Institute For The Future

Meet the Inaugural "Future for Good" Fellows!

IFTF is proud to welcome six global thinkers for our first Future for Good Fellowship Program, a four-month partnership to bring together futures...

Jake Dunagan: Who is the Internet Human and what is the Human Internet?

For most of its history, using the Internet has involved conforming and contorting to the logic, architecture, and input/output mechanisms of machine...

A Look into the Future: Well-Being and Abundant Data

On May 21, we are partnering with Health 2.0 and the Foundation for Healthcare Innovation for the inaugural Healthy Communities Data Summit, which...

Keep the Future Weird: The Age of Networked Matter

On May 16-17, our Technology Horizons Program will embark on a journey through three future time horizons— past the present era of Abundant Data,...

Stealing the Future at the Cavallo Maneuver

On April 11-12, IFTF’s Ten-Year Forecast program hosted the Cavallo Maneuver—an experiment in alternate reality games and augmented reality spaces....

Gov Futures Lab hosts ReConCon

From fiscal cliffhangers and precarious political unions to regulatory capture and endemic corruption, it’s difficult to find almost anyone these days...

io9: One of the first religions inspired by the Internet

I had a fun correspondence with new friend and neighbor, Annalee Newitz, about Kopimism, my favorite new religion. My pontifications made it into into...

TEDMEDLive 2013: Making the Future of Health

TEDMED 2013 reached an unprecedented audience of over 200,000 people with live simulcasts in 2,700 locations in 81 countries. On April 17, Institute...

Hi Keek: kids, social media, and video futures

If you're interested in how young people live, what they're doing with their mobiles, and evolving social conventions around video communication, sign...

Social Inventors Wanted!

We need a new generation of Social Inventors to meet the challenge of governance in the Anthropocene Epoch. We need...

The Coming Age of Networked Matter

Today, we live in a highly networked world. An astounding array of everyday objects—from food to furniture, buildings to bodies, cars to cities—are...

Where will we see the first Universal Design cities?

This year’s Health Horizons research focuses on shifting authorities in the well-being space and here on the blog, we’ve been looking, in particular,...

The Coming Age of Networked Matter - Expert Workshop

We’re at the beginning of a reignited revolution in networked computers as more of the physical world starts to come online. Think far beyond the...

Global Food Outlook Virtual Exchange: Food Safety

How can we ensure food safety in an increasingly complex, connected global food web? What new food safety opportunities and vulnerabilities will...

Don't Overestimate MOOCs

The buzz about MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) in the media and education space is understandable but overrated. Through much of our research on...

The Coming Age of Networked Matter

We’re at the beginning of a reignited revolution in networked computers as more of the physical world starts to come online. Think far beyond the...

Checking-in to Well-being

The idea that place matters to our health is gaining increasing traction in the U.S. As part of this year's Health Horizons research, we'll be looking...

Shanzhai: An Open Platform for Innovation at SXSW

Did you ever stop to wonder how the whole world has been flooded with cheap Chinese knock-offs? From fake designer purses and Rolexes to counterfeit...

What a New Measure of Sensitivity Suggests about Future Health Interventions

Alix Spigel had a typically fascinating story on NPR examining new research exploring whether being especially sensitive to environmental influences...

Are Artists the Future of Community Health?

Health Horizons previously made the case that place is important for health. This year, we’re looking at the question "who is going to act on it?" One...

The Stories of Our Time

Once upon a time, an organism evolved to have a brain hard-wired to think and communicate in narrative form. These organisms interacted with their...

Governance Futures Lab: Now is the Time

Proximity can be a remarkable learning tool. Last week I experienced two drastically different approaches to thinking about the future of governance,...

Tim Ferriss Visits the Future

Tim Ferriss recently visited the Institute for the Future to discuss the future of work, learning, and his unique lifestyle. Ferris is the author of...

Clowns, Placebos and the Future of the Care Effect

A couple days ago, I came across this slightly old study exploring the effects of having trained clowns participate in the care of fertility patients....