Recent Publications
Welcome to the interactive online version of the Food Web 2020 Map.
Food sustains and nourishes us, but it also increasingly connects us to a global food web that is intertwined with politics, economics, environmental concerns, culture, and science. This global food web is undergoing rapid change, presenting considerable challenges and significant opportunities. Every one of the six broad areas...
What is the future of real-time video communication and what will it feel like to live and work in a world where real-time video is ubiquitous?
Skype commissioned IFTF to research and start a conversation about this question and much more in this newly-released report.
Video technologies are improving dramatically and rapidly, supporting mobile and ubiquitous real-time video experiences. Low cost...
Just a few years ago, launching an Internet startup typically entailed making the rounds on Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, pitching venture capitalists an idea and a business plan illustrated by a handful of slides. Today, PowerPoint decks are replaced by working prototypes and the business plans by waiting lists for beta test accounts. Even the venture capitalists are...
Green Health is emerging from the convergence of the global health economy and the growing public recognition of the imperative for global sustainability. This convergence is visible in the two distinct ways in which our concept of “health” has expanded. We are managing, preserving, andenhancing our health in ways that include underlying causes of well-being andthe interrelated systems of our...
Sustainability Outlook is a forward‐thinking project that explores how changing social, cultural and technological conditions are likely to alter the ways that companies integrate sustainability into their business strategies.Jointly sponsored by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Institute for the Future (IFTF), this ongoing project combines IFTF’s methodologies for forecasting...
"Food is our common ground, a universal experience." —James Beard
We all eat. It's not just that we all eat, but everything we do leads back to food. Food systems are integral to our society and the feedback-laden changes we see building on one another will shape our collective future.
Over the past 60 years, we have seen radical transformations in our food system that have leveraged more...
Remember the feeling of going into a darkened theater and losing yourself in another world. The overhead lights darken; you settle into your seat; the projector begins to whirr; and on the screen, a new reality flickers to life. All you're aware of is the world on the screen, the world of the screen. Finally the credits roll. The lights come up. The world ebbs back into your consciousness....
What is Signtific?
The Signtific Project is designed to engage the global scientific community in anticipating the most important innovations and disruptions in science and technology—and understanding their implications for the future of science and of society at large. It stands at the leading edge of several trends that will reshape the practice of science over the next few decades:
• It...
Health Brands:
What?
The convergence of health and entertainment evolves into anew market category that creates novel opportunities for consumer electronics,retail, travel, and the media industries. New and well-established brands position themselves toward health as consumers look for an explicit link between market offerings and their personal health.
So What?
What brands emerge around...
The Health Horizons Program has been mapping the landscape of challenges and responses for health and health care in 2020. We have been looking ahead over the next decade because the future of health and health care seems more uncertain then ever before.
We ask ourselves questions such as the following:
What if demands for sustainability require achieving healthy outcomes without harming the...
