Concepts

• 15 Global Challenges
• Actionable futurism
• Agentization
• Applied Foresight Network
  Applied Foresight Network
  The Applied Foresight Network is a global web of university-based centres connected by a network of forums for professors, students, teachers, and concerned citizens. The AFN supports informed discussion and social action on issues of critical importance to the future of humanity...
  
  
• Calculating Demand Forecast Accuracy
  Calculating Demand Forecast Accuracy
  Calculating demand forecast accuracy is the process of determining the accuracy of forecasts made regarding customer demand for a product.-Importance of forecasts:...
  
  
• Clarke's three laws
  Clarke's three laws
  Clarke's Three Laws are three "laws" of prediction formulated by the British writer and scientist Arthur C. Clarke. They are:# When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right...
  
  
• CPFR
• Causal Layered Analysis
  Causal layered analysis
  Causal layered analysis is one of several futures techniques used as a means to inquire into the causes of social phenomena and to generate a set of forecasts as to the future course of the phenomena....
  
  
• Coolhunting
  Coolhunting
  Coolhunting is a term coined in the early 1990s referring to a new breed of marketing professionals, called coolhunters. It is their job to make observations and predictions in changes of new or existing cultural trends...
  
  
• Digital library
  Digital library
  A digital library is a library in which collections are stored in digital formats and accessible by computers. The digital content may be stored locally, or accessed remotely via computer networks...
  
   (initiatives)
• Emerging technologies
  Emerging technologies
  In the history of technology, emerging technologies are contemporary advances and innovation in various fields of technology. Various converging technologies have emerged in the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals...
  
  
• End of civilization
• Eschatology
  Eschatology
  Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
  
  
• Forecasting
  Forecasting
  Forecasting is the process of making statements about events whose actual outcomes have not yet been observed. A commonplace example might be estimation for some variable of interest at some specified future date. Prediction is a similar, but more general term...
  
  
• Foresight
  Foresight (future studies)
  In futures studies, especially in Europe, the term "foresight" has become widely used to describe activities such as:*critical thinking concerning long-term developments,*debate and effort to create wider participatory democracy,...
  
  
• Future
  Future
  The future is the indefinite time period after the present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the nature of the reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently exists and will exist is temporary and will come...
  
  
• Future energy development
• Futures techniques
  Futures techniques
  In the multi-disciplinary field of futurology, futurologists use a diverse range of forecasting methods, including:- Delphi method :The Delphi method is a very popular technique used in Futures Studies. It was developed by Gordon and Helmer in 1953 at RAND...
  
  
• Global Consciousness Project
  Global Consciousness Project
  The Global Consciousness Project is a parapsychology experiment begun in 1998 as an attempt to detect possible interactions of "global consciousness" with physical systems...
  
  
• Hubbert peak
• Hubbert peak theory
  Hubbert peak theory
  The Hubbert peak theory posits that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve...
  
  
• Infinite Bandwdith Zero Latency
• Integral Futures
• Kardashev scale
  Kardashev scale
  The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring an advanced civilization's level of technological advancement. The scale is only theoretical and in terms of an actual civilization highly speculative; however, it puts energy consumption of an entire civilization in a cosmic perspective. It was first...
  
  
• Malthusian catastrophe
  Malthusian catastrophe
  A Malthusian catastrophe was originally foreseen to be a forced return to subsistence-level conditions once population growth had outpaced agricultural production...
  
  
• Memetics
  Memetics
  Memetics is a theory of mental content based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution, originating from Richard Dawkins' 1976 book The Selfish Gene. It purports to be an approach to evolutionary models of cultural information transfer. A meme, analogous to a gene, is essentially a "unit of...
  
   - Mapping MentorshipART Meme
  Meme
  A meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena...
  
  s
  • 2010: Multi-media AVATARS (Discussion)
  • DIKW
    DIKW
    The "DIKW Hierarchy", also known variously as the "Wisdom Hierarchy", the "Knowledge Hierarchy", the "Information Hierarchy", and the "Knowledge Pyramid", refers loosely to a class of models for representing purported structural and/or functional relationships between data, information, knowledge,...
    
     - Harlan Cleveland
    Harlan Cleveland
    Harlan Cleveland was an American diplomat, educator, and author. He served as Lyndon Johnson's U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 1965–1969, and earlier as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1961-1965...
    
    
  • FMEA: Failure mode and effects analysis
    Failure mode and effects analysis
    A failure modes and effects analysis is a procedure in product development and operations management for analysis of potential failure modes within a system for classification by the severity and likelihood of the failures...
    
    
  • GDSS: Group decision support systems
  • Interdependence
    Interdependence
    Interdependence is a relation between its members such that each is mutually dependent on the others. This concept differs from a simple dependence relation, which implies that one member of the relationship can function or survive apart from the other....
    
