Highlights from IFTF Ten-Year Forecast 2021 | Sept 27 - Oct 1, 2021
SHAPING WHAT'S NEXT: a decade of transitions & transformation
What does K-pop fandom tell us about the future of belonging, the shifting of competitive dynamics in business, and the long-term prospects for democracy? What can you do today to prepare for the massive social challenges climate change will bring about in the coming decade+? What are the ethical implications of face-swapping apps? Are NFTs a scam or the future of … X? How would an octopus caption a New Yorker cartoon? And what do these questions have to do with one another, anyway?
The answer? We explored all of these ideas at this year’s
Ten-Year Forecast Summit!
Our annual summit showcases IFTF’s latest research, including IFTF Vantage’s annual Map of the Decade, which forecasts the world 10 years out. We help participants make sense of long-term change and prepare for the future by guiding them through a series of experiences that include inspirational keynote speakers, in-depth conversations, and interactive strategic foresight exercises.
Here are some highlights from across the week-long summit!
Going digital:
Creating unique conference vibe in online space
“I’ve never ‘bumped into someone in the hallway’ at a virtual conference until now.”
The Ten-Year Forecast has traditionally been staged as an in-person retreat, with lots of attention given to selecting the right venue to put participants in the mindset to explore the long-term future. In the past, this has taken the summit everywhere from a tranquil woodland cove to a decommissioned aircraft carrier. But with COVID-19, the team had to get creative to find an online space that could match the intention of the event. This meant seeking out new, experimental platforms, and the search led the conference team, headed by IFTF Vantage co-director Dylan Hendricks and IFTF Emerging Media Lab director Toshi Hoo, to OhYay.
OhYay’s highly customizable, browser-based platform allows for the creation of a sort of virtual building that you can navigate by just clicking around. When you’re in a “room” and your microphone and camera are on, you can see and talk to other people who are located in the same space. This allows for a unique event design, in which attendees can “wander” the conference venue between sessions, stop in at various lounges (some of which featured activities like puzzles and karaoke), and then return to the main hall for keynotes -- where the audience has the ability to audibly applaud those on the stage, creating the kind of intuitive feedback that is often missing from online events.
“As director of the Emerging Media Lab at IFTF, I'm particularly excited about some of the experiments we've cooked up for you this year,” Toshi explained at the event’s opening ceremony.
Special XR Sessions
In addition to OhYay, the summit also hosted two sessions in virtual reality (although both were also live-streamed in OhYay so that all TYF2021 attendees could participate). The first was an immersion into a speculative futures world, Afterville 2028, developed inside AltSpaceVR by a community of world-building futurists—including indigenous futures thinkers and Afrofuturists such as Lonny Brooks.
The second was a panel discussion on hybrid work inside the cross-reality workspace platform Spatial.IO. These XR experiences served as both venue and content, with Toshi exploring what these kinds of platforms mean for the future of work, play, and social connection.
Crafting Strategies that Shape the Future:
A Decade of Transitions and Transformations
At every Ten-Year Forecast summit, participants are introduced to IFTF Vantage’s annual “map of the decade.” While each research map describes the change we anticipate 10 years out, each year also has a specific theme.
Given the sudden upending of assumptions around daily life brought by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the more slow-moving-but-equally-profound shifts that have been years -- if not decades -- in the making, this year we focused on radical changes to seven key concepts, including evidence, ownership, and belonging, which are the very foundations of the environment in which all organizations operate.
Opening Keynotes
In the event’s opening keynotes, IFTF Vantage co-director Rod Falcon and director of research Brad Kreit introduced this year’s Map of the Decade research bundle, focusing on both its content and how organizations can use it to shape their short and long-term strategies, as well as spotlighting the mindset we need to cultivate to navigate thinking through future change amidst a chaotic and demanding present.
Exploring the New Operational Landscape
Each day of the summit, an IFTF Vantage researcher led a deep dive on one of the seven foundations, starting with research director Vanessa Mason on the future of belonging, research director Jake Dunagan on evidence, research affiliate Scott Minneman on collaboration, distinguished fellow Jamais Cascio on privacy, and research and editorial director Mark Frauenfelder on ownership.
Each session began with a look back to look forward -- offering a historical perspective on how each of these foundational concepts has developed over time. Then researchers shared an in-depth perspective on how those concepts will change over the next decade, and each session wrapped up with other IFTF research staff joining the conversation, such as Equitable Futures Lab senior program manager Ilana Lipset and research director Wayne Pan, to further explore each topic.
Another Look Back to Look Forward
Continuing the theme of gleaning insights from history to better understand the possibilities of the future operating environment, journalists Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley delivered a keynote on their recently released book, Until Proven Safe, which offers an in-depth history of how pandemics, and our response to them, has shaped the world in decades past, as well as up-to-the-minute details of our current approaches to COVID and future outbreaks, highlighting the interplay of forces––biological, political, technological––that will continue to shape our future.
Complete Summit Agenda
View the detailed Summit Agenda HERE >>
Or check out the at-a-glance agenda with session types and topics below:
IFTF Vantage: A Partnership of
Future-Ready Organizations
The IFTF Ten-Year Forecast is brought to you by IFTF Vantage, Institute for the Future's premiere organizational partnership.
Future-ready organizations do more than anticipate change; they combine foresight and imagination to find opportunities where none existed before. Their focus is on how to leverage this moment to transform their organization for the better.
Prepare now with strategic foresight and tools for lasting transformation from IFTF Vantage.
Interested in learning more?
Send us an online info request or reach out directly to:
John Clamme | jclamme@iftf.org | 650.233.9566
Sean Ness | sness@iftf.org | 650.233.9517
IFTF presents "Welcome to the Meta-Meta-Metaverse" with Avi Bar-Zeev and Toshi Hoo
This segment first premiered at IFTF 2021 Ten-Year Forecast Summit "SHAPING WHAT'S NEXT: A DECADE OF TRANSITIONS & TRANSFORMATIONS" on September 27-October 1, 2021.
IFTF presents "Stepping into the Metaverse: A tour of Spatial.io" with Jesse Damiani and Toshi Hoo"
This segment first premiered at IFTF 2021 Ten-Year Forecast Summit "SHAPING WHAT'S NEXT: A DECADE OF TRANSITIONS & TRANSFORMATIONS" on September 27-October 1, 2021.
IFTF presents "Social Computing inside 2D & 3D worlds" with OhYay co-founder Andrew Lin & Toshi Hoo
This segment first premiered at IFTF 2021 Ten-Year Forecast Summit "SHAPING WHAT'S NEXT: A DECADE OF TRANSITIONS & TRANSFORMATIONS" on September 27-October 1, 2021.