This was the keynote talk at the Caribe 2013 conference in Cartagena, Colombia to explore future possibilities for the greater Caribbean Basin

1. Future Options
for the Greater Caribbean Basin
Prospecta Caribe 2013
September 5, 2013
Jerome C. Glenn
The Millennium Project

2. The Future will be more complex and change
more rapidly…than most people think
• The factors that made such changes are changing faster
now, than 25 years ago
• Therefore, the next 25 years should make the speed of
change over the last 25 years seem slow
• Hence, we need to upgrade our assumptions about what is
possible, and how to think about the future
• Development projects should leap frog as mush as
possible; e.g., pure meat, tele-education, seawater
agriculture, 3-Printing, tele-medicine, synthetic biology,
tele-one-person businesses, tele-nations, computational
science, etc.

3. Next MegaTrend:
Conscious-Technology
When the distinction between these two trends
becomes blurred, we will have reached the
Post-Information Age
HUMANS BECOMING
CYBORGS
BUILT ENVIRONMENT
BECOMING INTELLIGENT
1985
2000
2015
2030

4. Age / Element Product Power Wealth Place War Time
Agricultural Extraction Food/Res Religion Land Earth/Res Location Cyclical
Industrial Machine Nation-State Capital Factory Resources Linear
Information Info/serv Corporation Access Office Perception Flexible
Conscious-Technology Linkage Individual Being Motion Identity Invented
Simplification/Generalization of History and an
Alternative Future

5. How can sustainable development be achieved for
all while addressing global climate change?
1
How can everyone have sufficient clean water
without conflict?
2
How can population growth and resources be
brought into balance?
3
How can genuine democracy emerge from
authoritarian regimes?
4
How can policymaking be made more
sensitive to global long-term
perspectives?
5
How can the global convergence of
information and communications
technologies work for everyone?
6
How can ethical market economies be
encouraged to help reduce the gap between
rich and poor?
7
How can the threat of new and reemerging
diseases and immune microorganisms be
reduced?
8
How can the capacity to decide be improved as the
nature of work and institutions change?
9
How can shared values and new security
strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism, and
the use of weapons of mass destruction?
10
How can the changing status of
women improve the human condition?
11
How can transnational organized crime
networks be stopped from becoming
more powerful and sophisticated global
enterprises?
12
How can growing energy demands be
met safely and efficiently?
13
How can scientific and technological
breakthroughs be accelerated to improve
the human condition?
14
How can ethical considerations become more
routinely incorporated into global decisions?
15
How can sustainable development be achieved for all
while addressing global climate change?
How can everyone have sufficient clean water
without conflict?
How can population growth and resources be
brought into balance?
How can genuine democracy emerge
from authoritarian regimes?
How can policymaking be made
more sensitive to global long-term
perspectives?
How can the global convergence of
information and communications
technologies work for everyone?
How can ethical market economies be
encouraged to help reduce the gap
between rich and poor?
How can the threat of new and reemerging
diseases and immune microorganisms be
reduced?
How can the capacity to decide be improved as
the nature of work and institutions change?
How can shared values and new security
strategies reduce ethnic conflicts, terrorism,
and the use of weapons of mass destruction?
How can the changing status of
women improve the human
condition?
How can growing energy demands
be met safely and efficiently?
How can scientific and technological
breakthroughs be accelerated to improve
the human condition?
How can ethical considerations become more
routinely incorporated into global decisions?
How can transnational organized crime
networks be stopped from becoming
more powerful and sophisticated global
enterprises?
15 Global Challenges–the Agenda today

6. Future of Education is Increasing Intelligence:
both Individual and Collective Intelligence

7. How to increase Individual Intelligence
1. Responding to feedback
2. Consistency of love, diversity of environment
3. Nutrition
4. Reasoning exercises
5. Believing it is possible (placebo effect)
6. Contact with intelligent people or via VR simulations
7. Software systems and gaming
8. Neuro-pharmacology (enhanced brain chemistry)
9. Memes on classroom walls and else where, for example: intelligence is sexy
10. Low stress, stimulating environments, with certain music, color, fragrances
improves concentration and performance
11. Longer term:
• Reverse engineering the brain (President Obama)
• Applied Epigenetics and genetic engineering
• Designer microbes to eat the plaque on neurons

8. How to Increase Collective Intelligence
• It emerges from the integration
and synergies among
• data/info/knowledge
• software/hardware
• experts and others with insight
• that continually learns from
feedback
• to produce just in time knowledge
for better decisions
• than these elements acting alone.

9. An Application of Collective Intelligence:
Global Futures Intelligence System at www.themp.org

11. Global Challenge Menu in GFIS
1. Situation Chart: Current Situation; Desired Situation; and Policies
2. Report (detailed text) on the challenge from State of the Future
3. News items (automatic news feeds – searchable)
4. Scanning (annotated, rated information)
5. On-going Delphi questionnaires to collect expert judgments
6. Public comments
7. Discussion groups
8. Computer models (mathematical and rules-based), and conceptual models
9. Resources: websites, books, papers, videos
10. Updates – all edits
11. Digests – Recent scans, edits, discussions

13. Observatorio del Caribe Colombiano: First Subscriber LAC to GFIS
1. Beatriz Bechara de Borge
2. Berena Vergara Serpa
3. Fernan Acosta Valdelamar
4. Luz Angelica Saumeth De Las Salas
5. Philip Wrigth
6. Sofia Lisbrant
7. Carmen Elena Ocampo Lopez
8. Antonio Ortega Hoyos
9. Yunaris Coneo Mendoza
10. Jonker Santamaria

