Institute For The Future

Artifact from the Future: Give Some Spit, Get a Free Ride

You’re immune to impulse buys at check-out, but this one is different—a local ‘stress map’ of San Francisco built from epigenetic...

Open Medicine and the Future of Patient Engagement

Health Horizons was a media partner for the 2014 Personalized Medicine World Conference, January 27-28. We spoke with Dr. Kogelnik before the...

4 capabilities of a SynchroniCity

You can think of a SynchroniCity as the ultimate Maker Cities, with rapid fabrication, on-demand delivery, a micro-economy of location-based gigs, and...

Our favorite ideas from day 1 of Maker Cities: SynchroniCity!

We’re thrilled so many players joined for the launch Maker Cities yesterday and the first weekly challenge, called SynchroniCity. The game is off to a...

Artifact from the Future: The Cost Of Water

What if we just can’t break our water habit in California? What if climate change cuts down the Sierra snowpack by end of century?...

A Future of Personalized Depression Treatment

Health Horizons researchers will be attending the 2014 Personalized Medicine World Conference here in Silicon Valley, January 27-28. In the run-up to...

Welcome to the SynchroniCity

IFTF's Maker Cities online game officially launches with the first challenge, SynchroniCity. Play the game. Remake the world in the SynchroniCity....

Makers Will Create the Future of Cities

Yesterday, I came across Makers Create the Future, Mark Kleszczewski's article about the emerging maker movement on Business Xpansion Journal. His...

Artifact from the Future: Keep Calm & Capture Carbon

Thanks to air-scrubbing trees and other carbon capture tech, Planet Earth is on track to hit carbon emission...

Artifact from the Future: Feral Zones

Some places just aren’t safe to drive—and your insurance company knows it. What’s more, it can warn you as you enter feral zones where it simply won’t...

Socialstructing empathy and human experience

IFTF is a proud presenting sponsor of the Global Lives Project's newest series, Lives in Transit, which documents a day in the life of 10 transit...

Download and Play 'Sneaky Cards'

In 2009, we partnered with Boing Boing and Sun Microsystems to hold Digital Open, an online tech expo for teens 17 and under around the world....

Artifact from the Future: FuturU

As we step into the new year, many of us will be making resolutions that reflect our hopes and aspirations. It can be challenging to imagine how much...

Artifact from the Future: Mindwriter

More and more platforms claiming copyright ownership for any thoughts you share via mindshare...

Reaching for the Stars with Jose M. Hernandez

Serendipity seems to be a way of life at the Institute for the Future. On a flight back from visiting one of IFTF's Future for Good Fellows in Mexico...

Artifact from the Future: Global Health Heroes

Health Heroes translate technology breakthroughs into new capabilities and new professions, and pioneer new models of clinical...

UN: GMOs and Monocrops Can't Save Us

The UN has come out and said it—small-scale, diversified, organic farming is the only way to sustainably feed the world. Forget about GMOs. Forget...

Artifact from the Future: Apples Awake

Pharmaceuticals escape the pharmacy and find their way into fruitbaskets and veggie bins—all part of a long-term “normalization” of...

THINK&ACT at Parisoma

There has never been a better time to be a civic participant or a maker in governance. On Friday, December 6, IFTF researcher Bettina Warburg...

Artifact from the Future: Sharing with Drones

What if there was a database of every object in the world, and you could rent anything from anybody at any...

Artifact from the Future: Smart Shopping Cart

What if important health information were delivered through multi-sensory processes, so that you not only relied on visual cues to make health...

Artifact from the Future: A Machine that Prints Your Daily Nutrition

What if self-care practices did not entail engagement, willpower, and attention? Through a quick body screen and a syncing up of your...

IFTF + Food Hackathon: Alternative Scenarios for Food

Technology is remaking the future of food, with innovation seeding disruption from production to distribution to eating. These new technologies are...

Artifact from the Future: Public Health Automation

In 2032, the role of public health surveillance expands from monitoring and collecting data to creating actuating systems that can respond proactively...