.

And this is not “green business”—Zhexembayeva emphatically distances herself from the myriad present-day lines of “green” and “sustainable” products that she says suffer limited appeal due to high

costs, poor quality, or excessive and sometimes misleading hype.

The businesses that the new economy will be built on are an entirely different breed, characterized not so much by new products as by altogether new ways of doing business. She sums up these new practices as the “Overfished Ocean Strategy.”

Five key principles distinguish this new strategy from business as usual: Companies will repurpose waste materials into useful new products, instead of consigning them to landfills; they will act collaboratively rather than through top-down command; they will sell relevance, not products; they will make decisions via

OBITUARY In Memoriam: Arnold Brown Pioneering business futurist Arnold Brown, chairman of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. (WEB), in New York City, died on June 19, 2014. He was 86.

Arnold served as chairman of the World Future Society’s board of directors (2006-2007) and participated in WFS activities as recently as the 2013 annual conference in Chicago. In September 1991, he chaired the Society’s “Business & The Future” conference in New York, bringing together 250 business leaders from across the United States and from as far as Australia and Syria.

He was also a prolific business trends analyst, researcher, and writer, contributing numerous articles and book reviews to THE FUTURIST magazine, including most recently “Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society” (March-April 2011), “In the Future, the Best Will Be Better Than Perfect: The New Biology Paradigm” (September-October 2008), and “The New Followership: A Challenge for Leaders” (March-April 2003).

Following graduation from UCLA during the tumultuous Sixties, Arnold Brown began his career with the Institute of Life Insurance to analyze trends that might affect the insurance industry. In essence, he taught himself the methods of futures research that have become standard practice, and created the insur-

ance industry’s Trend Analysis Program in 1969.

In 1977, Arnold joined with colleagues Hal Edrich and Edie Weiner to launch their own consulting firm dedicated to helping organizations successfully navigate through a rapidly changing future. And they have shared this knowledge and experience widely, through appearances at conferences and through such books as FutureThink (2006), Insider’s Guide to the Future (1997), and Office Biology (1994).

“Arnold was an extremely intelligent and thoughtful man, who was passionate about his work and studying the future,” said Jared Weiner, vice president of WEB. “His integrity, his generosity, and his commitment made an indelible impact on us personally, on our business, on the World Future Society, and on the futures field in general. He was a true pioneer, visionary, and all-around wonderful man. He will be deeply missed.”

For more information, see “Change Masters” by Edward Cornish, THE FUTURIST (July-August 2012). Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc., weineredrichbrown.com.

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

59

Reviews

adaptable models, not rigid plans; and they will embed sustainable action throughout their organizations, rather than relegate it to solitary “green” departments.

Zhexembayeva offers examples of companies across the globe that are already putting the Overfished Ocean Strategy to work. They range from established giants like BMW and Coca-Cola to newcomers like AirBnB and lesser-known startups

Don’t Miss a Single Session!

Access WorldFuture 2014 Audio via the Online Learning Center.

World Future Society partner IntelliQuest Media is offering both flash drives (which include available presentation materials and iPod or computer-playable MP3 files) and access to the Online Learning Center.

Individual sessions may also be ordered and downloaded as MP3s.

Visit www.intelliquestmedia .com or call IntelliQuest Media toll free at 866-651-2586.

60

THE FUTURIST

like Sourcemap, EcoWorx, and OneWorldHealth.

More companies can become successful, Overfished Ocean Strategyoriented organizations, too, she argues, sharing the scenario-planning activities and other tools that they can use to make the shift.

Zhexembayeva enthusiastically introduces her readers to concepts that are transforming business and what they can do to flourish amid the change.

Overfished Ocean Strategy is excellent reading for business leaders who want to get ahead of the curve and stay there.

Not Yet Dead: The Science of Staying Alive Shocked: Adventures in Bringing Back the Recently Dead by David Casarett.

Current. 2014. 251 pages. $27.95.

A human being who goes more than three minutes without a heartbeat is gone forever; the same goes for anyone who spends more than five minutes without oxygen. These are near-universally accepted truisms of modern medicine. But according to David Casarett, a University of Pennsylvania physician and researcher, new research pathways are proving these notions to be wrong. He describes in Shocked, in a vivid storytelling style that non­ scientists will easily follow, developments of novel techniques that bring nearly dead and even fully dead patients back to the land of the living.

Casarett begins with a review of the last 300 years’ history of reanimation. His account includes the 1986 resuscitation of a Utah toddler who fell into a lake, went an hour without breathing, and was admitted into the hospital showing every standard sign of death, yet somehow she returned to life under physicians’ care.