    
    • Social network analysis - thinkLets
    • StoryTech decision support frameworks
  • Involution (esoterism) (Anticipatory thinking)
• Moore's Law
  Moore's Law
  Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware: the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years....
  
  
• Morphological analysis
  Morphological analysis
  Morphological Analysis or General Morphological Analysis is a method developed by Fritz Zwicky for exploring all the possible solutions to a multi-dimensional, non-quantified problem complex.-Overview:...
  
  
• Neofuturism
• Normative futures
• Omega Point
  Omega point
  Omega Point is a term coined by the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to describe a maximum level of complexity and consciousness towards which he believed the universe was evolving....
  
  
• Optimism bias
  Optimism bias
  Optimism bias is the demonstrated systematic tendency for people to be overly optimistic about the outcome of planned actions. This includes over-estimating the likelihood of positive events and under-estimating the likelihood of negative events. Along with the illusion of control and illusory...
  
  
• Planetary Phase of Civilization
  Planetary Phase of Civilization
  The Planetary Phase of Civilization is a concept defined by the Global Scenario Group , an environmental organization that specializes in scenario analysis and forecasting...
  
  
• Planning
  Planning
  Planning in organizations and public policy is both the organizational process of creating and maintaining a plan; and the psychological process of thinking about the activities required to create a desired goal on some scale. As such, it is a fundamental property of intelligent behavior...
  
  
• Prediction
  Prediction
  A prediction or forecast is a statement about the way things will happen in the future, often but not always based on experience or knowledge...
  
  
• Prediction market
  Prediction market
  Prediction markets are speculative markets created for the purpose of making predictions...
  
  
• Preferred futures
• Psychohistory (fictional)
  Psychohistory (fictional)
  Psychohistory is a fictional science in Isaac Asimov's Foundation universe which combines history, sociology, and mathematical statistics to make general predictions about the future behavior of very large groups of people, such as the Galactic Empire...
  
  
• The Race of the Future
  The Race of the Future
  The Race of the Future theory/idea states that due to the process of miscegenation, the mixing of different races, especially in marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relations, all the races are blending to become one single new race in the future.-History:...
  
  
• Reference class forecasting
  Reference class forecasting
  Reference class forecasting is the method of predicting the future, through looking at similar past situations and their outcomes.Reference class forcasting predicts the outcome of a planned action based on actual outcomes in a reference class of similar actions to that being forecast. The theories...
  
  
• Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
  Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
  Various existential risks could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth.-Types of risks:...
  
  
• State of the Future
  State of the Future
  The State of the Future is an annual report published since 1996. Since 2009 it was published by The Millennium Project. It was published by the American Council of the United Nations University from 1997 to 2006 and in 2007 and 2008 under the auspices of the World Federation of United Nations...
  
  
• Strategic Foresight
  Strategic foresight
  Strategic foresight is a fairly recent attempt to differentiate "futurology" from "futures studies". It arises from the premise that:*The future is not predictable;*The future is not predetermined; and...
  
  
• Systems thinking
  Systems thinking
  Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things influence one another within a whole. In nature, systems thinking examples include ecosystems in which various elements such as air, water, movement, plants, and animals work together to survive or perish...
  
  
• Technological singularity
  Technological singularity
  Technological singularity refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means. Since the capabilities of such an intelligence would be difficult for an unaided human mind to comprehend, the occurrence of a technological singularity is seen as...
  
  
• Technology
  Technology
  Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
  
  
• Technology forecasting
  Technology forecasting
  Technology forecasting attempts to predict the future characteristics of useful technological machines, procedures or techniques.-Important aspects:...
  
  
• Theory of Constraints
  Theory of Constraints
  The theory of constraints adopts the common idiom "A chain is no stronger than its weakest link" as a new management paradigm. This means that processes, organizations, etc., are vulnerable because the weakest person or part can always damage or break them or at least adversely affect the...
  
  
• Thought experiment
  Thought experiment
  A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
  
  
• Timeline of the future in forecasts
  Timeline of the future in forecasts
  This timeline of the future in forecasts is a list of credible forecasts of near-future events and developments in all areas of science, technology, society and the environment....
  
  
• Transhumanism
  Transhumanism
  Transhumanism, often abbreviated as H+ or h+, is an international intellectual and cultural movement that affirms the possibility and desirability of fundamentally transforming the human condition by developing and making widely available technologies to eliminate aging and to greatly enhance human...
  
  
• Twelve leverage points
  Twelve leverage points
  The twelve leverage points to intervene in a system were proposed by Donella Meadows, a scientist and system analyst focused on environmental limits to economic growth...
  
