interstellar clouds
of creation
Massively
Multiplayer Data
Decrypting the Brain
human-data interaction emerges
as a core discipline
modeling the complex mind
Machine learning
melds with
cognitive science
Quantum physics
helps explain
consciousness
Scientific
papers are
executable
as code
Massively linked data
becomes a public utility
Hacking Space
amplified collaboration
Science is
gameified
public and private access
spurs a new space age
Data-intensive
science spawns
new discplines
Unprecedented endeavors demand
new skills and communities-of-practice.
peer review and peer pressure
A Wikipedia of science
models is created
Regulatory hurdles
drive open standards
and “coopetition”
Optogenetics
leads to a neural
switchboard
Gene jockeys
build a brain atlas
Orbital manufacturing
becomes practical
Brain scans record
“mind movies”
New social and crowdsourced systems
emerge for knowledge-sharing and evaluation.
Discovery of extraterrestrial life
The human
microbiome
is mapped
Zero-G biology
accelerates drug
discovery
recycle, reuse, research
New lifeforms created
from scratch
Personal satellite
for $1000
Obsolete tools are hacked, modded,
and shared for new purposes.
Seawater fuels fusion
Engineered Evolution
The majority of ocean
species are inventoried
reshuffling the global deck
manipulating biology from the bottom up
The ocean’s top
millimeter is mapped
Organisms
become
programmable
Metamaterials make
invisibility real
Humans plumb
ocean depths
Teleportation scales
up from atoms to
molecules
Epigenetics informs
real-time genome
tweaking
Space-time cloaks
conceal macro-world
events
Strange Matter
oceans become the new frontier for
energy, ecology, and engineering
unnatural materials reshape our world
DNA origami constructs
useful nanodevices
Institute for the Future | 124 University Ave., 2nd Floor, Palo Alto, CA 94301 | www.iftf.org
This works is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 United States License. | SR-1454A
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
—Albert Einstein
Innovation increasingly comes from
beyond the Americas and Europe.
public patronage
© 2006 Russell Croman, www.rc-astro.com
Sea the Future
Quantum biology
reveals the
physics of life
Community funding and microgrants
support scientific efforts.
citizens of science
The public is awakened as active
contributors to scientific endeavors.