There is also the 2006 incident of a

September-October 2014

•

www.wfs.org

Japanese hiker who injured himself on a mountain trail and was trapped there for nearly four days. The hiker went into a “suspended animation,” his body temperature dropping to 72°F—the equivalent of a corpse— but he awoke fully healthy after being found and airlifted to safety.

The author relates several lab experiments of the last decade that have deliberately sent animals to death’s doorstep and brought them back. In some, the researchers induced total heart failure in their test subjects, placed their clinically dead bodies in frigid temperatures, and then not only restarted their hearts and restored their rhythms, but brought the animals back to consciousness with no visible damage to their brain and other organs.

Experiments such as these can draw controversy—the public has an obvious leeriness of animals or people coming back from the dead—but their findings could truly make the difference between life and death in future motorcycle accidents, combat injuries, and other cases of emergency-room patients suffering from catastrophic blood loss or organ failure.

Other experiments in Casarett’s account cause their animal or human subjects to go into deep hibernations where their body systems slow to near-death, and then reawaken once the experiments are complete. These hibernation methods could also help many more real-life patients to cheat death, Casarett explains, since surgeons will have a much easier time operating on bodies that are in this state and will thereby be able to save many patients who would be beyond saving today.

Death comes to all of us sooner or later, but Casarett lets readers in on little-known ways by which medicine is gaining more and more control over our mortality. Shocked is an exciting, firsthand account of scientific research whose implications are relevant to every living person. ❑

As Blogged Recent highlights from World Future Society online

Growing Old Together

© GOODLUZ / BIGSTOCK

By James H. Lee

The hard reality of global aging has “soft technology” community solutions.

• In Japan, more diapers are being sold for grown-ups than for children. Big nappies are big business.

• In Italy, there are now more grandmothers than ­babies. This is leading to a break-out of national pacifism, because no one wants to send their only grand- Food shopping is in easy reach in walkable neighborhoods. The key to the world’s “aging ­problem” may be more-resilient communities. child to war.

• The ever-practical Germans are now retraining retired sex-­ H o m e S h a r i n g . “Transhumanists and Farmers’ Markets. industry workers as home healthEat healthy and incare aides. Sponge baths have never Some states have other techno-utopians helped people to age season with your been more popular. neighborhood farmThese are just some of the unin- at home by matching dodge the issues of ers’ market. Fresh tended consequences of aging popu- them with compan- aging…. Regenerative ions who are in need food lasts longer, lations worldwide. plus you’ll discover Transhumanists and other techno- of a place to live. It health care will make new varieties of proutopians dodge the issues of aging costs the government us all live forever; by saying that it will never happen next to nothing, and we’ll just print replace- d u c e t h a t y o u ’ l l never find at the gro(at least to them). Regenerative everyone’s needs are ment parts for our c e r y s t o re . S w a p health care will make us all live for- met.

B a c k y a r d C o t - bodies and transfer some recipes, bring ever; we’ll just print replacement your dog. You might parts for our bodies and transfer our tages. Call it a guest our memories to a have more fun than memories to a cloud-based server. house for your inyou expected!

But these are (for now) all fanciful laws, a crash-pad for cloud-based server. y o u r b o o m e r a n g But these are (for now) Te c h n o l o g y h a s and impractical notions. helped us to live Let’s look at just a few of the “soft kids, or a source of ­l onger; community technologies” that will help integrate rental income. At all fanciful and helps us to live well. aging populations into our commu- s o m e p o i n t , y o u impractical notions.” might want to live Let’s start thinking nities.

Time Banking. We all know that there, too. Living in a locally about the people with money tend to be short big house for the course of your future of where we want to live. ❑ on time. Conversely, if you don’t ­entire lifetime doesn’t always make have a job, you’ve got lots of time. sense.

Walkable Communities. Both the About the Author Time Banks enable people to bank James H. Lee is the founder of Strategic and earn hours of service with other young and the old are moving back Foresight Investments (StratFI) and author community members, and can help into the cities, where they can find of Resilience and the Future of Everyday start up new local businesses. Need better access to part-time work, so- Life (Wasteland Press, 2012). This essay yard work, a pet-sitter, or a haircut? cial opportunities, and places to ex- is adapted from his June 18, 2014, post Check with your local time bank ercise. Want to get fit? Move out of on the Futurist Blog. His Web site is www.stratfi.com. the suburb and get walking. first! www.wfs.org • THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 61 © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

Now Published by SAGE, the World's Leading Independent Academic and Professional Publisher

World Future Review Free sample copy available online at wfr.sagepub.com World Future Review (WFR), published on behalf of the World Future Society, is the top forum for all who are professionally involved in the theory, methodology, practice, and use of futures research.

