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News Releases Conference Credentials About the World Future Society The World Future Society is an association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. It endeavors to help individuals, organizations, and communities see, understand, and respond appropriately and effectively to change. Through media, meetings, and dialogue among its members, it raises awareness of change and encourages development of creative solutions. The Society takes no official position on what the future will or should be like. Instead it acts as a neutral forum for exploring possible, probable, and preferable futures. Founded in 1966 as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Washington, D.C., the Society has some 25,000 members in more than eighty countries around the world. Individuals and groups from all nations are eligible to join the Society and participate in its programs and activities. The Society holds a two-day, international conference once a year where participants discuss foresight techniques and global trends that are influencing the future. Previous conference attendees have included future U.S. President Gerald Ford (1974), Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1975), behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner (1984), age-wave expert Ken Dychtwald (2005), U.S. Comptroller General David M. Walker (2006), and scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil (2006). Chapters of the World Future Society are active in cities around the globe. Chapters offer speakers, educational courses, seminars, and other opportunities for members in local areas to meet and work together. These local chapters give members a chance to meet other forward-looking people and to discuss various topics of the future. Who belongs to the Society? Membership is open to anyone who would like to know more about what the future will hold. Members come from all walks of life. They include sociologists, scientists, corporate planners, educators, students, and retirees. They are thinking people who seek a better future for themselves and society. The Society’s Web site (www.wfs.org) features unique resources such as the online Futurist Bookshelf—brief summaries of new and noteworthy books, reviews, and links to order—and Web Forums on a variety of areas of interest to members. Also included are links to a range of resources such as futures blogs, educational programs and related organizations. The World Future Society has published numerous books, including Futuring: The Exploration of the Future by Society founder Edward Cornish, as well as several print and electronic journals, including: ● The Futurist, a bimonthly magazine focused on innovation, creative thinking, and emerging social, economic, and technological trends. The Futurist is available in newsstands coast to coast. Among the thinkers and experts who have contributed to The Futurist are: Gene Roddenberry, Newt Gingrich, Al Gore, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Buckminster Fuller, Frederik Pohl, Isaac Asimov, Vaclav Havel, Hazel Henderson, Margaret Mead, Robert McNamara, Betty Friedan, Nicholas Negroponte, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Lester R. Brown, Arthur C. Clarke, Douglas Rushkoff, Joel Garreau, Ray Kurzweil, former CIA Director James Woolsey, Lewis Lapham, and William J. Mitchell. The Futurist was nominated for an Utne Independent Press award for science and technology coverage in 2007. · Future Survey, a monthly publication which alerts readers to the most important futures-relevant literature across a wide range of fields, from global policy to environmental technology. Concise and readable abstracts of recent books, articles, and reports are arranged in topical clusters that enable you to appreciate connections, subtle differences, and clashing opinions; · Futures Research Quarterly, a scholarly, refereed journal published four times per year which covers a wide range of subjects from marketing trends to aerospace and from futures methodology to global economics; · Futurist Update, a monthly electronic newsletter with topical items of interest to the futures community; · Outlook, an annual report offering members selected forecasts that can help them anticipate events of the future; · Learning Tomorrow, a quarterly electronic newsletter with articles of on a wide range of education or training subjects written by WFS members and education professionals around the world. · Future Times, a quarterly Web journal about the World Future Society and its activities plus a column on new technologies written by WFS President Timothy C. Mack..
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