  
• Ultimate fate of the universe
  Ultimate fate of the universe
  The ultimate fate of the universe is a topic in physical cosmology. Many possible fates are predicted by rival scientific theories, including futures of both finite and infinite duration....
  
  

Organizations

• Acceleration Studies Foundation
  Acceleration Studies Foundation
  Acceleration Studies Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by John Smart engaged in research, education, and selective advocacy of communities and technologies of accelerating change....
  
  
• Association of Professional Futurists
  Association of Professional Futurists
  The Association of Professional Futurists is an organization that promotes futurists as valuable professionals through networking, conferences, and other activities involving its members.-See also:* List of futures scholars* Global Business Network...
  
  
• Australia Foresight Institute
• Bakken Museum
  Bakken Museum
  The Bakken, previously known as The Bakken: A Library and Museum of Electricity in Life and known in the past as the Medtronic Museum of Electricity in Life, located on the shores of Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States, is the world's only library and museum devoted to...
  
  
• Club of Amsterdam
• Club of Rome
  Club of Rome
  The Club of Rome is a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues. Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the CoR describes itself as "a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity." It consists of current and...
  
  
• Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
  Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies
  The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies is Denmark's and one of Scandinavia's largest Futures Studies think tank. It was founded in 1970 by Professor Thorkil Kristensen, former OECD Secretary-General, Danish Minister of Finance and member of the Club of Rome...
  
  
• Finland Futures Academy
• Foundation For the Future
• The Futures Academy
  The Futures Academy
  The Futures Academy is a research organization. It was established in January 2003 and located in the Faculty of the Built Environment in the Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland...
  
  
• Futures Group International
• Futures Research Committee of Hungarian Academy of Sciences
• Futures Research Centre
• Futures Studies Department
• Futuribles
• Global Change Ltd
• Global Scenario Group
  Global scenario group
  The Global Scenario Group was a team of environmental scholars, headed by Paul Raskin, who used scenario analysis to analyze future paths for world development in the face of environmental pressures and crises...
  
  
• Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies
  Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies
  Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies is a futures studies research institute Directed by Jim Dator. It is one of the few futures research centers that is associated with a masters and Ph.D. in futures studies in connection with the Political Science Department of the University of Hawaii-Manoa...
  
  
• Institute for Futures Research
  Institute for Futures Research
  Established in 1974, the Institute for Futures Research is a research institution of the University of Stellenbosch specialising in futures studies, primarily as a support service for knowledge and strategic management...
  
  
• Institute for the Future
  Institute for the Future
  The Institute for the Future is a Palo Alto, California–based think tank established in 1968, as a spin-off from the RAND Corporation, to help organizations plan for the long-term future....
  
  
• Kjaer Global Ltd (Anne Lise Kjaer
  Anne Lise Kjaer
  Anne Lise Kjaer is a London-based futurist and keynote speaker. Also known as a Future Narrator, her specialism is futures studies and consumer mindsets. She is founder of Kjaer Global, a trend forecasting agency that works with corporations, including Sony, Nokia, Swarovski, IKEA, Gap and Toyota...
  
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• Laboratory for Investigation in Prospective Strategy and Organization
• Mankind 2000
• Millennium Project
  Millennium Project
  The Millennium Project is an independent international think tank with 40 "nodes" around the world that gathers and accesses information on futures studies that produces the annual State of the Future report since 1997 and the Futures Research Methodology series Versions 1-3.The Project was formed...
  
  
• Moroccan Association of Future Studies
• Naval Postgraduate School
  Naval Postgraduate School
  The Naval Postgraduate School is an accredited research university operated by the United States Navy. Located in Monterey, California, it grants master's degrees, Engineer's degrees and doctoral degrees...
  
  
• Pakistan Futuristics Institute
• RAND Corporation
• Shaping Tomorrow
• Strategic Business Insights, Inc.
• World Future Society
  World Future Society
  The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Bethesda, Maryland, US, founded in 1966.The Society investigates how social, economic and technological developments are shaping the future...
  
  
• World Futures Studies Federation
  World Futures Studies Federation
  The World Futures Studies Federation is a global non-governmental organization that was founded in 1973 to promote the development of futures studies as an academic discipline.- History :...
  
  

Academic programs

See also: Acceleration Studies Foundation

Acceleration Studies Foundation

Acceleration Studies Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by John Smart engaged in research, education, and selective advocacy of communities and technologies of accelerating change....

's annotated list of 10 primary and 60+ secondary graduate futures studies programs.

Futurologists

• Anne Lise Kjaer
  Anne Lise Kjaer
  Anne Lise Kjaer is a London-based futurist and keynote speaker. Also known as a Future Narrator, her specialism is futures studies and consumer mindsets. She is founder of Kjaer Global, a trend forecasting agency that works with corporations, including Sony, Nokia, Swarovski, IKEA, Gap and Toyota...
  