Along with interviews with leading futures practitioners, WFR publishes important new foresight literature addressing topics informed by technology assessment, policy analysis, operations research, issues management, competition research and much more.

For more information and to subscribe, visit wfr.sagepub.com today!

World Future Society members receive WFR at a low member price.

See the World Future Society website for details: wfs.org. World Future Review also invites manuscripts from contributors worldwide at http:// mc.manuscriptcentral.com/wfr. For questions, contact tmack@wfs.org.

www.sagepub.com SAGE Publications Inc. 2455 Teller Road Thousand Oaks, CA 91320 Los Angeles | London | New Delhi | Singapore | Washington DC

World Future Society Programs The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization chartered in the District of Columbia, U.S.A., and is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt organization. The Society has about 25,000 members and subscribers in 80 nations.

PUBLICATIONS

• The Futurist: A magazine published bimonthly, covering trends, forecasts, and ideas about the future.

• Futurist Update: An e-mail newsletter available monthly to all ­members, covering a range of future-oriented news and useful links.

• World Future Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight: A journal for futures practitioners and scholars, with articles on forecasting techniques and applications, profiles of futurists and organizations, and abstracts of current futures-relevant literature.

ACTIVITIES AND RESOURCES

• Conferences: The Society holds at least one major conference per year, to which all Society members are invited. Most conferences cover a wide range of topics related to the future. Most conferences are in the United States, but the Society has also held meetings in Canada and Austria.

• Groups: Futurist groups are active in a number of U.S. cities, such as Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta, and in more than two dozen countries.

• Books: New books of special interest to members may be purchased through the Society’s partnership with Amazon.com.

MEMBERSHIP PROGRAMS

• Regular Membership: Includes THE FUTURIST magazine; discounts on conferences and books published by the Society; and such other benefits as may be approved for members. Discounted memberships are also available for full-time students under age 25.

• Professional Membership: Programs and publications are available to meet the special needs of practitioners, researchers, scholars, and others who are professionally involved in forecasting, planning, or other futureoriented activities, including education and policy making. Professional members receive all the benefits of regular membership, plus a subscription to the journal World Future Review, as well as invitations to Professional Members Forums, and other benefits.

• Institutional Membership: The World Future Society’s Institutional Membership program offers special services for business firms, educational institutions, government agencies, associations, and other groups. Members receive all of the benefits of Professional Membership, plus copies of all books, monographs, conference proceedings, special reports, and other publications produced by the Society during the year of the membership; special discounts on bulk purchases of Society publications; assistance in locating sources of information, consultants, and speakers for conferences and meetings, getting information tailored specifically to the organization’s needs; and inclusion in the Society’s list of institutional members published on the Society’s Web site and annually in THE FUTURIST. For more information and an application, contact Membership Secretary, World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814 www.wfs.org.

www.wfs.org

•

THE FUTURIST

September-October 2014

63

Future View

By Michael Lee

10 Questions for Machine Intelligence Is the Singularity as near as some believe? How might we assess its development? A futurist offers a checklist for comparing machine and human capabilities.

In The Singularity Is Near (2005), Ray Kurzweil postulates that, in 2045, “the pace of technological change will be so rapid, its impact so deep, that human life will be irreversibly transformed.” It will represent, he claims, the “culmination of the merger of our biological thinking and existence with our technology.… There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.” The nonbiological intelligence created in the year of the Singularity, he states, will be one billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today.

I have several philosophical, logical, ethical, historical, and futurological problems with the concept of the Singularity, but for now I simply want to ask 10 questions about machine intelligence to see how it compares with that of humans.

In today’s world, human intelligence, in my view, is far superior to the intelligence within computer systems, except in the ability to process, aggregate, calculate, store, and distribute data at blindingly fast speeds.

There have been several decades of worldwide research and development in the field of computers, and so it is fair game to dig deep, at this juncture, as to the kind of intelligence that has actually been produced by computers in practice.

Here, then, are 10 questions to help us assess the progress and prospects of machine intelligence: 1. Has machine intelligence ever independently produced an original idea, theory, or philosophy, or discovered any new principle or law of existence? This question concerns the capacity for sustained, original, creative thought.

2. Has machine intelligence ever produced a unique, nonprogrammed story or created any imaginative literary work? This question relates to the power of imagination.

3. Has a computer ever spontaneously said “I love

you” and meant it? Q3 is about personal, real-time communication.

