Library
Jan 20, 2012
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...
Dec 12, 2011
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...
Dec 07, 2011
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...
Apr 05, 2011
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...
Apr 01, 2011
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;...
Feb 10, 2011
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...
Jan 07, 2011
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...
Dec 03, 2010
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...
Nov 29, 2010
Building on our Map of the Future of Science, Technology, and Well-Being, this series of forecasts explores in greater depth resources for expanding our capacities for well-being. The overview, Building Capacities for Well-Being, presents a framework for thinking strategically about responding to the challenge of transforming bodies and lifestyles.
Embedded Health...
Nov 28, 2010
Our 2010 Artifacts from the Future are new, thought-provoking visual representations of possible responses to the challenge of transforming bodies and lifestyles. These artifacts offer plausible depictions of health interventions at the scale of bodies, networks, and environments that will enhance our capacity for well-being. You will be able to use these artifacts to jump-start strategic...
Nov 25, 2010
Transforming bodies and lifestyles is a complex challenge facing global health over the next decade: the impacts of the burden of chronic diseases, an aging population, and steep social expectations for healthy lifestyles create an area ripe for innovative responses. The goal is larger than achieving health: it is building well-being. Sickness and well-being are not just opposites; they will co-...
Nov 16, 2010
In the next decade, we will share our offices, hospitals, schools, battlefields, nursing homes, and homes with a new breed of companion. A robot renaissance is underway.After decades of hype, false starts, and few successes, smart machines are finally ready for prime time. As part of its 2010 research, IFTF's Technology Horizons program has created the Robot Renaissance: the...
Nov 16, 2010
We're pleased to release the Technology Horizons' Mind in a Designed World report, examining the emerging applications of neuroscience research and its significance to both individuals and organizations. We are expanding our understanding of the mind, and this new understanding will lead us to re-design the world. Mental processes once thought to be contained in the head are now seen spilling out...
Sep 02, 2010
We're pleased to release IFTF's Future of Persuasion report (PDF). This report journeys through the future of persuasion, looking at “forces of persuasion”—the core drivers of change in how we will both 1) be persuaded, and 2) persuade others—along with related strategies for designing more persuasive experiences and defending against unwanted kinds of persuasion. Our report also explores...
Sep 01, 2010
IFTF is pleased to announce the public release of the Technology Horizons Program’s 2009 publication, The Future of Video: Becoming People of the Screen. The report provides a deep exploration into our research on the future of video as a new medium for entertainment, information, and communication. As video becomes increasingly ubiquitous, we will all soon become people of the screen. ...
Aug 20, 2010
The future is a high-resolution game. Never before has humanity been able to explore the emerging landscape in such detail, to measure the forces of change at such vast scales, and to fill in the details with such fine grain. But this high-resolution grid is not complete. It challenges us to envision and build the future we want. As both gamers and creators of the game, we will fill in the...
Jul 27, 2010
At each stage of human evolution we have used the tools and knowledge of the day in our efforts to achieve control of our bodies, our minds, and our surroundings. Now on the horizon are new kinds of tools for programming our world, from the micro to the macro-scale, from our minds and bodies to our cities and ecosystems.
The When Everything is Programmable Technology and Forecast Deck is a tool...
Jun 24, 2010
Science and technology (S&T) are always advancing. But what will matter over the next decade is how technical abilities and scientific perspectives converge to fight illness and build well-being. This ten-year forecast map, The Future of Science, Technology, and Well-being, explores exciting convergences that are shaping how we respond to health challenges in powerful ways by opening up new...
Apr 28, 2010
[Conferenece PPTs with their scripts] The 2009 Ten-Year Forecast Annual Retreat, "Superstructing the Next Decade," took place in historic Cavallo Point in Sausalito, CA on April 20-21, 2009. Materials from this meeting are available for download, including:OverviewThe Future is our chance to be new. This
year’s TYF research delves into issues from a collapsing economy paving
the way for new kinds...
Mar 30, 2010
Food sustains and nourishes us, and it also increasingly connects us to a global food web that is intertwined with politics, economics, environmental concerns, culture, and science. This global food web is undergoing rapid change, presenting considerable challenges and significant opportunities. Every one of the six broad areas of activity in the food system—agriculture and stewardship,...
Mar 24, 2010
In recent years, rising obesity rates, a crushing disease burden, and the direct impact of what we eat on our health has moved food to the forefront of health discourse. Food nourishes and sustains us, but it also impacts our health, environment, and politics in critical ways. We are pleased to announce the public release of IFTF's 2007 map of The Future of Foodscapes, which explores the major...
Feb 19, 2010
In 2009, the Health Horizons Program undertook a year-long examination of the future of health and health care. We started our journey with the
HC2020 Signals & Forecasts
Map (SR-1231), which highlights some of the pressing challenges facing health and health care, along with key response strategies likely to shape the direction of change over the next ten years.
The HC2020 Perspectives (...
