Signtific Lab
Signtific Lab: Game Platform & Report
Signtific Lab Game Platform
IFTF's Foresight Engine platform is the culmination of lots of experiments to understand how to engage the larger public in thinking systematically about the future. The first incarnation of this lightweight platform was Signtific Lab, which was developed for the government to anticipate how development in science and technology might pose problems to our national well-being. In these early trials, we were still aiming for outlier ideas and forecasts, as we explored subjects such as cube satellites, robots, abundant energy scenarios, energy-water nexus, and impacts of open-IP on a corporate R&D setting.
Free Space Game Trilogy
While used frequently for private games, the Signtific Lab platform was also used to publicly explore questions around space in three related games, inspired by this future scenario:
Game Trilogy Statistics:
February 2009 - Webstock, Wellington, New Zealand
- Registered Players = 315
- Cards Played = 3,466
March 2009 - CeBIT, Hannover, Germany
- Registered Players = 100
- Cards Played = 875
March 2009 - eTech, San Jose, California, USA
- Registered Players = 200
- Cards Played = 1,700
Signtific Report
This report summarizes the efforts of the Signtific Project (formerly known as The X2 Project) to engage the global scientific community in anticipating the most important innovations and disruptions in science and technology—and to understand their implications for the future of science and of society at large. The project:
- Used an open-source approach to identify and aggregate potential signals of disruptive scientific innovations
- Leveraged new social media to engage both professional and citizen scientists at new scales
- Integrated gaming principles to explore alternative incentive structures for collaboration and knowledge sharing among scientists
- Targeted specific geographic, ethnographic, and demographic niches likely to produce leaders in emerging disciplines
Publication Date
July 2009