European Futurists Conference Lucerne

Winning in a Downturn - Using Future Insights to Succeed in Turbulent Times

We have entered an age of turbulence where the certainties of the past decade will be 'unsystematically' overturned. Old assumptions about how to govern, educate, lead and succeed in business are being challenged and abandoned. In the search for new solutions, businesses and government alike are seeing the importance of future thinking and preparing for a range of possible scenarios. in this session Global futurist Rohit Talwar will draw on an international research study to introduce practical strategies for using future insights to help organisations survive and thrive in turbulence. He will highlight real world examples of how business models, value chains, service, innovation strategies, people development and new product development are being transformed through the practical application of foresight.

Islamic Banking and Islamic Investment

In the midst of the current financial crisis, Islamic banking & finance stands at a crossroad. After at least a couple of decades of its close association with the Western capitalist institutions, Islamic financial thinkers are questioning close cooperation between Western investment banks and Islamic financial institutions. While, in theory Islamic banking and finance has a lot in common with Western movement of ethical finance and socially responsible investing, Islamic finance in practice has chosen to be in bed with the mainstream Western banks and financial institutions. There is a growing realisation that this trend is not sustainable in future.

Touchstones: Conceptual Products for Sustainable Futures

ImaginationLancaster is a new creative research lab at Lancaster University that explores futures for people, products, places and systems. Stuart will introduce this initiative and present recent work in which he combines theoretical critique with speculative objects to probe the meanings and implications of design for sustainability. Notions of localization, distributed enterprise, and flux lead to product concepts based on re-seeing, re-valuing, temporary arrangements, and evolving permanence.

Future of Lifestyles

The Philips Design probe programme is a far future research initiative attempting to develop lifestyle scenarios 10 - 20 years ahead. Design "provocations" are created with the purpose of stimulating debate and critique from which they work backwards to materialize nearer term scenarios. Clive will talk about emotional sensing, electronic tattoos and high rise sustainability as examples of past probes and refer to the recently published work on the future of food.

Desert Tech. Clean Power from the Sahara for Europe

The DESERTEC-project offers the opportunity to exploit the inexhaustible clean solar energy from deserts mainly by proven solar-thermal technologies. Only 1,7 % of all desert areas around the world is needed to cover the overall energy demand of humankind. Thus, we have an viable option for climate-, energy- and water-security (sea-water desalination) – indispensable factors for shaping a sustainable future for humankind.

The Futures of Technologies and the Technologies of the Futures

Change is not constant, in fact, change is accelerating very fast. Some technologies are radically changing humanity, in general, and also changing human beings, in particular. Many experts now talk about the four sciences and technologies of the future: NBIC (Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno). Furthermore, the NBIC fields are rapidly converging and they will help to transcend many human limitations and to improve human lives all around the world, and beyond.

Turning to the Future after the Age of Easy Growth

The need for transformation beyond the turmoil is particularly acute in the „new“ member-states of the European Union, which have been hit the most in the current crisis. For several past years, it used to be that growth came easy and future was wide open. Even if not much effort was put into thinking about this future and leading the way towards it – things went well as they were. The case of Baltic States is an especially good example of this.

In order to get back to success track from being a current basket case of Europe, we need to change our mind–set and do this in two ways. First, more future-oriented thinking should arise into (economic) policy-making. Second, this should be accompanied by a relevant rethinking of the state’s role in the economy of the future. With foresight we might have a chance to start the winning streak again.

The Transformation of Europe: Future challenges of the Union and the States

Although deeper than many before, the current crisis may be seen as just another cycle of capitalism. The author believes, however, that its roots are deeper and very much related to the challenges the world and Europe are facing at the beginning of the millennium. The response to the crisis should be coherent to the addressing the long term challenges. The crisis is accelerating the wheel of history and after the world will be different in many ways. It took many great visions, many years and a lot of political effort to make the European Union what it is today. We have a good institutional toolbox in place. We will need every piece of this toolbox and also allow it to funcion, if we want the #1 economy in the world to prosper in the future and have a say in how the world will be reshaped at the beginning of the third millennium.

Is it really good to know the Future? How expectation, chance and error make the world go round

Why we can predict more and more things - new developments in probability sciences and data management

The future of Futurists: How we can survive and thrive in the ever growing market of predictions

Eckard Foltin - Head Creative Center, Bayer MaterialScience AG

From Visions to Products - Future Living 2020

Bayer MaterialScience defines a strategy and taps into new business, both in existing and completely new markets. The objective is to be the solution supplier of choice around the globe with raw materials and technologies for key industries of the future. One primary task is to identify future consumer needs and new market trends (market pull) as early as possible and to match them up with technological developments (technology push) at precisely the right time.

The speech shows practical examples on the network projects and visions of the Life in 2020.