If you want to know what the future is going to be like anywhere fro 5 – 20 years from now, with uncanny details, then read on. Here we profile 25 of the world’s top futurists and hand-pick a couple of their top, must-read articles. These visionaries discuss how your life will change whether you like it or not and go into detail on the future of work, health, education, relationships, technology, sex and many other areas that are on the cusp of major change.
What you will discover below is not just to give you an edge at cocktail parties. The following will lead you through some of the best thinking in the world on the coming changes of the future where you will obtain practical and actionable advice that you can use from a personal, business and even entrepreneurial perspective.
Richard Watson
Top Trends started off in 2006 as a blog about current and future trends. The trends were originally sifted into a number of sections largely based on industry sectors. Down to earth and succinct and to the point with some humour. Timelines as a visual representation are awesome.
Articles we liked:
✓BE MORE PRODUCTIVE, RELAXED, & SHARPER
BRITESMART | Improve memory, focus and energy with a blend of nutraceuticals
ZEN 12 | An hour of meditation benefits in just 12 minutes – meditation designed for today
NITROFOCUS | Use brainwave technology for more focus, motivation & results
So how can you prepare for the unpredictable? The answer will surprise you. The key is embracing paradox: learning to unlearn, thinking about the unthinkable, recognizing failure as a key component of success, and understanding that an awareness of one’s ignorance is a key component of true wisdom.
Articles we liked:
- 10 game changing technologies poised to transform the world by 2015
- Future Banking customers pocket change
Jack Uldrich
Tim Longhurst identifies trends and helps organisations adapt to a changing world. An experienced futurist, Tim and his team have collaborated with a range of organisations to help them explore possibilities and seize opportunities.
Articles we liked:
Tim Longhurst
futuristgerd.com (English)
gerdleonhard.de (German)
Gerd is considered a leading voice on a wide range of topics including next-generation digital business models, the opportunities and challenges of a networked society, a sustainable business and cultural ecology, social media and communications, TV / film, radio and broadcasting futures, mobile content and commerce, innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship, consumer trends, human-machine futures and AI, big data and automation, next-generation advertising, marketing and branding, and the development of ’green futures’ scenarios.
Articles we liked:
Gerd Leonhard
Glen Hiemstra is the founder and owner of Futurist.com. Glen is dedicated to disseminating information about the future to assist individuals, organizations, and industries in effective strategic planning. An internationally respected expert on future trends, long-range planning and creating the preferred future
Articles we liked:
Glen Hiemstra
Dr. Michio Kaku — theoretical physicist, bestselling author, acclaimed public speaker, renowned futurist, and popularizer of science. As co-founder of String Field Theory, Dr. Kaku carries on Einstein’s quest to unite the four fundamental forces of nature into a single grand unified theory of everything.
Articles we liked:
Dr Michio Kaku
Brian L Wang
Brian L. Wang, M.B.A. is a long time futurist. A lecturer at the Singularity University and Nextbigfuture.com author. He worked on the most recent ten year plan for the Institute for the Future and at a two day Institute for the Future workshop with Universities and City planners in Hong Kong (advising the city of Hong Kong on their future plans).
Articles we liked:
Robin Hanson
0vercoming Bias began in November ’06 as a group blog on the general theme of how to move our beliefs closer to reality, in the face of our natural biases such as overconfidence and wishful thinking, and our bias to believe we have corrected for such biases, when we have done no such thing.
Articles we liked:
Canadian futurist, science writer, and ethicist, George Dvorsky has written and spoken extensively about the impacts of cutting-edge science and technology
Articles we liked:
George Dvorsky
A few years ago KK co-founded the All Species Foundation, a non-profit organization aimed at cataloging and identifying every living species on earth. He hoped to give each organism its own web page. The genesis of this idea is described in his account. The Foundation is now defunct, but the project of giving each species their own web page lives on as theEncyclopedia of Life.
Articles we liked:
Kevin Kelly
Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global Thinkers, Jamais Cascio writes about the intersection of emerging technologies, environmental dilemmas, and cultural transformation, specializing in the design and creation of plausible scenarios of the future.
