Institute For The Future

Cameroonian Engineer Invents Medical Tablet

A 24 year old Cameroonian engineer, Arthur Zang, has invented the Cardiopad, a touchscreen medical tablet used to perform tests similar to a...

Your Personal Placebo Profile

During their work on the Future of Persuasion, my colleagues in the Technology Horizons program developed the idea of a personal persuasion profile -...

The Business of Social Health and Well-being

When thinking about the future of health, it’s natural to look first at emerging technologies— indeed, part of this year’s Health Horizons research is...

Snacks are the new meals? Not exactly...(but maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing)

Could snacking do the cultural work of meals in the future?

Exploring the Future of Games and Health

IFTF was invited by the Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT to help organize a workshop at the White House conference center on health...

Designing Health Interventions Around Our Weaknesses

My most recent Fast Coexist piece is up - taking a look at a concept I wrote about in 2010 called Embedded Health, which argues that the future of...

50 Cent and the Future of Empathetic Foods

Since one of my research beats at the Institute is to track the emergence of weird, misguided, and yet, at times, brilliant packaged foods, I'd be...

Pop-Up Urbanism to Build Community Health

I enjoyed, but was also a bit disappointed by, a recent Health Affairs article by David Erickson and Nancy Andrews looking at the role that community...

The Toxic Effects of Childhood Stress

The American Academy of Pediatrics released a fascinating, and potentially transformative, statement a couple of weeks ago about something that would...

Wanted: Adaptive Encouragement

It’s that time of year again. The global holiday of January 1, and with it, the annual ritual of self-improvement: setting New Year’s resolutions. ...

Avoiding Short-Term Thinking In A World of Big Data

My latest piece for Fast Company's

Replacement parts: “We can rebuild him, we have the technology”

Regenerative medicine will replace, restore, maintain, or enhance tissue and organ functions, dramatically improving patients’ health and quality of...

IFTF at 2011 World Business Forum in New York

On October 5, 2011 Marina led a session at the World Business Forum in New York, an annual two-day conference that brings together executives and...

Using Regenerative Medicine to Preview Biological Responses

At IFTF, we're always looking for new tools to better understand future possibilities--and our 2010 Science, Technology and Well-Being map highlighted...

Understanding Fitness Deserts

A couple months ago, Good had a great feature about the idea of a fitness desert--essentially, a place where, due to some combination of environmental...

Anticipatory Quarantines

It’s exciting to think of the world as a highly connectedplace, where people, goods, and ideas spread easily and freely to the larger global...

Science Hack Day SF

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Automated Nourishment

Last year, when we created our Map on the Future of Science and Technology and Well-Being, we were looking for convergences. What experimental, and...

An Urban Future

On Thursday November 17, we hosted a group of urban and regional planners from the California Silicon Valley APA to discuss futures thinking, city...

Your World Redefined - the Serious Business of Augmented Reality

IFTF's Mike Liebhold is featured in the Ericsson's Business Review cover story on the transformative world of augmented reality. The dreams of sci-fi...

Biosocial Networks

My colleague Jake Dunagan and I are going to be contributing occasional pieces to Fast company's new Co Exist site. My first piece, on Biosocial...

Smart Places and Objects for Health

Staying healthy can be a lot of work, whether it means remembering to take your meds, keeping track of how much pie you're eating or figuring out how...

Investing in Local Communities to Improve Health

The New England Journal of Medicine has a fascinating study examining the effects of a low-income housing program impacted participants' health--the...