Notes from the brainstorming session held on Saturday, February 28, 2009.
MN Futurists meeting, moderated by David and Lyn Egolf Grider. Innovation criteria from:
"What criteria did the judging panel use to select the Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years?
Distinguished panelists from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania used carefully determined criteria to select The Top 30 Innovations of the Last 30 Years. The major questions that make up this criteria are listed below.
The judges asked the following about the innovations being considered:
1. Did it improve quality of life, having a direct and/or material effect on quality of life?
2. Did it address a compelling need? solve a compelling problem?
3. Was it a fresh breakthrough with a "wow" factor?
4. Did it change the way business is conducted?
5. Did it increase the efficiency of how resources are used?
6. Did it spark an ongoing stream of new innovations on top of the original innovation? "
Using the same criteria, and looking bakward from 2020, the group attempted to imagine innovations which would make such a list as of that date. The items suggested follow the names of the people who suggested them (in alphabetical order for editing purposes): Please review for accuracy and clarity.
Ulrich Bonne
PB-09-SIG-2020 UB.ppt
David Grider
Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (with liquid fuel IC engines to charge battery) will be 25% of the fleet.
Solar photovoltaic distributed power and wind power becomes 25% of US electric power supply.
Concentrating solar power plants become 10% of US electric generation.
Unified heat pump technology is used with solar energy collection and continuous fresh air and exhaust
(using 95% efficient heat exchange) for building heating, food refrigeration, hot water, and Indoor Air
Quality in 10% of US buildings.
Production of food and fish from sea farming in the open ocean produces 15% of world food supply.
Lyn Egolf Grider
US embraces true democracy when energy conservation and communications advances are widely used to
encourage/enhance return to geopolitical communitites.
Botany research applied to complex system design allows wide-scale return to distributed multiculture
(sustainable, organic agriculture without GMOs) includes return to using heirloom seed stock.
Complex system management used to manage hormone imbalances not just menopause, but more important for
diseases like diabetes, Addison’s, thyroid problems, etc.
Brain research optimizes thinking of everyone so we can each “be all we can be” diversity of thinking styles
becomes perceived as valuable.
Personal health monitoring devices connected to a central screening service.
Technology easily and painlessly removes toxins from living bodies.
Research/ technology, prevention campaigns reduce cancer occurrences to pre-1950 levels.
Recovering resources previously dumped or run-off there into ocean cleans up the water again;
Solar desalination/purification of water – affordable, small, distributed systems (see item above) for villages/ farm
communities; municipal systems run at night/cloudy days on energy from next item;
Shoreline protection from rising sea and energy recapture from wave motion (devices ring low-lying shorelines
removing energy from waves headed for beaches, harbors).
Advanced tech sailing merchant vessels; (modified technology applied to “sailing” trains?)
Plug-in hybrid transportation major to all transportation sectors; vehicle batteries used to even out “intermittence”
of electric supply from renewable sources.
Nuclear power plants are dismantled; radioactives are safely recycled or stored, not so we can make more, but
because the political will gets behind not strewing it around.
Large-area topology settles significantly or collapses from over-mining and over-drilling of oil and water;
technological “fixes” cause unforeseen problems down the line.
Hank Lederer
Accident Avoidance Systems
Exoskeleton Suits – used for disabled
Cell Phones Replace Laptops – these will have large screens and virtual keyboards & always connected to Internet
LED replaces lightbulbs – 90% of light sources replaced by LEDs.
Fossil Fuel Reduction – Less then 50% of transportation use fossil fuels, replaced by Pluggable hybrids, biofuels, etc.
Stem Cell Therapy – Stem cell therapies effectively used for 5 to 10 medical conditions
Nanotech Assembler – a nanotech assembler will produce artifacts
3D Printer – A printer in the home to print small artifacts; plates, spoons, cups, etc.; and eventually small appliances and furniture
Ron Monroe
Biofuels (genetic)
Supervacine for flu
Personal drugs
Grow new body tissue
Pay toilets on airplanes
Tourist flights to edge of space
Mars Science Laboratories (MSL)
Disabilitech
Deep sea mapping
US population explodes to 400 M by 2030
US explodes by 2025 (balkanizes into separate countires)
Superscale engineering
Bill Peter
Biometric identification of everyone on earth eg photo fingerprint, iris scan, vein patterns in top of hand
(later – 2035 – DNA and human genome)
Language translation among all languages/written languages
Voice recognition among all voices and languages
Enhancement of human relationship skills from birth to 100 (potentially using role-playing videos and
practice sessions)
Enhancement of human learning skills from birth to 100
Development of government systems beyond democaracy as we know it, which will unleash the full
potential of all humans
Friends/exteneded family communication systems for developing stronger family connections/support
Modified educational degrees to include the measurement of imagination skills – and replacing
BS, MS, PhD degrees
A well-accepted worldwide currency system
Tapping the creativity of human dreams 100 times what psychologists and psychiatrists are doing today
Dick Sanders
Economic growth potential is small
By 2010:
Commercial space travel
Biofuels – using microbes, switchgrass
Harnessing wave power
On-line software services
Nuclear power (Candu, Thorium cycle)
Plug-in Hybrids
By 2020:
Moon colony
“Smart grid”
Hypersonic commercial travel (lower space) 3 hrs NYC-Tokyo
Batwing jetliners for subsonic commercial travel
High-speed rail or magler trains in US
By 2030:
Manned Mars expedition
Other ideas:
New nuclear power reactors Class IV
Solution to nuclear waste storage
National borders will be redrawn by economic clusters
US becomes also-ran among world powers
Deep sea floor research for food, minerals, life forms for medicine
Better earthquake detection institutes
Communications: WiMax
Quantum computing
New biotech drugs
Using microbes to treat diabetes
More sophisticated oil drilling instruments
Genetic engineering
Stem cells
3-D monitors for home use
Brian Toren
Black Hole Energy – physicists at the LHC will be on road to harness black hole energy.
Image Based Search – Browser will accept images then will search and identify the image. Can search on a photo of a diseased plant and find out what is wrong.
Superconductivity at Room Temperature – reduces waste when transmitting electricity
Increased Mini-micro/Robot Surveillance – The little guys will be all over the country watching and reporting News, weather, crime, accidents, etc.
Implanted Eye – a prosthetic that sees connected to the brain through the optic nervre.
Implanted Hearing Aid - with external connections for adjusting.
Immune System Genetics - genetic replacement will repair defective immune systems
First Female President
Nuclear Waste Recycling – The cost of recycling nuclear waste for a poinf of uranium will be cheaper than mining processing yellowcake and shipping.
Tom Trites
Ubiquitous Network – No place on planet is isolated
U.S. becomes a democracy – ends constitution
Non-unanimous verdicts - Proof that innocent couldn’t have done it expected in U.S./Non-unanimous verdicts accepted for jury trials
U. S. borders sealed
Mind/Nerve controlled prosthetics
Brain Training – rebuild and exercise
Mine landfills
Drug printing – on a home “printer”
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