World Population ~ Demographically Transitioning

The WEForum and Visual Capitalist share cool world population infographics from Our World in Data by economist Max Roser spotlighting how Longer lifespans are changing the shape of the world’s population pyramid...

Sci Fab ~ Envisioneer & Futurecraft ~ Fall 2019

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Dan Novy, Joe Paradiso and I are (finally) re-offering our Sci Fab class this Fall 2019 starting Monday night September 9th from 7-10pm!

In Sci Fab, we read and watch science fiction, and use the inspiration it provides to envisioneer and futurecraft something epic. First, we explore worldbuilding -- imagining science fictional universes across domains and scales. Second, we focus on exemplar artifacts that iconify those worlds, without violating the laws of physics, and iterate towards functional prototypes.

Beyond the Cradle ~ Media Lab x Outer Space!

Excellent to see the third year of Beyond the Cradle organized by the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab today! Great talk by Nobel physicist Prof Sam Ting this morning plus SF panel featuring Daniel Suarez (of Daemon, FreedomTM, and Influx fame, with Delta-v coming soon!) among others! See live video!

Civilizational Endurance ~ Causes of Collapse...

Luke Kemp at the BBC asks Are we on the road to civilisation collapse?

"If the fate of previous civilisations can be a roadmap to our future, what does it say? One method is to examine the trends that preceded historic collapses and see how they are unfolding today. [...] The collapse of our civilisation is not inevitable. History suggests it is likely, but we have the unique advantage of being able to learn from the wreckages of societies past. [...] We will only march into collapse if we advance blindly. We are only doomed if we are unwilling to listen to the past."

"Collapse is a tipping point phenomena, when compounding stressors overrun societal coping capacity. We can examine these indicators of danger to see if our chance of collapse is falling or rising. Here are four of those possible metrics, measured over the past few decades:"

Future Commerce ~ Fall 2018 H2 Seminar...

This Tuesday 10/30/2018 from 1-2:30pm is the introductory kickoff class session of our half-semester 6-unit Future Commerce seminar in the MIT Media Lab room E14-244. Please spread the word! Listeners & cross-registrants welcome.  We explore emerging technologies that will transform financial services.  Our top thematic areas include:

• Money ~ Blockchain-based digital currencies; novel barter platforms; peer-to-peer technologies; 
• Markets ~ Wisdom of crowds & prediction markets; fraud meets flash crashes; network-enabled markets; Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs);
• Transactions & Marketplaces ~ Marketplace stack of identity, reputation, marketplace, money; the foundation of assets over IP; how blockchain, mobile platforms and digital currencies give inclusive access;
• Infrastructure ~ Identity, Security & Privacy challenges; cybersecurity; anti-money laundering (AML) and Know Your Client (KYC) rules;
• AI & Emerging Technologies ~ Understanding the impacts of artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies on financial services.

Scheduled guest speakers include Yaniv Altshuler, CEO Endor; Snejina Zacharia, CEO Insurify; Jeremy Allaire, CEO Circle; Meltem Demirors, CSO CoinShares; Prof. Alex Pentland, Connection Science & Human Dynamics; Clara Durodié, Chair, Cognitive Finance Group; Will Graylin, CEO OVLoop; Amias Gerety, Partner, QED / fmr U.S. Treasury Dept.

Rising Region ~ The True Size of Africa

Thanks to MapPorn for revisiting The True Size of Africa!

Flood Resiliency ~ Dutch Lessons for World Cities

Rising sea levels generally and ocean storm surges, river floodwaters, and intense rainfalls particularly inspire new kinds of thinking about water management, going beyond higher dikes and barriers towards more defense-in-depth, including flood-friendly construction, making room for the rivers, and building absorbent greener cities. Here are some good surveys of this movement...

MIT Classes Fall 2017 ~ Transformative Ventures, Future Explorations, & Creative Action!

I'm excited to be co-teaching a handful of class offerings at MIT this Fall 2017! Please spread the word to those who you think might find any or all of these compelling! All motivated students are urged to attend the First Class session. Details below and at the class sites...