  
• David Absalam
• Michael E. Arth
  Michael E. Arth
  Michael E. Arth is an American artist, home/landscape/urban designer, public policy analyst, advocate for the homeless, futurist, and author. He was a candidate for the governor of Florida in 2009 and 2010.-Art:Michael E...
  
  
• Charles Babbage
  Charles Babbage Institute
  The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
  
  
• Joel A. Barker
• Daniel Bell
  Daniel Bell
  Daniel Bell was an American sociologist, writer, editor, and professor emeritus at Harvard University, best known for his seminal contributions to the study of post-industrialism...
  
  
• Clem Bezold
  Clem Bezold
  Clement Bezold is one of the founders of the Institute for Alternative Futures as well as its for-profit subsidiary Alternative Futures Associates, and is the current Chairman of the Board. As a futurist, he has written or edited more than ten books related to the future, particularly in the area...
  
  
• Arthur C. Clarke
  Arthur C. Clarke
  Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
  
  
• Edward Cornish
• Jeff Cornish
• Scott W. Erickson
• Frank Feather
• Fabienne Goux-Baudiment
• Herman Kahn
  Herman Kahn
  Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
  
  
• Arthur Harkins
  Arthur Harkins
  Arthur M. Harkins, Ph.D. , is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration and faculty director of the Graduate Certificate in Innovation Studies program at the University of Minnesota who co-authored StoryTech with George Kubik.-See also:* Anticipatory...
  
  
• Stephen Hawking
  Stephen Hawking
  Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
  
  
• Sohail Inayatullah
• Earl C. Joseph, Sr.
• Richard Lamb
• David Passig
  David Passig
  David Passig is a futurist who received his Ph.D. in Anticipatory Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in technological futures, as well as social and educational futures. He is an Associate Professor at the Bar-Ilan University in Israel...
  
  
• John Tomsyck
• Natasha Vita-More
  Natasha Vita-More
  Natasha Vita-More is a transhumanist, media artist and designer, with a science background, known for designing "Primo Posthuman." This future human prototype incorporates biotechnology, robotics, information technology, nanotechnology, cognitive and neuroscience for human enhancement and extreme...
  
  
• Joseph Voros
• Ray Kurzweil
• Kim Stanley Robinson
  Kim Stanley Robinson
  Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer known for his award-winning Mars trilogy. His work delves into ecological and sociological themes regularly, and many of his novels appear to be the direct result of his own scientific fascinations, such as the fifteen years of research...
  
  
• Alex Steffen
  Alex Steffen
  Alex Steffen is an American writer, editor, public speaker and futurist most noted for his bright green ideas.Steffen co-founded and ran the online magazine Worldchanging from its start in 2003 until its closure in 2010...
  
  
• Alvin Toffler
  Alvin Toffler
  Alvin Toffler is an American writer and futurist, known for his works discussing the digital revolution, communication revolution, corporate revolution and technological singularity....
  
  
• Arthur Harkins
  Arthur Harkins
  Arthur M. Harkins, Ph.D. , is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy and Administration and faculty director of the Graduate Certificate in Innovation Studies program at the University of Minnesota who co-authored StoryTech with George Kubik.-See also:* Anticipatory...
  
  
• Aurelio Peccei
  Aurelio Peccei
  Aurelio Peccei was an Italian scholar and industrialist, best known as the founder and first president of the Club of Rome.- Early life :...
  
  
• Bertrand deJouvenel
• Bill Joy
  Bill Joy
  William Nelson Joy , commonly known as Bill Joy, is an American computer scientist. Joy co-founded Sun Microsystems in 1982 along with Vinod Khosla, Scott McNealy and Andy Bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist at the company until 2003...
  
  
• Danila Medvedev
  Danila Medvedev
  Danila Andreevich Medvedev is a Russian futurologist , a politician and a member of coordination council of the Russian Transhumanistic Movement....
  
  
• David Passig
  David Passig
  David Passig is a futurist who received his Ph.D. in Anticipatory Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in technological futures, as well as social and educational futures. He is an Associate Professor at the Bar-Ilan University in Israel...
  
  
• Kevin Warwick
  Kevin Warwick
  Kevin Warwick is a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom...
  
  
• Derek Woodgate
• Eamonn Kelly
  Eamonn Kelly
  Eamonn Kelly is an Irish born disc jockey based in the UK, who can currently be heard on 106.6 Smooth Radio in the East Midlands.His broadcasting career started while he was still at school in Dublin on Kiss FM and Q102...
  
  
• Earl Bakken
  Earl Bakken
  Earl E. Bakken is an American engineer, businessman and philanthropist of Dutch and Norwegian American ancestry...
  