14. Caribbean Basin Public Situation Chart
Leap-Frog
Activities
Current Status Next Steps Comments
Synergies
Sea Water
Agriculture
FAO, World Bank,Eritrea
(Seawater Forest Initiative),
Mexico (Seawater Foundation,
Bahia Kino), UAE (UAE
University), Australia (Seawater
Green House), Oman, others
National Youth Corps to plant
seagrass, contact Seawater
Greenhouse (UK) Seawater
Foundation (US), See
investments (in-water and on-
beach agriculture)
IDB, China, FAO, USAIS,
PAHO for food process plant
feasibility study, Youth Corps
for production and
consumption
Growing meat and
leather without
animals
Initial demonstration-tions to
attract investors
Review Univ. of Maastricht
and others research, contact
New Harvest, others
Improved protein and iron
foods, Meals for Youth
Corps, FAO global PR plan,
invite business investors
Tele-Caribbean Basin Brain drain programs filing,
alternative: Tele-Jamaica
Create website to match
development needs with
Caribbean clubs overseas
Integrate all development
programs into tele-
Caribbean Basin web site
Etc. Etc. Etc. Etc.

15. Synthetic Biology… the next Revolution

16. Prices are going up…
Food
EnergyWater

17. High Food Prices – Long-Term
1. population growth
2. rising affluence especially India &
China
3. diversion of corn for biofuels
4. soil erosion
5. aquifer depletion
6. the loss of cropland
7. falling water tables and water
pollution
8. Increasing fertilizer costs (high oil
prices)
9. Market speculation
10. diversion of water from rural to urban
11. Increasing meat consumption
12. global food reserves at 25-year lows
13. climate change
13. Increasing droughts
14. Increasing flooding
15. Melting mountain glaciers reducing
water flows
16. And eventually saltwater invading crop
lands

18. Salt Water Agriculture: Saves H2O for Cities &
Sequests Carbon

20. Growing Pure Meat without Growing Animals
August 5th a London chef cooked and served first public taste test
for hamburgers grown from cow’s cells with growing/killing a cow

21. Ifthen Nano-
technology
Synthetic
Biology
Internet of
Things
3D Printing Conscious-
Technology
Augmented
Reality
Nano-
technology xxx
Synthetic
Biology xxx
Internet of
Things xxx
3D Printing
xxx
Conscious-
Technology xxx
Augmented
Reality xxx
EmergingTechnologiesTable

22. Computational Science
Computational biology
Computational Chemistry
Computational Physics
All Accelerate with Moore’s Law

23. Some Elements of the Next Economic System
• Capitalism/Socialism/Communism – early industrial age systems
• Next system too complex to understand to day – but some seeds
can be; 32 seeds identified and assessed by the Millennium Project
• Simultaneous knowing – time lags changed or eliminated in
information dissemination with much greater transparency.
• Non-ownership, as distinct from private ownership or collective/state
ownership (e.g. The Internet and open source software)
• Alternatives to continuously creating artificial demand and growth
• One-Person Business - Self-employment via the Internet—
individuals seek markets for their abilities rather than jobs

24. One-Person
Businesses
Find markets
around the
world for what
you are
interested in
doing
not non-existing
jobs

25. Google does it again!
How many one-person businesses
could this create? Tele-tourism?
visit the Pyramids in Egypt,
the Louvre in Paris?

26. Wise to invest in a diverse set of new creative
economic activities
• Internet of things with universal high speed Internet
• Increasing intelligence (individual and national)
• 3-D Printing
• Synthetic Biology
• Nanotechnology
• Retrofitting buildings for energy production
• One-Person Businesses (massive training programs)
• Youth Corps to plant seagrass

27. … May become a TransInstitution
UN
Organizations
NGOs
and
Foundations
Universities
GovernmentsCorporations
The Millennium
Project

28. Purposes of the Millennium Project
• Create a global and on-going capacity to improve thinking
about the future
• Make that thinking available through a variety of media for
consideration in
• policymaking
• advanced training
• educational curricula
• public education
• Continually respond to feedback, to accumulate wisdom
about potential futures

29. 49 Millennium Project Nodes...
aregroupsofexpertsandinstitutionsthatconnectglobalandlocalviewsin:
Nodes identify participants, translate questionnaires and reports, and conduct interviews,
special research, workshops, symposiums, and advanced training.

30. Some additional recommendations for the Caribbean Basin
Region and Nations
• How could Caribbean Basin Nations make a difference with Climate Change?
• Initiate a UN General Assembly Resolution calling for a US-China 10-year climate
change goal with a NASA-like program to implement it… that others can join in.
• Invite the most creative businesses from synthetic biology to nanotech to invest in
the development facilities that could reduce greenhouse gas production
• What might the Observatory do for regional futures?
• Create Regional State of the Future Index
• Create and maintain a regional futures situation chart on your website
• Create a regional collective intelligence system
• Produce a Caribbean Basin State of Future report
• Initiate Tele-Nations (matching those overseas with development back home)
• Help up-grade Government Future Strategy Units for Heads of State Offices

31. 25 years ago there was no World Wide Web.
25 years from now: What will be emerging?
And from what?

32. For further information
Jerome C. Glenn
The Millennium Project
4421 Garrison Street, NW,
Washington, D.C. 20016 USA
+1-202-686-5179 phone/fax
Jerome.Glenn@Millennium-Project.org
www.StateoftheFuture.org
www.themp.org (Global Futures Intelligence System)