Feb 18, 2010
A Map for the Programmable World
The map created for our Technology Horizons Fall conference in 2009, When Everything is Programmable is now available to you!
Millennia ago, young couples in Egypt prayed to fertility gods with the hope of receiving the gift of a child. Much later, Native Americans performed ceremonial dances to pray for rain and a bountiful harvest. In the middle of the 19th...
Feb 11, 2010
As a part of the year-long Technology Horizons Program research task, When Everything is Progammable: Life in a Conmputational Age, the research team created a digital story—a scenario of of the future—in three parts to accompany the research released for the 2009 Fall Exchange. The story follows "Omar"—a doctor working at Seattle Grace in about 2019—as he moves through his day and interacts...
Feb 02, 2010
Millennia ago, young couples in Egypt prayed to fertility gods with the hope of receiving the gift of a child. Much later, Native Americans performed ceremonial dances to pray for rain and a bountiful harvest. In the middle of the 19th century, the Central European monk Gregor Mendel selectively crossbred pea plants to control the characteristics of their offspring. While the approaches differ,...
Jan 26, 2010
Welcome to the interactive online version of the Food Web 2020 Map.
Food sustains and nourishes us, but it also increasingly connects us to a global food web that is intertwined with politics, economics, environmental concerns, culture, and science. This global food web is undergoing rapid change, presenting considerable challenges and significant opportunities. Every one of the six broad areas...
Jan 20, 2010
What is the future of real-time video communication and what will it feel like to live and work in a world where real-time video is ubiquitous?
Skype commissioned IFTF to research and start a conversation about this question and much more in this newly-released report.
Video technologies are improving dramatically and rapidly, supporting mobile and ubiquitous real-time video experiences. Low cost...
Jan 15, 2010
Just a few years ago, launching an Internet startup typically entailed making the rounds on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, pitching venture capitalists an idea and a business plan illustrated by a handful of slides. Today, PowerPoint decks are replaced by working prototypes and the business plans by waiting lists for beta test accounts. Even the venture capitalists are...
Jan 04, 2010
Green Health is emerging from the convergence of the global health economy and the growing public recognition of the imperative for global sustainability. This convergence is visible in the two distinct ways in which our concept of “health” has expanded. We are managing, preserving, andenhancing our health in ways that include underlying causes of well-being andthe interrelated systems of our...
Dec 08, 2009
Sustainability Outlook is a forward‐thinking project that explores how changing social, cultural and technological conditions are likely to alter the ways that companies integrate sustainability into their business strategies.Jointly sponsored by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Institute for the Future (IFTF), this ongoing project combines IFTF’s methodologies for forecasting...
Dec 01, 2009
"Food is our common ground, a universal experience." —James Beard
We all eat. It's not just that we all eat, but everything we do leads back to food. Food systems are integral to our society and the feedback-laden changes we see building on one another will shape our collective future.
Over the past 60 years, we have seen radical transformations in our food system that have leveraged more...
Sep 15, 2009
Remember the feeling of going into a darkened theater and losing yourself in another world. The overhead lights darken; you settle into your seat; the projector begins to whirr; and on the screen, a new reality flickers to life. All you're aware of is the world on the screen, the world of the screen. Finally the credits roll. The lights come up. The world ebbs back into your consciousness....
Aug 24, 2009
What is Signtific?
The Signtific Project is designed to engage the global scientific community in anticipating the most important innovations and disruptions in science and technology—and understanding their implications for the future of science and of society at large. It stands at the leading edge of several trends that will reshape the practice of science over the next few decades:
• It...
Jun 30, 2009
Health Brands:
What?
The convergence of health and entertainment evolves into anew market category that creates novel opportunities for consumer electronics,retail, travel, and the media industries. New and well-established brands position themselves toward health as consumers look for an explicit link between market offerings and their personal health.
So What?
What brands emerge around...
Jun 11, 2009
The Health Horizons Program has been mapping the landscape of challenges and responses for health and health care in 2020. We have been looking ahead over the next decade because the future of health and health care seems more uncertain then ever before.
We ask ourselves questions such as the following:
What if demands for sustainability require achieving healthy outcomes without harming the...
Jun 01, 2009
On June 2, Anthony Townsend presented IFTF's forecast on the future of technology-led economic development to over 800 attendees at the International Association of Science Parks' World Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.
This study is the culmination of an 18-month joint research project with the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, which oversees the development of Research...
May 26, 2009
Mobile health is emerging at the intersection of dynamic changes in mobility patterns, healthcare delivery, and new mobile technologies and networks. New technologies and the services they enable will be just one piece of a larger strategy forengaging consumers anywhere, anytime. Ultimately, mobile health will create more distributed health care systems that will move from an episodic to...
May 08, 2009
Many influential investors, seeking improved ways of detecting
undervalued companies, have identified intangible assets as the
ultimate creators of future value. New tools have emerged for
quantifying these alternative capitals. Think about the increase in
companies incorporating corporate social responsibility (CSR) metrics
into their public communications. Natural and social catastrophes will...