Articles we liked:
Jamais Cascio
Alexandrian Kosmos
A Universal Investigation into the New Millennium
Alexandrian Kosmos uses the Astrology of the Future, Metastrology, to forecast the Flow of the Universal Energies for the Lightworker. Metastrology will astound you with its accuracy and insight for our entry into the 5th Dimension and New Millennium!
Articles we liked:
✓BE MORE PRODUCTIVE, RELAXED, & SHARPER
BRITESMART | Improve memory, focus and energy with a blend of nutraceuticals
ZEN 12 | An hour of meditation benefits in just 12 minutes – meditation designed for today
NITROFOCUS | Use brainwave technology for more focus, motivation & results
Futurist Speaker blog is produced by Google’s top-rated futurist speaker, Thomas Frey. He speaks on a variety of unique and thought provoking topics. Tom is the Innovations Editor for The Futurist Magazine, a member of the National Speakers Association, and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute, a non-profit futurist think tank in Colorado.
Articles we liked:
Thomas Frey
Jeremy studied cultural studies, international relations and journalism, and now divides his time between freelance writing and programme development. He lives in Luton (UK) with his wife and son. He is a member of Transition Luton, a co-founder of the Post Growth Institute, and a friend of Breathe, a network for simpler living.
Articles we liked:
Jeremy Williams
Richard Jones
Richard Jones is the author of Soft Machines: nanotechnology and life, a book about nanotechnology. For more details about the book, see here. He is a Professor of Physics and the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at the University of Sheffield, and a Council Member ofEPSRC. The views expressed on this blog are written entirely in a personal capacity.
Articles we liked:
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Does radical innovation get best done by big or small firms?
- Science, Politics & the Haldane Principle
Anders Sandberg
A mixture of essays on my research and transhumanist topics, links to my other online activities, recreational mathematics and other random content. Andart II is the successor to old Andart. Given that the first Andart was Andart 5, there is room for many confusing versions.
Articles we liked:
ENTP, philosopher, science and technology futurist, instantiated in nucleotide chassis at present
Articles we liked:
Melanie Swan
Bruce Harrison
Family Forest® was started in 1995 by Bruce and Kristine Harrison as a project to digitally connect history with the people who created it. The Harrisons began compiling an immense interlinked digital database of genealogical and historical information. Millisecond Publishing Company was then incorporated in December 1996.
Articles we liked:
Free Range Learning, Creative Living, Gentle Encouragement, Big Questions, Poetry, Occasional Drollery
Articles we liked:
Laura Weldon
Thoughts and news on transhumanism, vegetarianism, science fiction, science, philosophy, math, programming, language, consciousness and the nature of reality. –
Articles we liked:
Alexander Kruel
Garry Golden is an academically trained Futurist (MS Futures Studies) who speaks and consults on issues shaping society and business in the 21st century.
Articles we liked:
Garry Golden
Andrew Curry
The Next Wave is the personal blog of Andrew Curry. He uses it from time to time to write about drivers of change, trends, emerging issues, and other futures and scenarios topics.
Articles we liked:
Dr. William E. Halal
William E. Halal is Professor Emeritus of Management, Technology, and Innovation at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. William is an authority on emerging technology, strategic planning, knowledge, and institutional change.
Articles we liked:
Professor Inayatullah’s work is based on six pillars:
- Mapping the Present and the Future through methods and tools such as the futures triangle and the futures landscape
- Anticipating the Future through methods such as emerging issues analysis and the futures wheel
- Timing the Future, understanding the grand patterns of change, macrohistory and macrofutures.
- Deepening the Future through methods such as causal layered analysis and four quadrant mapping
- Creating Alternatives to the Present through methods such as scenarios and nuts and bolts
- Transforming the Present and Creating the Future through visioning, backcasting, action learning and the transcend conflict resolution method.
Articles we liked:
Professor Sohail Inayatullah
Anne Boysen
Last (but certainly not least!) is Anne Boysen who writes over at After The Millennials. After the Millennials is the first and only consultant service and blog designated specifically to this generation. Or more precisely, it’s about the future they will shape and be shaped by in the coming years and decades.
Articles we liked:
