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"On June 3, Brundtland held a keynote speech at Fudan University for the 15th anniversary of the joint BI-Fudan MBA program. Other speakers at the event included Dag Morten Dalen, Senior Vice President of BI, Lu Xiongwen, Dean of the Fudan School of Management, Professor Torger Reve, and Paul Utvik, an alumni of the BI-Fudan MBA Program. In her speech, Brundtland recognized China's importance as a collaborator in the global fight against climate change, and the challenges faced by the country in its efforts to balance economic growth with sustainable development. Citing former World Bank economist David Wheeler, she stated that China is one of the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, like extreme weather. Brundtland said that the question is not if China should grow, but rather how it should grow, and that the advances made by China in green technology put it on the right track for making sustainable prosperity a reality. "

Someone else doing crowd foresight... "Strong demand for Ross's expertise has seen him deliver keynote speeches across six continents and consult to leading organizations worldwide such as Ernst & Young, Macquarie Bank, Microsoft, News Corporation, Procter & Gamble and many others."

"Foundation For the Future launches its fifteenth year of operation with exciting plans for an extension of emphasis on the study of the relationship between the human genome and society. Our mission of increasing and diffusing knowledge will also mean sponsoring lecturers to bring to the public, free-of-charge, direct access to expert information on topics that impact humanity. And a "Humanity 3000" seminar will again bring together a roster of leading thinkers from multiple disciplines to discuss the critical issues that have emerged in recent years for our species and Planet Earth."

" More than half the people on Earth now live in cities, so they'll be where we have to face our changing weather patterns. The most prepared cities are finding ways to keep citizens safe--and make them money. "

"UNITED NATIONS, Jun 2, 2011 (IPS) - As the world continues to marvel at the widespread progress in modern technology and home electronics, there are still about 2.5 billion people - out of a global population of nearly 6.9 billion - who have little or no access to electricity."

"At the 2010 AAM Annual Meeting, the Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) invited the Pinky Show to interview attendees about their visions of the future. This video presents clips from those interviews, edited by CFM. Stay tuned for an official Pinky Show presentation! Visit www.PinkyShow.org to read the cats' report on their expedition to museums of the future."

"AAM's Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) helps museums explore the cultural, political and economic challenges facing society and devise strategies to shape a better tomorrow. CFM is a think-tank and research and design lab for fostering creativity and helping museums transcend traditional boundaries to serve society in new ways."

What were current consumer confidence readings? It would take weeks or months to find out, and even then only selected countries would be reported on.I kept asking myself, what is the point of having a forward indicator when it takes so long to get the data?Remember that consumer confidence is not drawn from government data that needs to be tallied in highly secure data rooms.It is just an aggregation of our views Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/crowdsourcing-the-future-introducing-global-real-time-consumer-confidence-tracking-2011-5?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+businessinsider+%28Business+Insider%29#ixzz1NtezvKXE

"The World Economics Association (WEA) was launched on May 16, 2011. It fills a gap in the international community of economists -- the absence of a professional organization which is truly international and pluralist. The American Economic Association and other nationally based organizations provide broad associations mainly for their country's economists. The WEA will do the same for the world's community of economists, while promoting a pluralism of approaches to economic analysis."

"IRVINE, Calif. - Scientists have been using small variations in the Earth's gravity to identify trouble spots around the globe where people are making unsustainable demands on groundwater, one of the planet's main sources of fresh water. "

The Gov 2.0 movement continues to gain momentum around the world with a number of inspiring people, projects & ideas rising to prominence over the last year or so. Sometimes the most important innovations emerge from the periphery where creative citizens take a "do it first, ask for permission later" approach that can generate a wealth of benefits for the entire global community. So here's my pick of the world's best Gov 2.0 initiatives. What are your favourites?

"China's top legislator Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) Wu Bangguo met today with his Maldivian counterpart, Speaker of the Majlis and Dhivehi Rayyithunge Party (DRP) MP Abdulla Shahid."

The baby bust, the big tilt, whatever you want to call this bold new demographic world, it is like nothing we have experienced before. It works silently, eating away at the consumer and the tax base just as it worked for the consumer and the tax base over the past 60 years: more babies and more young migrants pumped up the worker base. But at some point it all comes crashing down. And that point is upon us or at least will be upon us in the coming decade. And it's not just Australia where the demography tilts in favour of the retirement age group. The working-age population in Japan has contracted from 87 million in 1994 to 81 million in 2010; over the previous 16 years the working-age population had expanded by nine million. Which period delivered greatest prosperity to the Japanese people?

"Join world-renowned futurist Lynne Franks for a pathbreaking 5-part online course that explores how a feminine approach to the future can create social unity within cultural diversity. For this course, Lynne has gathered four extraordinary women leaders from the world of media, education, business and spirituality - women who are helping to move us forward into a future we want: Gabrielle Roth, Hazel Henderson, Denise Linn, and Jayanti Kirpalani. Starts June 19. Catch the early bird special until June 7."

"(ISNS)-With Arctic ice receding at an unprecedented pace due to global warming, many nations seem far more interested in carving up the newly exposed resources than doing something to slow climate change, according to documents released by WikiLeaks."

"HONOLULU, Hawaii, U.S., May 26, 2011 (IPS) - For the past quarter century, the United States' relations with Pacific island nations were framed by the South Pacific Tuna Treaty, which combines foreign aid, subsidies to the U.S. fleet of purse-seine fishing vessels and their largely unfettered access to the islands' waters, which contain the world's last major stocks of tuna."

"Resonant City is an interdisciplinary writing and research collaborative exploring the intersections of art, architecture, technology, the immediate past, enduring present, and possible futures. In the course of our explorations we hope to illuminate a subtle yet critical discourse underlying the construction of nature, landscape, the city, and cultural modes of production. We write anonymously because it is not a single author that is important, but rather ideas."

"Thousands of museum professionals gathered Sunday in Houston to mull their futures and contemplate ways to recast their missions and audiences. Participants at the American Association of Museums' annual conference pondered possibilities that included a multiple-voucher system in which museums compete to meet certain components of a public school child's education. They even discussed a "Facebook update from hell" that would simultaneously publish everyone's personal data - including information museums have gathered in order to personalize visitor experiences."

"Global Foresight Associates is a futures research and consulting firm that offers ideas and insights about the future to help our clients determine the strategic implications of change for their business and industry. Our uninhibited thinking offers a unique perspective - a big picture view of the future that explores the current trends and emerging issues reverberating throughout society and business. This view from the "outside in" helps clients innovate existing products, identify new areas and markets for growth and explore the possible, probable and preferable futures for their business."