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July 27-29, 2012 • Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel

Preconference Courses: July 26-27, 2012 • Professional Members’ Forum: July 30, 2012

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Sessions

Futurist Media for Improved Crisis Scenario Education

Scenario techniques used for training first responders and policy analysts are being transformed by the Web and media, thus influencing global politics and national security readiness. The panelists will present one example, the Project on National Security Reform (PNSR) scenario “Red Death” of a biological attack on the U.S.

Sheila Ronis is director of the MBA and Master of Science in Strategic Leadership programs at Walsh College. She is chair of the Vision Working Group and leader of the Project on National Security Reform, Troy, Michigan, USA

John Meagher is past president of the Washington Chapter of the World Future Society, Manassas, Virginia, USA

Futurists’ Views from Around the World

How do futurists from different continents view local and global future prospects? What is on the minds of these futurists? As the world continues its accelerating interdependency, futurists are wise to take into account the insights from other futurists around the world.

Ibon Zugasti (co-chair) is director, Prospektiker, general manager in LKS Market Research, chairman of the Millennium Project Node in Spain, chairman of the European Regional Foresight College, and National coordinator in Spain for the PREPARE Network, Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain

Concepción Olavarrieta (co-chair) El Proyecto Del Milenio, México City, México

Global Futures Collective Intelligence System

How should futures research be integrated to improve global, national, corporate, and local decision making, while taking into account the many contradictory views and methods? Collective intelligence is an emergent property from the synergies among human brains, information, and software that continually learns from feedback to make better decisions than these three elements acting alone.

Jerome C. Glenn, executive director, The Millennium Project; co-editor, Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0; co-author, 2012 State of the Future, Washington, D.C., USA

Theodore J. Gordon, senior fellow, The Millennium Project, and inventor of the Real-Time Delphi; co-editor, Futures Research Methodology Version 3.0; co-author, 2012 State of the Future, Washington, D.C., USA

Global MegaCrisis: How Bad Will It Get? What Strategies?

Special Event

Imagine a “category 5” hurricane churning toward the eastern United States. The experts agree on its size and ferocity, the alternative paths that it might take, and when it will hit. Politicians and the public accept the warning and take preventive action to save lives and reduce damage.

Michael Marien is director, GlobalForesightBooks
.org, founder and editor, World Future Society’s Future Survey, LaFayette, New York, USA

William Halal is president, TechCast.org; professor emeritus, George Washington University; and author of Technology’s Promise; Washington, D.C., USA

Richard Slaughter is director of ForesightInternational.com.au; former president, World Futures Studies Federation; and author, Indooroopilly, Australia

Thomas Homer-Dixon is chair of Global Systems at CIGI (Centre for International Governance Innovation, Waterloo) and professor, Faculty of Environment, University of Waterloo. Editor of Carbon Shift: How Peak Oil and the Climate Crisis will Change Canada; author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization, and The Ingenuity Gap. His is a frequent Op-Ed contributor to the Toronto Globe & Mail.

Hackerspace Movement: Hacking the Future

In 2007 there were a handful of hackerspaces. Now there are over 900 existing or forming throughout the world.

Mitch Altman, co-founder of Noisebridge, a San Francisco hacker space, and president and CEO of Cornfield Electronics, best known for inventing TV-B-Gone remote controls, a keychain that turns off TVs in public places. He was also co-founder of 3ware (a Silicon Valley RAID controller company), did pioneering work in virtual reality at VPL Research, and created the Brain Machine, one of MAKE Magazine's most popular DIY projects, San Francisco, California, USA

Healthspital 4.0: Re-Visioning the American Community Health-Care Experience

Thomas Kuhn taught that an anomaly is needed to engender a paradigm shift. Medical/surgical treatment costs are unsustainable and, therefore, represent that anomalous predicament currently. Superlative outcomes are not consistently delivered for the money expended. There is no system for true health-care delivery.

Frank W. Maletz is a practicing orthopedic surgeon who developed this model after 33 years in American medicine and active patient care—25 of those years in community based practice, East Lyme, Connecticut, USA.