Strategies for the Technology Revolution: Applying TechCast’s Results

Members of TechCast’s panel of 100 experts discuss the project’s ongoing technology forecasts in the fields of e-commerce, energy and environment, information technology, medicine and biogenetics, manufacturing and robotics, space, and transportation. Then, drawing on techniques from strategic planning and futures studies, panelists suggest strategies for business and government to head off threats like the Global MegaCrisis, develop new products and services, and generally adapt to a difficult future.

Who should attend: Corporate and government executives, strategic planners, marketers, scientists, and engineers; professional futurists and management consultants; university and college science, engineering, business and economics, and political science faculty, and students in those fields.

What you’ll learn: Attendees will learn the substance of TechCast’s most strategic forecasts, including the times when key technologies are likely to be adopted by significant numbers of users, driving forces for and against adoption of the technologies, and potential direct and indirect markets likely to be created by adoption of the technologies. They will gain new insight into how society as a whole, their organizations, and they personally can benefit from the technology revolution.

How this new knowledge can be applied: Executives and consultants will be equipped to implement key technologies within their organizations or advise clients on how to do so. Government representatives will make informed decisions on direct development and subsidization of new technologies. Faculty and students will incorporate current forecasts of the capabilities, benefits, and costs of the most important emerging technologies into their research and scholarly writing.

Kenneth Harris, field editor, TechCast Managing and Transportation; secretary, World Future Society; chairman, The Consilience Group, LLC, a futurist consultancy, Bethesda, Maryland

William E. Halal, president of TechCast; professor emeritus of Science, Technology and Innovation, George Washington University; author, Technology's Promise: Expert Knowledge of the Transformation of Business and Society, Washington, D.C.

James Kadtke, former executive director, Accelerating Innovation Foundation; senior scientist and policy analyst, U.S. National Nanotechnology Coordinating Office; information technology editor, TechCast, Washington, D.C.

Linda MacDonald Glenn, bioethicist, health-care educator, lecturer, consultant, and attorney; currently holds faculty appointments at the University of Vermont College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Department of Medical Laboratory and Radiation Sciences, and the University of Sciences in Philadelphia, Department of Biomedical Writing, Burlington, Vermont

Micah Tapman, partner at Quest Consultants LLC, the director of the security practice, and assists business development; former marine and program manager at SAIC, where he led the Treasury security program, Rockville, Maryland

key words: science, technology, strategic planning, forecasting
issue areas: Technology and Science, Business and Careers, and Futures Methodologies