• Development Ventures ~ Thu 10a-12n E14-633 ~ 15.375/EC.731/MAS.665 ~ http://developmentventures.org ~ Towards the entrepreneurial deployment of emerging market innovations solving problems faced by at least a Billion people worldwide in developing countries and underserved communities. First Class: Thu 9/7 
• Revolutionary Ventures ~ Thu 2-4p E15-341 ~ 9.455/15.128/20.454/MAS.883 ~ http://revolutionaryventures.org ~ Exploring personal entrepreneurial strategies and envisioning and building transformative ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate bold engineering revolutions. Email reven@media.mit.edu ASAP if interested. First Class: Thu 9/7 
• Future Law (H1) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s71 ~ http://mitfuturelaw.org ~ New Media & AI disrupts Legal Services plus New Laws for Emerging Technologies, e.g. spectrum, space, autonomous driving, etc. First Class: Tue 9/12 (First Half Semester offering) 
• Future Commerce (H2) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s72 ~ http://mitfuturecommerce.org ~ New Media including Mobiles, Crypto, AI, Blockchain meets Markets & Finance, Transactions & Security. First Class: Tue 10/31 (Second Half Semester offering) 
• Understanding MIT ~ Tue 4-6p 9-450A ~ 11.s941 ~ http://understandingmit.org ~ Special seminar on the challenges of designing and building research universities and crafting conditions for a supportive, vibrant, and entrepreneurial learning community. First Class: Tue 9/12 
• Independent Studies & UROPs ~ On Invention, Entrepreneurship, VCPE, etc 

For More Info, email Joost Bonsen ~ http://alum.mit.edu/www/jpbonsen

Eclipsed Dreams ~ Future Tourism That Wasn't...

The Atlantic spotlights What Would the Solar Eclipse Look Like From the Moon?

"In 1989, [artist Pat] Rawlings was working on illustrations for a collection of children’s science books by the science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Using acrylics, he painted a view of a solar eclipse as seen from the moon, and named it after the date when the next eclipse would cross over the continental United States: August 21, 2017. This week, Rawlings tweeted a photo of the painting, which is at the top of this story. “I actually thought 28 years in the future tourists might watch the eclipse from the Moon,” he wrote. “Sigh.”

P.S. Here's the real thing from Mon 8/21/2017...

"Scientists at UW–Madison’s Space Science and Engineering Center (SSEC) observed the eclipse through the eye of one of the world’s most advanced weather satellites, GOES-16. The eclipse images from the satellite were taken at a rate of one every five minutes. Stitched together, the images show the shadow of the moon tracking west to east across the continental United States."

Plus here's a previous eclipse seen in March 2016 over ASEAN + Pacific region via the Himawari-8 Spacecraft in Geostationary orbit!

Making of Metropolis ~ Silent-Era Urban SF Epic!

The Making of Metropolis -- and its painstaking restoration story! Incredible special effects! Changing our futurevision!

MIT Media Ventures ~ Thurs 10a-12n Spring '17

UPDATE: Due to MIT's snow closing, our kickoff class was Thursday morning 10a-12n February 16th, 2017 in Media Lab E14-633.

Our MIT Media Ventures ~ Media Lab Entrepreneurship & Digital Innovations class surveys a broad landscape of emerging media technologies interwoven with live- and historic-cases of intre- and entrepreneurship-based on new media ideas, culminating in a term project. The core goal of this Action Lab offering is for students to gain increased understanding of how emergent media and digital innovations translate into commercial reality and transform society.

We survey case examples of both successful and failed businesses and generally grapple with the difficulties of deploying and diffusing products and as a means of exploring a range of business models and opportunities enabled by emerging Media Lab and related innovations. This year we will be especially emphasizing urban innovations, personal data rights, health, civic engagement, financial service innovations, mobile transactions, and social media generally with special focus on social networks, quantified self and society, AI, robotics, automation, and data analytics. Join us at first class Thursday morning 10a-12n February 9th, 2017 in Media Lab E14-633.

Fall 2016 @ MIT ~ Ventures, Places, Futures!

I'm co-teaching a very cool folio of MIT class offerings this Fall 2016 and hope you'll either consider joining us or spreading the word about particularly relevant offerings to great students and colleagues who you think might appreciate them! These cluster into three big categories: Transformational Ventures, Creative Places, and Emergent Futures. Details below & online...  