  
• Earl C. Joseph, Sr.
• Edgar Morin
  Edgar Morin
  Edgar Morin is a French philosopher and sociologist born Edgar Nahoum in Paris on July 8, 1921. He is of Judeo-Spanish origin. He is known for the transdisciplinarity of his works.- Biography :...
  
  

• Edward Cornish
• Eric Garland
• Erich Jantsch
  Erich Jantsch
  Erich Jantsch was an Austrian astrophysicist.In the mid-1960s his increasing concern regarding the future led him to study forecasting techniques...
  
  
• Frank Feather
• Fred Polak
  Fred Polak
  Frederik Lodewijk Polak was one of the Dutch founding fathers of futures studies, perhaps best known in the field for theorising the central role of imagined alternative futures in his classic work The Image of the Future.Polak was the son of Alexander Polak, violin builder and concertmaster of...
  
  
• Gaston Berger
  Gaston Berger
  Gaston Berger was a French futurist but also an industrialist, a philosopher and a state manager. He is mainly known for his remarkably lucid analysis of Edmund Husserl's Phenomenology and for his studies on the character structure.Berger was born in Saint-Louis, Senegal...
  
  
• George Kubik
• Harlan Cleveland
  Harlan Cleveland
  Harlan Cleveland was an American diplomat, educator, and author. He served as Lyndon Johnson's U.S. Ambassador to NATO, 1965–1969, and earlier as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, 1961-1965...
  
  
• Hazel Henderson
  Hazel Henderson
  Hazel Henderson is a futurist and an economic iconoclast. In recent years she has worked in television, and she is the author of several books including Building A Win-Win World, Beyond Globalization, Planetary Citizenship , and Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy.- Career :Henderson is now...
  
  
• Herman Kahn
  Herman Kahn
  Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
  
  
• Homer A. McCrerey
  Homer A. McCrerey
  Homer Alex McCrerey became U.S. Navy Meteorologist and oceanographer for CINCPACFLT until 1972.He was born in Hiawatha, Kansas. During 1941 he graduated from Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas with a mathematics degree. Homer was commissioned at the US Naval Academy in 1942. He completed...
  
  
• Hugo de Garis
  Hugo de Garis
  Hugo de Garis is a researcher in the sub-field of artificial intelligence known as evolvable hardware. He became known in the 1990s for his research on the use of genetic algorithms to evolve neural networks using three dimensional cellular automata inside field programmable gate arrays...
  
  
• Irma Wyman
  Irma Wyman
  Irma M. Wyman was an early computer engineer and the first woman to become vice president of Honeywell, Inc. She was a systems thinking tutor and was the first female CIO of Honeywell.-Academic life:...
  
  
• Jacque Fresco
  Jacque Fresco
  Jacque Fresco , is a self-educated structural designer, philosopher of science, concept artist, educator, and futurist. His interests span a wide range of disciplines including several in philosophy, science, and engineering...
  
  
• James Burke
  James Burke (science historian)
  James Burke is a British broadcaster, science historian, author and television producer known amongst other things for his documentary television series Connections and its more philosophical oriented companion production, The Day the Universe Changed , focusing on the history of science and...
  
  
• James Martin
  James Martin
  -Actors, musicians, and other performers:*James Martin , saxophonist, singer, and record producer*James Martin , actor on EastEnders*James Martin , actor on Still Game...
  
  
• Jaron Lanier
  Jaron Lanier
  Jaron Zepel Lanier is an American computer scientist, best known for popularizing the term virtual reality .A pioneer in the field of VR, Lanier and Thomas G. Zimmerman left Atari in 1985 to found VPL Research, Inc., the first company to sell VR goggles and gloves...
  
  
• Jay Gary
• Jeff Cornish
• Jeremy Rifkin
  Jeremy Rifkin
  Jeremy Rifkin is an American economist, writer, public speaker, political advisor and activist. He is the founder and president of the Foundation On Economic Trends...
  
  
• James Dator
  Jim Dator
  James Allen Dator is Professor, and Director of the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Hawaii at Manoa. He received his BA from Stetson University where he graduated magna cum laude...
  
  
• Joel A. Barker
• John Brunner (novelist)
  John Brunner (novelist)
  John Kilian Houston Brunner was a prolific British author of science fiction novels and stories. His 1968 novel Stand on Zanzibar, about an overpopulated world, won the 1968 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel. It also won the BSFA award the same year...
  
  
• John McHale
  John McHale (artist)
  John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and a founder of the Independent Group, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies...
  
  
• John Naisbitt
  John Naisbitt
  John Naisbitt is an American author and public speaker in the area of futures studies. His first book Megatrends was published in 1982. It was the result of almost ten years of research. It was on the New York Times bestseller list for two years, mostly as #1...
  
