Institute For The Future

Oct 5-6 Convening: Positive Platforms for a Workable Future

Technology is fundamentally reshaping the way we work, the way we think about jobs and labor, and, the way we organize to get things done in everyday...

Meeting My Brain

It’s 7pm on a Friday in August. I’m waiting with nervous anticipation to receive a really interesting introduction. I’m about to meet my own brain,...

Join us on October 21-22 for the New Body Language

On October 21-22, IFTF’s Technology Horizons Program will host its fall conference: The New Body Language: the Future of Wearables, Wireless, and Body...

Help IFTF #futurify SXSWedu!

Institute for the Future and ACT Foundation are teaming up and we need your vote TODAY on PanelPicker for Future Work Skills + Towards a National...

Café Hyène: A Speculative Dining Experience in 2025

Welcome to Café Hyène, a speculative dining experience that debuted at IFTF's 2015 Ten-Year Forecast retreat. What happens when food waste, the...

The Purple Transformation: A Human+Machine Futures Scenario

The year is 2025. Those weird headsets you saw your favorite pro basketball team wear ... [This is the final scenario in a series of four about...

News from the Future: Aug 2015 Newsletter

As we grapple with the future of an on-demand global workforce, all of us need to engage in envisioning positive platforms that ensure a workable...

IFTF Mentor Minds: USA Pavilion Series on Innovation

IFTF's network of practical visionaries and futures thinkers is shaping the global conversation about food innovation with the USA Pavilion at Expo...

From #10YF2015: The Microbial Future

IFTF's Food Futures Lab investigated how breakthroughs in microbiology might transform the future of health, food, and even retail for the 2015...

IFTF and the U.S. Department of Labor: Imagining a Bright Future of Work for All

There’s a lot of talk about rapid technology-enabled changes in the nature of work. In July 2015, IFTF's Workable Futures Initiative met with the U.S....

Innovation Is Happening Faster Than We Can Adapt

[Reposted from The New York Times] The changes coming out of Silicon Valley are fundamentally transforming our institutional, social and cultural...

Futures at Build Peace 2015

To help build a vision for a post-conflict world, we’ve begun mapping emerging alternative structures of equality and inclusion. We’re tracking four...

The Green Connection: A Human+Machine Futures Scenario

You shake hands with an old friend and sit down for lunch in the cafe. It is so good to see them ... [This is the third in a series of four scenarios...

Rethinking Care Models in the Post-ACA Decade

Boundaries are important. In health, meaningful boundaries protect personal health information, ensure patient and product safety, and, in many cases,...

Navigating Tradition and Innovation for the Future of Food

On June 22, a team of IFTF researchers traveled from Silicon Valley to Italy to launch our 2015 research on the ingredients for food innovation. What...

Exploring a Decade of Fragmentation + Opportunity with Ten-Year Forecast

Each spring, we host the annual Ten-Year Forecast retreat, a multi-day event where thought leaders and strategists from nearly every sector and...

So you want to be a food futurist?

Want to be a food futurist? Help the IFTF Food Futures Lab map the innovations and forces of change that will make a resilient, equitable, and...

The Red Competition: A Human+Machine Futures Scenario

"Mmm ... this feels good," Andrew murmured inaudibly. Throngs of adoring fans were hanging on his every word ... [This is the second in a series of...

How We’ll Build a Workable Future

With the support of a grant from the Knight Foundation, IFTF is launching the Workable Futures Initiative to bring together policy makers and platform...

Food Futures Lab launches research at Expo Milano

From California's Bay Area to Emilia-Romagna, Italy, epicenters in our global food system integrate their unique entrepreneurial and food cultures...

Future of International Development: Process not Outcome

Until we can design our process for social change so that they reflect our desired outcomes—equal access and voice, open and shared dialogue, power...

It's not about Uber: Beyond the W-2 vs. 1099 debate

The recent ruling by the California Labor Commission that an Uber driver should be classified as a W-2 employee, not an independent contractor,...

Explore the Automated World with us June 16-17

Join IFTF's Tech Horizons program June 16-17 as we explore a future where everyday people, organizations, and cities use previously-unimagined machine...

The Future of Work at Skoll World Forum 2015

At the Skoll World Forum on April 15, IFTF's Bettina Warburg planned a session bent on bringing together technological and societal perspectives on...