Institute For The Future

Global Food Outlook Virtual Exchange

How can we ensure food safety in an increasingly complex, connected global food web? What new food safety opportunities and vulnerabilities will...

The Coming Age of Networked Matter

We’re at the beginning of a reignited revolution in networked computers as more of the physical world starts to come online. Think far beyond the...

Checking-in to Well-being

The idea that place matters to our health is gaining increasing traction in the U.S. As part of this year's Health Horizons research, we'll be looking...

Shanzhai: An Open Platform for Innovation at SXSW

Did you ever stop to wonder how the whole world has been flooded with cheap Chinese knock-offs? From fake designer purses and Rolexes to counterfeit...

What a New Measure of Sensitivity Suggests about Future Health Interventions

Alix Spigel had a typically fascinating story on NPR examining new research exploring whether being especially sensitive to environmental influences...

Are Artists the Future of Community Health?

Health Horizons previously made the case that place is important for health. This year, we’re looking at the question "who is going to act on it?" One...

The Stories of Our Time

Once upon a time, an organism evolved to have a brain hard-wired to think and communicate in narrative form. These organisms interacted with their...

Governance Futures Lab: Now is the Time

Proximity can be a remarkable learning tool. Last week I experienced two drastically different approaches to thinking about the future of governance,...

Tim Ferriss Visits the Future

Tim Ferriss recently visited the Institute for the Future to discuss the future of work, learning, and his unique lifestyle. Ferris is the author of...

Clowns, Placebos and the Future of the Care Effect

A couple days ago, I came across this slightly old study exploring the effects of having trained clowns participate in the care of fertility patients....

The Nation Takes on Civic Hacking

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) announced the National Day of Civic Hacking yesterday, and word is spreading fast....

More than 6,700 microforecasts about the future of governance!

Over 26 hours, 516 players contributed 6,762 microforecasts about the future of governance in the Connected Citizens Foresight Engine game....

PMWC Preview: Cancer Commons

Health Horizons researchers will be attending the 2013 Personalized Medicine World Conference here in Silicon Valley, January 28-29. In the run-up to...

Remembering Aaron Swartz from the Amazon

Memories of meeting Aaron Swartz at the 2009 World Social Forum in Belém, Brazil.

PMWC Preview: Personalizing Health Systems

Health Horizons researchers will be attending the 2013 Personalized Medicine World Conference here in Silicon Valley, January 28-29. In the run-up to...

PMWC Preview: Colin Hill on Big Data Analytics

Health Horizons researchers will be attending the 2013 Personalized Medicine World Conference here in Silicon Valley, January 28-29. In the run-up to...

Connected Citizens: Filling the Cracks in a Shrinking Public Sector

The wave of fiscal austerity that has swept across Europe and the United States in the last several years has created a challenging environment for...

What do Harrah’s Casino and Disney World Tell Us About Anticipatory Health?

Disney World and Harrah's Casino preview a world in which our environments use personal data to customize our...

Are traditional institutions a technology on the verge of disruption?

Each year, we hold a series of exclusive events for the organizations that support our core research programs. In our Fall 2012 Technology Horizons...

IFTF Remembers Robert B. Textor, Anticipatory Anthropologist

Last week the originator of anticipatory anthropology passed away, peacefully. He was 89 years...

It's Official: Over 4,500 Ideas for Reinventing the Hospital

On January 8—9, IFTF ran the 24-hour Future of the Hospital game on Foresight Engine, our collaborative forecasting platform, to help reinvent the...

Crowdsourced Inclusive Futures

Last November I was invited to speak to the Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) at their second biannual Human Rights Conference about...

Smart Cities: Crucibles of Citizen-Government Co-creation

"What if mayors ruled the world?" asked political scientist Ben Barber in a recent Long Now talk in San Francisco. All over the world, local...

Connected Citizens: Re-imagine How Government Works

What if we could re-program government together? What bugs would you fix? What would be the killer app? How would you combine citizen and government...