  
• John Renesch
  John Renesch
  John Renesch is a futurist and author.-References:*; an interview of Renesch, Forbes magazine , July 7, 2006*; Global Dialogue Center, posted Summer 2006*, Christianity Today, 2003...
  
  
• John Smart
  John Smart (futurist)
  John Smart is a futurist and scholar of accelerating change. He is founder and president of the Acceleration Studies Foundation, an organization that does “outreach, education, research, and advocacy with respect to issues of accelerating change.”. Smart has an MS in futures studies from the...
  
  
• John Tomsyck
• John Zerzan
  John Zerzan
  John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric humans as an inspiration for what a free society should look like...
  
  
• Jonathan Despres
• Joseph Voros
• Lynn Elen Burton
• Mahdi ElMandjra
  Mahdi ElMandjra
  Mahdi Elmandjra is a Moroccan futurist, economist and sociologist.-Education:Elmandjra started his high-school education at Lycée Lyautey in 1944 where he got his Baccalaureat in 1948 . He then went to Putney School, Vermont, U.S.A. before joining Cornell University, Ithaca, New York where he...
  
  
• Mária Törőcsik

• Max More
  Max More
  Max More is a philosopher and futurist who writes, speaks, and consults on advanced decision-making about emerging technologies....
  
  
• Michel GODET
• Natasha Vita-More
  Natasha Vita-More
  Natasha Vita-More is a transhumanist, media artist and designer, with a science background, known for designing "Primo Posthuman." This future human prototype incorporates biotechnology, robotics, information technology, nanotechnology, cognitive and neuroscience for human enhancement and extreme...
  
  
• Oliver Markley
• P. Alexandré Gagne
• Patrick Dixon
  Patrick Dixon
  Dr Patrick Dixon is an author and business consultant, often described as a futurist. In 2005 he was ranked as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers alive according to the Thinkers 50...
  
  
• Paul Raskin
  Paul Raskin
  Paul Raskin is the Founding Director of the Tellus Institute which has conducted over 3,500 research and policy projects throughout the world on environmental issues, resource planning, and sustainable development...
  
  
• Paul Saffo
  Paul Saffo
  Paul Saffo is a technology forecaster based in Silicon Valley. A Consulting Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, Saffo teaches courses on the future of engineering and the impact of technological change on the future...
  
  
• Peter C. Bishop
  Peter C. Bishop
  Peter C. Bishop is a professional futurist , an associate professor of strategic foresight, and coordinator of the graduate program in futures studies at the University of Houston.- Early life :...
  
  
• Peter Schwartz
  Peter Schwartz (futurist)
  Peter Schwartz is a futurist, author, and cofounder of the Global Business Network , an elite corporate strategy firm, specializing in future-think and scenario planning...
  
  
• Grace Hopper
  Grace Hopper
  Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language...
  
  
• Ray Kurzweil
• Retzbach Roman
• Richard A. Slaughter
  Richard A. Slaughter
  Richard Alan Slaughter, PhD, is an Australian educator and scholar. He is notable for his studies in the field of critical futures today, which developed from the intersection of futures studies and social constructivism....
  
  
• Richard Lamb
• Robert A. Heinlein
  Robert A. Heinlein
  Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction writer. Often called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was one of the most influential and controversial authors of the genre. He set a standard for science and engineering plausibility and helped to raise the genre's standards of...
  
  
• Robert Anton Wilson
  Robert Anton Wilson
  Robert Anton Wilson , known to friends as "Bob", was an American author and polymath who became at various times a novelist, philosopher, psychologist, essayist, editor, playwright, poet, futurist, civil libertarian and self-described agnostic mystic...
  
  
• Robert Heilbroner
  Robert Heilbroner
  Robert L. Heilbroner was an American economist and historian of economic thought. The author of some twenty books, Heilbroner was best known for The Worldly Philosophers , a survey of the lives and contributions of famous economists, notably Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and John Maynard...
  
  
• Robert Jungk
  Robert Jungk
  Robert Jungk , also known as Robert Baum and Robert Baum-Jungk, was an Austrian writer and journalist who wrote mostly on issues relating to nuclear weapons....
  
  
• Robert Prechter
  Robert Prechter
  Robert R. Prechter, Jr. is an American author and stock market analyst, known for his financial forecasts using the Elliott wave principle. Prechter is an author and co-author of 14 books, and editor of 2 books , his book Conquer the Crash is a New York Times bestseller...
  
  
• Scott W. Erickson
• Sohail Inayatullah
• Srinivas Rao
• Stewart Brand
  Stewart Brand
  Stewart Brand is an American writer, best known as editor of the Whole Earth Catalog. He founded a number of organizations including The WELL, the Global Business Network, and the Long Now Foundation...
  
