The Annual Conference of the World Future Society
July 8-10, 2010, Westin Boston Waterfront, Boston , Massachusetts
Hi, my name is Timothy Mack and I’m the President of the World Future Society. I’d like to take a moment to invite you to register for WorldFuture 2010: Sustainable Futures, Strategies, and Technologies, the Society’s annual conference to take place this July in Boston . Economic, digital, and cultural globalization is accelerating, as are the perils and possibilities of our new interconnected age. According to one scientist with whom I spoke recently, if today’s consumption and growth patterns persist we’ll need four more planets by the end of this century. The time to change the way we live and work is upon us. As our knowledge increases, our time horizons are shortening. Much of what ten years ago was called the distant future is now the present.
We’ve booked an incredible array of speakers to share with you their ideas on using tomorrow’s technology to transition to a more sustainable and prosperous civilization.
Ray Kurzweil has been described as “the restless genius” by the Wall StreetJournal, “the ultimate thinking machine” by Forbes, and “the rightful heir to Thomas Edison” by Inc. magazine, which ranked him #8 among entrepreneurs in the United States .
Ray is the recipient of the National Medal of Technology, and he’s been inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame. He’s received 19 honorary doctorates and honors and has written six books, four of which have been national best sellers. The Age of Spiritual Machines has been translated into nine languages and was the number-one best-selling science book on Amazon.com. His latest book,The Singularity Is Near, was a New York Times best seller, and has been the number-one book on Amazon in both science and philosophy.
At WorldFuture 2010, Ray will discuss his landmark ideas on exponential technology growth; the genetic, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence breakthroughs we’re likely to see in the next decade, which we will use to reinvent our economies, our society, and even ourselves.
Also speaking at WorldFuture 2010, Dennis Bushnell, the chief research scientist at NASA’s Langley Research Center, will present what I promise will be a blockbuster talk on how to transition to an environmentally sustainable global society. This highly regarded scientist will tell you about the new research and breakthroughs — from IT to quantum physics — that humanity will use to overcome the looming dangers of climate change.
“Humans are now responsible for the evolution of nearly everything, including themselves,” says Dennis. “The ultimate impacts of all this upon human society will be massive and could ‘tip’ in several directions.”
Needless to say, this talk from one of the globe’s top scientific minds should be ground-shaking.
One aspect of being a more sustainable society is becoming a more equitable one. Anyone interested in the future of gender relations and their impacts on organizations won’t want to miss Karen Moloney’s address on Men and Women: The Battle for Supremacy. Karen follows a long line of influential feminist writers to speak at World Future Society events, such as Betty Friedan.
We are learning more about the biological differences between the sexes andare becoming a little more comfortable about accepting them, says Karen. Nonetheless, our lives are colored by trying to make the sexes the same: from preschool years when parents give “boys’ toys” to girls and vice versa, through the pressures of co-ed rather than segregated schooling, through choosing their university degrees and careers along gender lines. Karen will discuss how the balance of the sexes may change over the forthcoming decades, if we become more accepting of differences. She’ll tell you what we need to do to achieve real gender equality in the next 20 to 30 years.
On the theme of sustainability, Anthony Flint, a former reporter for The Boston Globe, Loeb Fellow, visiting scholar at Harvard Design School , and author of the book Wrestling with Moses, will touch on how the cities of the twenty-first century can decrease humanity’s environmental impact. Cities, says Anthony, are the greenest form of human settlement to which we can aspire; they’re hubs of innovation and they’re where more than 85% of all Americans live. They’re reservoirs for savings on energy and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Anthony will discuss how best to support cities so the planet can continue to support us.
Stephen Aguilar-Millan, director of research at the European Futures Observatory, will detail what a low-carbon economy might look like, the metrics of sustainability, how we can ensure fair shares for present and future generations, and how we can devise an international framework to achieve low-carbon economic growth. This is an essential talk not only for sustainability proponents but but also public policy makers, and anyone charged with running a business or industry in the the coming decade.
Of the many technologies we’ll use to increase the efficiency of our activities, Information Technology and the Internet are the most significant. Lee Rainie,the director Pew Internet & American Life Project and the former managing editor of U.S. News & World Report, along with Janna Anderson, Mike Nelson,and Barry Wellman, will discuss a future where wireless devices are embedded in everything—including us; cameras record activity in all public spaces; databases catalogue our online moves; massive data centers allow our information to be sorted and understood in new ways; the physical environment changes as “the Internet of things” and “everywhere” applications spread; software exhibits humanlike thinking; and direct brain-to-computer interfacing is common. These are just some of the future scenarios the Pew Internet & American Life Project survey gathered from a wide array of experts. Lee and his colleagues in education will let you in on this research and what it means for today’s and tomorrow’s young people.
If you register for WorldFuture 2010 today, you can save $150 off the on-site registration fee. We can’t extend this special price for long.
There are also a number of special preconference courses I’m excited to tell you about.
For instance, are you now in the mid-career stage and wondering if the path you’ve been on for many years is still the right road for you to reach your greatest heights? You might be shifting gears, changing lanes with ease, falling asleep at the wheel, or jumping off the fast track, ready to move onto a less quick-paced phase of your life. If so, you’ll want to meet Karen Sands, master certified coach, professional futurist, gerontologist, and author of The New Sixties, Crossing the Canyon,and The Greatness Challenge: Your Ultimate Guide to the Future. Her all-day workshop, Mid-Career in the Fast Lane, will help you access untapped inner wisdom, creativity, to create personal and professional money-making futures that matter.
Anyone interested in how to become a futurist — i.e. the theory, methods, and the field of futures studies — can’t afford to miss an Introduction to Futures Studies from Peter Bishop, founder of the University of Houston Futures Studies, the only degree program in the United States and one of only three in the world devoted exclusively to the study of the future.
You can also get an insider’s view of the unique challenges of writing serious, future-oriented nonfiction, whether it’s an article for a general-interest audience or a report for a specific client, at the Futurist Writers Workshop, led by FUTURIST magazine managing editor Cynthia Wagner and senior editorPatrick Tucker.
Since 1971, the annual conference of the World Future Society has served as the premier event for the world’s most important thinkers, leaders, and visionaries to explore the future. This year’s event, set at the spacious and modern Westin Boston Waterfront hotel, looks to be our best in many years. This is an opportunity to network with some of the world’s top minds, and more than a thousand futurists from around the globe, on the critical issues of surviving this century. I hope we can count you among us.
Register today and save $150!
Sincerely,
Timothy Mack
President
World Future Society