Recent Publications
This set of Health Horizons forecast perspectives offers a view of six key areas of experimentation that operate across the scales of bodies, networks, and environments. These experiments emerge as responses to six key questions shaping health and well-being.
Why Time Matters by Kathi Vian
New research into our bodies’internal clocks is revealing that personal timing mechanisms shape the effects...
The 2011 Map of the Decade (PDF) is all about balancing acts. From the strategic balances at the bottom to the resilient households at the top, it is both a snapshot of the decade ahead and a guide to the task of rebalancing the world. It’s a starting place for exploring the social innovations that will create an entirely new strategic toolkit for addressing the world’s imbalances while...
Global connectivity, smart machines, and new media are just some of the drivers reshaping how we think about work, what constitutes work, and the skills we will need to be productive contributors in the future. This report analyzes key drivers that will reshape the landscape of work and identifies key work skills needed in the next 10 years. It does not consider what will be the...
When imagining the future, we often assume things will keep moving in the direction they have been in the recent past. In the global food web, this means we would see continued growth in global efforts to streamline the way food is bought, prepared, and consumed, and the spread of novel food products. At the same time, food-related health problems such as diabetes and heart disease would persist...
We are pleased to publicly release the 2010 Ten-Year Forecast (TYF) research material, The Future is a High-Resolution Game.
This next decade will be one where we become both the gamers and the creators of the game itself. The goals of the game are clear: Happiness—what we really want out of life; Resilience—a way to respond better, adapt more quickly, and find steadiness amidst perturbation;...
The Workforce Board of the North Valley Job Training Consortium (NOVA) sponsored an IFTF forecast on the workforce of the future. IFTF Research Director Rachel Maguire outlines critical health and health care trends that will affect the health care labor market in the next decade. Leveraging IFTF's previous research on emerging trends in health care and information technologies, the...
In 2010, we at the Institute for the Future discussed a vision to create a contest that would ask people to enter and vote for ideas on how to transform our bodies and lifestyles for future health—a topic closely related to IFTF’s Health Horizons research.
The result was the BodyShock The Future competition that was held at www.bodyshockthefuture.org. Over 100 entries were...
Throughout 2010, IFTF systematically researched and synthesized this view of the future of robotics. We distilled all of that information in the materials now at the tips of your fingers, or perhaps your gripper. Delve into these ten domain papers analyzing where we think the largest transformations are imminent and the impact will be greatest. In each domain, we consider how machines may...