  
• Stephen Hawking
  Stephen Hawking
  Stephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is an English theoretical physicist and cosmologist, whose scientific books and public appearances have made him an academic celebrity...
  
  
• Strauss and Howe
• Stanislaw Lem
  Summa Technologiae
  Summa Technologiae is a 1964 book by Polish author Stanisław Lem. Summa is one of the first collection of philosophical essays by Lem. The book exhibits depth of insight and irony usual for Lem's creations...
  
  
• Ted Kaczynski
• Thorkil Kristensen
  Thorkil Kristensen
  Thorkil Kristensen , was a Danish politician, finance minister, professor in national economy and futurist.He was born a son of a farmer in Fløjstrup close to Vejle, Denmark....
  
  
• Wendy Schultz
• Willis Harman
  Willis Harman
  Willis Harman was an American engineer, social scientist, academic, futurist, writer, and visionary. He is best remembered for his work with SRI International, for being president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences in California, and for his work in raising consciousness within the...
  
  
• Gerard O'Neill
  Gerard O'Neill
  Gerard Kitchen O'Neill was an American physicist and space activist. As a faculty member of Princeton University, he invented a device called the particle storage ring for high-energy physics experiments. Later, he invented a magnetic launcher called the mass driver...
  
  
• Michael Walzer
  Michael Walzer
  Michael Walzer is a prominent American political philosopher and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, he is co-editor of Dissent, an intellectual magazine that he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at...
  
  

Organizations

• Academy for Futures Studies, the
• Acceleration Studies Foundation
  Acceleration Studies Foundation
  Acceleration Studies Foundation is a nonprofit organization founded by John Smart engaged in research, education, and selective advocacy of communities and technologies of accelerating change....
  
  
• Applied Foresight Network
  Applied Foresight Network
  The Applied Foresight Network is a global web of university-based centres connected by a network of forums for professors, students, teachers, and concerned citizens. The AFN supports informed discussion and social action on issues of critical importance to the future of humanity...
  
  
• Association of Professional Futurists
  Association of Professional Futurists
  The Association of Professional Futurists is an organization that promotes futurists as valuable professionals through networking, conferences, and other activities involving its members.-See also:* List of futures scholars* Global Business Network...
  
  
• Australian Futures Foundation
• Club of Amsterdam
• Club of Rome
  Club of Rome
  The Club of Rome is a global think tank that deals with a variety of international political issues. Founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy, the CoR describes itself as "a group of world citizens, sharing a common concern for the future of humanity." It consists of current and...
  
  
• Futuribles,
• Global Business Network
  Global Business Network
  Global Business Network, or GBN, is a strategy consulting firm and member of Monitor Group, that helps businesses, NGOs, and governments use scenario planning to plan for multiple possible futures....
  
  
• Global Scenario Group
  Global scenario group
  The Global Scenario Group was a team of environmental scholars, headed by Paul Raskin, who used scenario analysis to analyze future paths for world development in the face of environmental pressures and crises...
  
  
• Hudson Institute
  Hudson Institute
  The Hudson Institute is an American think tank founded in 1961, in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporation...
  
  
• International Institute of Forecasters
• Long Now Foundation
  Long Now Foundation
  The Long Now Foundation, established in 1996, is a private organization that seeks to become the seed of a very long-term cultural institution. It aims to provide a counterpoint to what it views as today's "faster/cheaper" mindset and to promote "slower/better" thinking...
  
  

• Millennium Project
  Millennium Project
  The Millennium Project is an independent international think tank with 40 "nodes" around the world that gathers and accesses information on futures studies that produces the annual State of the Future report since 1997 and the Futures Research Methodology series Versions 1-3.The Project was formed...
  
  
• NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
  NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts
  right|200pxNASA Institute for Advanced Concepts was a NASA-funded program that was operated by the Universities Space Research Association for NASA from 1998 until its closure on 31 August 2007. NIAC sought proposals for revolutionary aeronautics and space concepts that could dramatically impact...
  
  
• RAND Corporation
• Shaping Tomorrow
• Strategic Business Insights, Inc.
• School of Futures Studies and Planning
• Swedish Morphological Society
• Tellus Institute
  Tellus Institute
  The Tellus Institute is a non-profit research and policy organization based in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. Its mission is to advance the transition to a sustainable, equitable, and humane global civilization. The Tellus Institute was founded in 1976 by Paul Raskin, Richard Rosen,...
  
  
• The Arlington Institute
  The Arlington Institute
  The Arlington Institute is a 501 non-profit think tank specializing in predictive modeling of future events, that is, futures studies. Founded in 1989 by former naval officer and military expert John L...
  
  
• UK Futures Analysts Network
• World Future Society
  World Future Society
  The World Future Society is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Bethesda, Maryland, US, founded in 1966.The Society investigates how social, economic and technological developments are shaping the future...
  
