Services 2020

What will international science be like in 20 years? Speakers in this session organised by International Council for Science (ICSU) tried to depict the future, basing their predictions on the strategic plan of the ICSU for 2012-2017, and many foreseeable economic, social, political and environmental events.

About the ProjectThe Future We Want (FWW) is a global initiative to envision what we want our lives and communities to be like 20 years from now. Gathering Promising IdeasUsing everything from modern technologies like the web and social media to traditional grassroots communication we intend to reach people on a worldwide scale. We will ask everyone, at every level of society, to submit their visions for a positive future. From solutions addressing poverty and injustice to strategies for creating sustainable and environmentally responsible communities, we will gather ideas internationally. But we won't stop here.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- The Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) has announced the results of its Pro-Poor Scenarios Competition, a global contest that invited policymakers, futurists, academics and active citizens around the world to develop scenarios that apply foresight methods to expand social and economic opportunities for poor and marginalized populations.

The Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) has announced the results of its Pro-Poor Scenarios Competition, a global contest that invited policy‐makers, futurists, academics and active citizens around the world to develop scenarios that apply foresight methods to expand social and economic opportunities for poor and marginalized populations.

"It is reasonable to project that in a mere five years, a protest like Occupy Wall Street wouldn't be possible. Here's a scenario to get your head around how things will change due to the introduction of bots..."

…retail commercial activity within resilient communities will be growing and in some cases exceeding the activity seen before the depression. The reason?  The effort these communities made in building locally viable open markets that promoted the wares of local producers.  

DataSift offers the most powerful and sophisticated tools for extracting value from Social Data. The amount that Internet users are creating and sharing through Social Media is exploding. DataSift offers the best tools for collecting, filtering and analysing this data. Social Data is more complicated to process and analyse because it is unstructured. DataSift's platform has been built specifically to process large amounts of this unstructured data and derive value from it.

Forget doing the paper run - or mowing lawns - kids as young as 12 are making a motza from apps and showing the older generation how it's done.

In computing, ambient intelligence (AmI) refers to electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people. Ambient intelligence is a vision on the future of consumer electronics, telecommunications and computing that was originally developed in the late 1990s for the time frame 2010-2020. In an ambient intelligence world, devices work in concert to support people in carrying out their everyday life activities, tasks and rituals in easy, natural way using information and intelligence that is hidden in the network connecting these devices (see Internet of Things). As these devices grow smaller, more connected and more integrated into our environment, the technology disappears into our surroundings until only the user interface remains perceivable by users.

As he approaches the end of his tenure as president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, Björn Stigson says China is embracing the green economy and leaving the West behind

Rapid change and increasingly complex operating environments create challenges beyond the reach of traditional responses. IFF's response generates new possibilities for more effective action and the capacity to realise them in practice. Practical hope and wise initiative. International Futures Forum has established Praxis Centres to make this capacity available to diverse clients, partners and challenging circumstances. IFF Praxis Ltd is based in Scotland, UK. IFF US is based in San Francisco, California. Other praxis centres are planned elsewhere in the world, in response to demand. The following pages explore what working with IFF can offer in practice. We look forward to hearing from you.

Outsights is a strategic futures consultancy helping clients to anticipate, interpret and act upon important developments in the external world....and they have a pretty web site..

Wikiprogress is a global platform for sharing information in order to evaluate societal progress. It is a place to find information and statistics to facilitate the exchange of ideas, initiatives and knowledge on "measuring the progress of societies". It is open to all members and communities for contribution - students and researchers, civil society organisations, governmental and intergovernmental organisations, multilateral institutions, businesses, statistical offices, community organisations and individuals - anyone who has an interest in the concept of "progress".

The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40.

How can you tell fact from fiction on the Internet? Join Truthsquad, a community fact-checking experiment led by NewsTrust, in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity. Together, we are developing a pro-am network to fact-check political claims during the 2012 elections - and aim to extend this small pilot site into a daily service by early 2012. By combining the Center's newsroom of investigative journalists with our moderated crowd-sourcing service and contributions from our partners, we hope to provide daily fact-checks, as well as engage visitors as active participants to verify controversial claims.

in 25 years...a collaborative time capsule

Advocacy and Research for unlimited lifespans

Foresight projects are in-depth studies looking at major issues 20-80 years in the future. Recent examples include Tackling Obesities, Future Flooding and Mental Capital and Wellbeing. Foresight uses the latest scientific evidence and futures analysis to tackle complex issues and provide strategic options for policy

"Based on the current situation we have projected changes in the sea level 500 years into the future," says Aslak Grinsted, a researcher at the Centre for Ice and Climate, the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. His group forms part of a team that has calculated the long-term outlook for rising sea levels in relations to the emission of greenhouse gases and pollution of the atmosphere.

The Association of Professional Futurists (APF) is holding an 18-hour "follow the sun" virtual conference starting in Europe the morning of October 26, crossing the Americas, and finishing in Australia 18 hours later.