Institute For The Future

The Ruse / The Roshki Ruse

What happens when products can lie to their owners? Advances in multi-material 3D printing render intricately designed objects called “roshkis” into...

The Pass / I Shouldn't Have Done It

What happens when infrastructure enforces the law? As public spaces become increasingly reconfigurable, and infrastructure becomes capable of...

Scenes From 2027

What kind of 2027 can you imagine?

A Wearable MRI Machine

The path to telepathy is coming indirectly, through Jepsen’s exploration of a more costeffective medical diagnosis tool: essentially an affordable...

Don't Fear The Black Box

In 2013, hackers installed malware onto servers belonging to the retailer Target, eventually stealing the credit and debit card information of 40...

Make It Just So

Clea and her 8-year-old son Alex are in a coffee shop before school. It’s Alex’s birthday. While waiting for their latte and hot chocolate, they play...

In tomorrow’s ‘work-and-learn’ world, new tools must measure progress

Lumina Foundation's Holly Zanville reports on IFTF Future of Assessment convening.

Kill Decision

South Korea has robot snipers at the North Korean border that can recognize and kill a person from a mile away. They can shoot them dead in their...

Billions and Billions Transacted

In 1994 a journalist named Josh Quittner registered the domain name mcdonalds.com. On assignment for Wired, Quittner called McDonald’s corporate...

Wetware-Hardware Hybrids

All life as we know it is made of cells that are squishy and full of salt water. That’s why animals’ control systems (networks of neurons and glial...

Homegrown Governance

Around the world, governments are the least trusted institution in half of the 28 countries surveyed for the Edelman Trust Barometer. In the United...

Signaling Work and Learning Readiness in 2030: The Future of Assessment

Re-envision the ways that learners in the future will signal their skills and competencies for...

Future-proof your strategies: Partner with IFTF

For most organizations, global turbulence today means big challenges for tomorrow. The smartest move? Team up with the world’s top foresight experts....

Simulacra and Simulations

Imagine taking a video stream of someone—Vladimir Putin, for example, or Lady Gaga, or your spouse—and changing what they say onscreen to whatever you...

NEW Public Release: Blockchain Map + Perspectives 2017-2027

These foresight materials were created to quickly get you up to speed on this powerful new technology, to help you understand how blockchains are...

Designing an Ethical Operating System

How do you build something you won’t regret? It’s a question that deserves its fair share of thought, especially in Silicon Valley where countless...

Equitable Futures Week Has No Boundaries

How do we illustrate the systems of equity as clearly as we describe systems of inequity? How can we describe what it feels like to walk around in an...

Digital Twins

“What if” is a common question in every organization, because it’s the first step in optimizing existing processes or developing new ones. There are...

Looking at Organizational and Urban Futures #EquitableFutures

Learn about the #EquitableFutures Nodes at Culture Bank, Cal State University East Bay, and ExT in...

Equitable Futures Week in New Mexico & Atlanta, GA

Nodes continue to commit to envisioning a more equitable future for 2030.

Cutting the Akashic Records

Science fiction author and futurist Arthur C. Clarke famously said that “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”...

Equitable Futures Nodes: Oakland, Oaxaca, Sudan and Colombia

Meet our first Equitable Futures Nodes, learn how they envision a more equitable future in 2030, and follow their stories on social...

What Lies Beyond the Virtual Assistant

The age of the intelligent agent is upon us, but the true consequences of their emergence remain largely unexplored. Is Siri just another genre of...

What Does Your Spoon Stand For?

The idea of technology as morally neutral is pervasive. We are told that it is only the use of a technology that makes it good or bad. But, technology...