  
• World Futures Studies Federation
  World Futures Studies Federation
  The World Futures Studies Federation is a global non-governmental organization that was founded in 1973 to promote the development of futures studies as an academic discipline.- History :...
  
  

Books

• The Age of Spiritual Machines
  The Age of Spiritual Machines
  The Age of Spiritual Machines is a book by futurist Ray Kurzweil about the future course of humanity, particularly relating to the development of artificial intelligence and its impact on human consciousness...
  
  : When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence
• Brave New World
  Brave New World
  Brave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
  
  
• The Communist Manifesto
  The Communist Manifesto
  The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the...
  
  
• Future Frequencies
• Future Primitive
  Future Primitive: The New Ecotopias
  Future Primitive - The New Ecotopias, edited by Kim Stanley Robinson, republishes notable short works of utopian fiction and dystopian fiction, incorporating elements of primitivism and of eco-anarchism.-Contents:...
  
  
• Future Shock
  Future Shock
  Future Shock is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of...
  
  
• Futurewise
  Futurewise
  Futurewise is a book on global trends written by the futurist Patrick Dixon in 1998, with new editions in 2001, 2003 and 2007. Dr Patrick Dixon has been ranked as one of the 20 most influential business thinkers alive today by Thinkers 50, and is author of 11 other books including Building a...
  
  
• Great Transition: The Promise and Lure of the Times Ahead
• Limits to Growth
  Limits to Growth
  The Limits to Growth is a 1972 book modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing world population and finite resource supplies, commissioned by the Club of Rome. Its authors were Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to...
  
  

• Macroshift
• Our Final Hour
  Our Final Hour
  Our Final Hour is a 2003 book by the British Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees. The full title of the book is Our Final Hour: A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century - On Earth and Beyond...
  
  
• Phoenix: A Tale of the Future
• The Revenge of Gaia
  The Revenge of Gaia
  The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is Fighting Back – and How we Can Still Save Humanity is a book by James Lovelock.- External links :* The Revenge of Gaia * , edited extract from The Guardian, 24 March 2006...
  
  
• The Singularity is Near
  The Singularity Is Near
  The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology is a 2005 update of Raymond Kurzweil's 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines and his 1990 book The Age of Intelligent Machines. In it, as in the two previous versions, Kurzweil attempts to give a glimpse of what awaits us in the near future...
  
  : When Humans Transcend Biology
• The Skeptical Environmentalist
  The Skeptical Environmentalist
  The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World is a book by Danish environmentalist author Bjørn Lomborg, controversial for its claims that overpopulation, declining energy resources, deforestation, species loss, water shortages, certain aspects of global warming, and an...
  
  
• The Third Wave (book)
  The Third Wave (book)
  The Third Wave is a book published in 1980 by Alvin Toffler. It is the sequel to Future Shock, published in 1970, and the second in what was originally just a trilogy that was continued with Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century in 1990...
  
  , Alvin Toffler
• Visions of the Future in the Last Century
• Analyzing and Modeling Global Development
• Physics of the Impossible
  Physics of the Impossible
  Published in 2008, Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration Into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel is a book by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku. Kaku uses discussion of speculative technologies to introduce topics of fundamental physics to the reader...
  
  

Periodicals and Monographs

• Five Regions of the Future
• Forecasting
• Foresight
• FutureOrientation
• Future Survey
• Futures
• Futures Research Quarterly
• Futuribles
• Futurics
• Futurist

• GTI Paper Series
• Integral Futures
• International Journal of Forecasting
  International Journal of Forecasting
  The International Journal of Forecasting is a research journal in forecasting and an official publication of the International Institute of Forecasters...
  
  
• International Review of Strategic Management
  Strategic management
  Strategic management is a field that deals with the major intended and emergent initiatives taken by general managers on behalf of owners, involving utilization of resources, to enhance the performance of firms in their external environments...
  
  
• Journal of Futures Studies
• Long Range Planning
• The role of scanning in open intelligence systems, Kermit M. Patton, SRI Consulting Business Intelligence Inc. 2005
• State of the Future
  State of the Future
  The State of the Future is an annual report published since 1996. Since 2009 it was published by The Millennium Project. It was published by the American Council of the United Nations University from 1997 to 2006 and in 2007 and 2008 under the auspices of the World Federation of United Nations...
  
  
• Technological Forecasting and Social Change
  Technological Forecasting and Social Change
  Technological Forecasting and Social Change is a peer reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier which discusses futures studies, technology assessment, and technological forecasting. Articles focus on methodology and actual practice. Among other things, the journal is a major source of...
  
  
• WFSF Bulletin

See also

• List of futures scholars
• List of Theory of Constraints topics
• List of basic transhumanism topics