• Development Ventures ~ Thu 10a-12n E14-633 ~ 15.375/EC.731/MAS.665 ~ http://developmentventures.org ~ Towards the entrepreneurial deployment of emerging market innovations solving problems faced by at least a Billion people worldwide in developing countries and underserved communities. First class: Thu 9/8  
• Revolutionary Ventures ~ Thu 2-4p E15-341 ~ 9.455/15.128/20.454/MAS.883 ~ http://revolutionaryventures.org ~ Exploring personal entrepreneurial strategies and envisioning and building transformative ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate bold engineering revolutions. Email reven@media.mit.edu ASAP if interested. First class: Thu 9/8  
• Future Commerce (H1) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s71/15.s73 ~ http://mitfuturecommerce.org ~ New Media meets Markets & Finance. First class: Tue 9/13 (Half Semester offering)  
• Future Health (H2) ~ Tue 1-2:30p E14-633 ~ MAS.s72/15.s74 ~ http://mitfuturehealth.org ~ New Media meets Medicine & Wellness. First class: Tue 11/1 (Second Half of semester)  
• Understanding MIT ~ Tue 4-6p 9-450A ~ 11.s941 ~ http://understandingmit.org ~ Special seminar on the challenges of designing and building research universities and crafting conditions for a supportive, vibrant, and entrepreneurial learning community. First class: Tue 9/13  
• Model Cities ~ Wed 2-5p E15-359 ~ MAS.552/4.557 ~ http://mitmodelcities.org ~ Simulating & Visualizing Entrepreneurial, Innovative, & Creative Urban Hotspots. First class: Wed 9/7  
• SciFab 2050 ~ Tue 7-9p E15-359 ~ MAS.s60 ~ http://scifab2050.org/ ~ An informal seminar using Science Fiction, extrapolation, simulation, and imagination to envision what our world might be like in 2050. Email jpbonsen@alum.mit.edu if interested. First session: Tue 9/13

Star Trek + XPrize ~ Roddenberry's Worldview!

Thanks to my MIT Sloan colleague Anjali Sastry for spotting Gene Roddenberry's Worldview on the XPrize Foundation site!

Future Climate ~ Köppen-Geiger A1FI Scenario...

Future A1FI Köppen-Geiger climate scenario...

Rise ~ SF Short on Sentient AI vs Humans...

Nice short SF film Rise on sentient AI robots vs humans...

Volcanic Climate Change ~ Sulfate Evidence...

OpenMind shares 1816, the Year Without a Summer when...

"It snowed and froze in parts of Europe and North America. Crops were ruined, triggering the worst famine of the nineteenth century [and] became known as “the year without a summer,” a climatic anomaly that affected the northern hemisphere"

We now know this is at least partly due to the massive Tambora volcanic eruption.

"Evidence of the long range of the emissions from Tambora has been found in the high sulphur content in samples of polar ice from the time, says paleoclimatologist Robert Mulvaney of the British Antarctic Survey [...] “Very large eruptions (such as Tambora) can lift material very high in the atmosphere, and into the stratosphere,” explains Mulvaney. “Once in the stratosphere, the sulfur dioxide can oxidise into sulphuric acid, which is taken up by tiny water droplets to form a haze in the stratosphere that can reflect incident sunlight back away from the Earth, causing less light to penetrate through the atmosphere, and the Earth to cool.” This sulphuric acid circulating in the stratosphere is then detected in ice cores. In this way, scientists can estimate the volume of emissions from an eruption."

Here's the evidence showing it's happened at huge scale at least a couple times per century, so inquiring minds want to know "when's next"?

Shenzhen ~ The Silicon Valley of Hardware

WIRED's Future Cities series spotlights Shenzhen ~ The Silicon Valley of hardware...

Flowing Data ~ Plotting Death Cause over Time...

Madlen Davies at the DailyMail spots Nathan Yau's death plots on the Flowing Data website!

RISE ~ SF Exploring Human-Robot Relations...

Concept-trailer for RISE created by David Karlak...

"In the near future, sentient robots are targeted for elimination after they develop emotional symmetry to humans and a revolutionary war for their survival begins."

Rethinking the Map ~ Emergent US Megaregions

NYTimes piece by Parag Khanna on A New Map for America spotlights how the lower 48 could be realigned into seven megaregions...

"America is increasingly divided not between red states and blue states, but between connected hubs and disconnected backwaters. [...] Federal policy should refocus on helping these nascent archipelagos prosper, and helping others emerge, in places like Minneapolis and Memphis, collectively forming a lattice of productive metro-regions efficiently connected through better highways, railways and fiber-optic cables: a United City-States of America.  Similar shifts can be found around the world. Despite millenniums of cultivated cultural and linguistic provinces, China is transcending its traditional internal boundaries to become an empire of 26 megacity clusters with populations of up to 100 million each, centered around hubs such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chongqing-Chengdu. Over time these clusters, whose borders fluctuate based on population and economic growth..."