4. Has a computer ever said “I’m sorry” and meant it?

This question relates to empathy, the skills of listening and emotional intelligence in general.

5. Has machine intelligence ever invented or coined a new word or term? Q5 concerns original linguistic talent.

6. Has machine intelligence ever made an independent, nonprogrammed decision about how to act based on conscience? This question is about ethics and a sense of justice.

7. Has a machine ever come © AGSANDREW / BIGSTOCK up with a solution to a tricky social problem, solved a crime, or adjudicated in a complex legal dispute? Q7 relates to the powers of deductive reasoning and lateral thinking.

8. Has technology itself ever invented new technology; that is, have machines ever produced new types of machine that no human had previously thought of? This question touches on the ability to be truly inventive.

9. Has a machine ever had a religious or spiritual experience, an epiphany or eureka moment, said a non-programmed prayer, exercised faith, or known awe and wonder? Q9 is about human spirituality.

10. Has a machine ever made a spontaneous, personally motivated, nonprogrammed exchange with another being, whether some form of trade or extended social interaction? This question relates to the ability to engage in complex social, economic, and political activity as a social being.

Aside from investigating the many technical and philosophical questions relating to the evolving interface between human and machine intelligence, these 10 ­common-sense questions show that it may well be impossible to mimic human consciousness and intelligence, let alone recreate, upload, and surpass it, as proposed by Kurzweil.

However, if (or when) the answer to the majority of these questions is Yes, then we may have indeed reached the predicted Singularity. But then the key question to ask ourselves is: Do we really want to hand over control of civilization and human destiny to machinery? Don’t we want to use—rather than become— technology? ❑ About the Author Michael Lee is author of Knowing our Future and the upcoming Codebreaking our Future. This editorial is adapted from his post on the Futurist Blog (June 11, 2014). Responses to and comments on any of these “ten questions to ask machines” may be posted on the blog or sent to the author at michael@futurology.co.za.

64 THE FUTURIST September-October 2014 • www.wfs.org © 2014 World Future Society • 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, MD 20814, U.S.A. • All rights reserved.

THE FUTURIST magazine is … “empowering” … “insightful” … “useful” … “visionary” THE FUTURIST magazine—just one of the benefits of membership in the World Future Society—covers the key trends that are converging now and shaping the future.

Written and edited for an educated, curious, and highly diverse audience, THE FUTURIST scans the horizon for significant developments in science and technology, environment and resources, society and culture, demographics, economics, policy and governance, and even the methods for studying the future itself.

We don’t take a stand on what the future will or should be like—that’s your job! But through World Future Society membership, you’ll find the tools, resources, and partners to build the best future possible.

Kudos from Readers: “I love your magazine. It has played a big role in totally changing my outlook on the future and my role in it. It is empowering! Keep up the good work!” —Lisa F. “Actual useful future stuff.” —Dennis F. “I am amazed by the quality of information in the Futurist. … Very insightful content.” —Hala M. “I will be subscribing to the magazine for myself so that I can be more in touch with the world. Thank you.” —Tracy P. “#favorite_read” @mozishaq (via Twitter) “Thanks for being a quality and visionary publication and organization.” —Rudi H. COURTESY OF CLAIRE AMOS

Join now or learn more: www.wfs.org/forecasts25/ or call 1-800-989-8274 (Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern Time).

WorldFuture 2015

The annual conference of the World Future Society, to be held in San Francisco, California, July 24-26, 2015

The World Future Society invites you to join us for WorldFuture 2015 in San Francisco, California.

As a city that has perpetually reinvented itself— sometimes by necessity, but often by sheer will to improve—San Francisco has been called the innovation capital of the world. That makes it the perfect setting to explore the outer edges of our foresight capabilities.

Speakers, topics, and special events forthcoming soon.

Where: Hilton San Francisco Union Square, 333 O’Farrell Street, San Francisco, California, 94102 USA Web site: www.hiltonsanfranciscohotel.com

CAN BALCIOGLU / SAN FRANCISCO TRAVEL ASSOCIATION

Telephone: 1-415-771-1400 The Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel is a landmark in and of itself, but it also offers stunning views of San Francisco and easy access to Bay Area attractions— Ghirardelli Square, Aquarium of the Bay, California Academy of Sciences, Pier 39, and the iconic Coit Tower.

The Hilton—your home for the conference—offers superb amenities, including a rooftop pool, fitness center, and concierge service for planning your visit before or after WorldFuture 2015. The hotel also has Zipcars available for your convenience. Come early and stay late to get the most out of your San Francisco futures experience!