Institute For The Future

Clothes Are The New Health Product

A few years ago, I happened upon an article that essentially argues that the more wealth in a country, the more comparative value health has--which,...

No Logo: A New Strategy for Health?

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Gaming Religion

In 2011, the Game Design Challenge at GDC was to design a game that also serves as a religion.  Yesterday, the full recording of the session was...

The Importance of an Everlasting Sandwich

I have to admit, I kind of scoffed when I read the following headline: “Gas-Flushed Sandwiches Stay Fresh for Two Weeks.” The corresponding article...

Shop Class, Makers, and The Future of Education in California

Imagine taking a class in high school where you can create a tool for eating your favorite food. Maybe you want a special set of chopsticks to eat...

Anticipating Emergencies

I'm surprised that BabyBeat an algorithmic- and sensor-driven system for detecting and preventing sudden infant death hasn't gained more attention....

Week Four for the Interns

This week marked the transition from IFTF-guided instruction to intern-driven innovation.  So naturally we had some great moments and some troublesome...

Kenya Youth Scenarios, a personal perspective

Last June I had the pleasure of facilitating the Eastern province Kenya Youth Scenarios workshop on behalf of Institute of Economic Affair’s (IEA)...

Collaborative Drawing Games and the Future of California

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Games of Improvisation and Bodystorming for the Future of California

We have the questions, we know the answers and Specimens for Improvisation are two games about the future of California that I have been developing...

Envisioning the Future of Drugs in San Francisco

This past week we interns each built a prototype for a game to engage with the future.  We considered this task to be a smaller version of the final...

How Climate Change Could Impact Health and Well-Being

Via I came across this study highlighting some of the ways in which climate change will impact health and well-being. The study, from University of...

Week 1: Interns get hacking

For 24 hours starting on June 23 at 2:00pm, we IFTF interns racked our brains for a small "Hack Day". IFTF affiliate Ariel Waldman had briefed us with...

Karim Ahmad introduces Future States

On Tuesday, David Evan Harris hosted a visit from Karim Ahmad of ITVS to share his work on FUTURESTATES, an online series of short films - each made...

Interns Week 1: A crash course in futures thinking

During the first week of our summer internship program, the members of IFTF organized a series of talks and activities, presenting the history,...

IFTF Summer interns arrive

On Monday we welcomed 5 new faces to join IFTF for a six week summer intern program. [img_assist|nid=3890|title=|desc=Left to right: Nicolas, Dan,...

Bob Burton visits IFTF

Author & neurologist Robert Burton visited IFTF today and treated us to a conversation building from the principles of his book, On Being Certain:...

Reputation, Trash and the Future of Choices

A couple weeks ago, Google released a new dashboard service that lets people know when they have been mentioned, for better or worse, by someone else...

The Future of Just-In-Time Response

One of my favorite presentations at our recent Health Horizons conference came from the Chief of the San Ramon, California Fire Department, Richard...

What Social Structures Improve Well-Being?

One of the topics we'll be exploring at our Health Horizons conference this week involves how emerging sharing practices are creating new strategies...

Don't Stand By Your Man

“When not feeling sorry for Maria Shriver or the wife of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Anne Sinclair, I want to scream: Don't stand by your man no matter...

Blue Mind: A look at the ocean through the field of neuroscience

"We are more than logical. We are human." Jacques Cousteau.Why do books and symposia about the human brain, the most complex object in the universe,...

The Microwork Behind Assistive Technologies

There's a lot to like about a University of Rochester project known as VizWiz, highlighted in the New Scientist a couple of weeks ago. Designed to...

Is our future all sunny?

Last week, I mentioned that we're hosting a workshop:  Reinventing Our Energy Futures.  Yesterday, we kicked things off with a keynote speech by Tony...