MONDAY EVENING KEYNOTE EVENTS
(Updated on a regular basis. Please check back soon!)

 

EVENING KEYNOTE
Data by the Yottabyte circa 2050

    This session addresses the challenges and opportunities of the data tsunami the world will experience between now and 2050. There are currently 30 exabytes of data in storage. Five new exabytes will be created this year, with a growth rate of 50% each year. A panel of data management experts offers their projections for the future. A short live survey (handheld controllers provided by the panel) will capture the audience’s projections regarding growth, impact on productivity, managing technology, potential dangers, and suggestions for future research. In addition, participants will have an opportunity to submit freeform questions for discussion. Panelists will facilitate a discussion of survey results and submitted questions.

Who should attend: Anyone interested in the positive and negative impacts of the exponential growth of data.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn how the exponential growth of per capita data will affect individual, business, and government in the next four decades. In addition, they will learn about potential technology on the horizon that will help harness and utilize the virtually unlimited pool of data that will be available.
How this knowledge can be applied: Steps can be taken now to ensure that individuals, business, and government are better prepared to deal with the coming avalanche of digital information. Current and emerging technology and processes will be discussed.

Montgomery Kosma, management consultant, Washington, D.C.
Kelly “KJ” Kuchta, president and CEO, Forensics Consulting Solutions, LLC, Phoenix, Arizona
Skip Walter, chief technology officer, Attenex Corporation, Seattle, Washington

key words: data management, business, information, knowledge management, security
issue areas: Technology and Science; Social and Cultural Trends; Futures Methodologies, Tools, and Processes

 

EVENING KEYNOTE
Global Poverty: Finding Workable Solutions for the Future

    The most intractable problem in the world today is poverty. This rich/poor gap affects relationships within every nation and between all nations. In spite of trillions of dollars and energetic efforts by governments, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals, there has been little easing of the problem. No matter what we do, it persists.
    Sometimes it is best to forget what you think you know and look at the issue as if you were seeing it for the first time. It is time to take such an approach to poverty. Everybody talks about it as a have/have not issue. But if we look at it from another perspective, we might see more workable solutions.

Who should attend: Anyone interested in the global problem of poverty.
What you’ll learn: The in/out context focuses on how the poor are excluded or kept out. Looking at ways to remove the walls, barriers, and other techniques for keeping the poor out—of countries, professions, etc.—is another way to address the problem.
How this knowledge can be applied: Clearly, the world needs more innovative and effective ways to overcome poverty. The approaches resulting from this session can be refined and presented as concrete proposals for experimentation and implementation to policymakers in national governments and the United Nations and leaders in the business and nonprofit worlds.

Arnold Brown, chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.; World Future Society Board of Directors; co-author, FutureThink: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change, New York, New York
Edie Weiner, president, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.; co-author, FutureThink: How to Think Clearly in a Time of Change, New York, New York
Other Panelists To Be Determined

key words: poverty, society
issue area: Social and Cultural Trends

 

EVENING KEYNOTE
Holy Terror: Thinking the Unthinkable

    Unfortunately, September 11^th will prove to have been no more than a harbinger of future calamities as terrorist events will become more common and bloody in the years ahead. Al Qaeda, often under other names, will grow much larger and more dangerous than the band of fanatics that attacked the Pentagon and the World Trade Center almost six years ago. This growth process is well under way. The Muslim extremist movement will acquire nuclear weapons within the next ten years, if it does not possess them already. As things stand, the war on terror will drag on for decades with many tactical successes but little or no strategic benefit. In the long run, we in the civilized West will face choices even more difficult to contend with than were the attacks themselves.

Who should attend: Anyone interested in the security of mankind.
What you’ll learn: Participants will learn about efforts that have been designed to identify which possible terrorist attacks are most likely to occur and which would have the greatest impact on the target country.
How this knowledge can be applied: This information should assist the allocation of antiterrorism resources where they will have the greatest benefit. It also may reveal previously unrecognized opportunities to defend the country and its facilities abroad against terrorist events.

Marvin Cetron, founder and president, Forecasting International; former consultant to the White House from 1961-1998; co-author, Hospitality 2010: The Future of Hospitality and Travel, Falls Church, Virginia

key words: terrorism, security, defense
issue areas: Governance and Communities; Social and Cultural Trends

 

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For more information contact: World Future Society, 7910 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 450, Bethesda, Maryland 20814;
Tel: 1-800-989-8274 or 1-301-656-8274;  Fax: 1-301-951-0394;  Web Site: www.wfs.org;  E-mail: sechard@wfs.org.