Global Challenges

and

the Role of Metropolis

Jerome C. Glenn

The Millennium Project

Investment Areas to Improve Our Urban Future

• Urban/City Collective Intelligence Systems • TransInstitutions to assist urban management• University Courses in Urban Systems Ecology• Retrofit for energy producing buildings• Dynamic adaptive buildings with sensors: diagnosis and repair

infrastructure• Ubiquitous computing, robotics, Nano Sensors (better management and

counter terrorism - monitoring molecules in public spaces)• “Greening” everything possible• Smart traffic control• To save urban water: Pure Meat without growing animals and saltwater

agriculture

Rio+20: Two Stories:

• Nation-State Failure• New Synergies among business, universities,

NGOs, and municipalities or city officials

Next Mega Trend: Conscious-TechnologyWhen 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

As brains are concentrations of nerve cells, cities are concentrations of brains

How well cities give coherence to these brains to address global challenges will determine the future quality of our future cities

Each can change the other

Collective Intelligence

• It is an emergent property• from synergies among

• data/info/knowledge• software/hardware• experts and others with insight

• that continually learns from feedback• to produce (nearly) just in time knowledge for better

decisions• than these elements acting alone.

15 Global Challenges

#1 is no more important than #15. This global agenda is a system: improving any improves others; reducing any reduces the others

Prices are going up…

High Food Prices – Long-Term

• population growth• rising affluence especially

India & China• diversion of corn for biofuels• soil erosion• aquifer depletion• the loss of cropland• falling water tables and

water pollution• Increasing fertilizer costs

(high oil prices) • Market speculation

• diversion of water from rural to urban

• Increasing meat consumption

• global food reserves at 25-year lows

• climate change• Increasing droughts • Increasing flooding• Melting mountain

glaciers reducing water flows

• And eventually saltwater invading crop lands

TransInstitutions

1. Boards of Directors whose members come from UN agencies, corporations, governments, NGOs, universities, and individuals, but are not from a majority of any one institutional categories;

2. People who work for the transinstitution come from all of these institutional categories, but do not form a majority of anyone one institutional category;

3. Income from at least four of the following categories but does not receive its funds from a majority of any of the above institutional categories; and

4. Products, services, and/or other outputs that are purchased or used by all of these categories, but by a majority of any one

institutional category.

Future Management

1. Hierarchy

2. Networks

3. Intersection of Networks: Nodes

4. Connecting Nodes into Fields of Play

5. Connecting Fields of Play

If\then Synthetic Biology

Nano-technology

3-D Printing

Internet of Things

Conscious-Technology

Artificial Intelligence

Synthetic Biology xxx 1 Nano-technology 2 xxx 3-D Printing

xxx Internet of Things xxx Conscious-Technology xxx Artificial Intelligence xxx

Future S&T Interactions

Integration of Archeology, urban systems ecology, and cyberspace

http://www.jvrb.orgwww.jvrb.org

46 Millennium Project Nodes...

are groups of experts and institutions that connect global and local views

in:

Nodes identify participants, translate questionnaires and reports, and conduct interviews, special research, workshops, symposiums, and advanced training.

Korean Sustainable City Concept

2012 State of the Future

Or…a 1-year subscription for ongoing updates in the Global Futures Collective Intelligence System

For further information

Jerome C. Glenn

The Millennium Project4421 Garrison Street, NW,

Washington, D.C. 20016 USA+1-202-686-5179 phone/fax

JGLENN@IGC.ORG

www.StateoftheFuture.org