Snapshots from a journey into 2050's digital futures

Digital Futures Project - concept

• Foresight input to prepare Juncker Commission

• Outreach: beyond DG Connect's ICT focus

• Outreach: stakeholders' aspirational futures

• Crowd-sourcing tool: Futurium

• visions, evidence, policies, events: socnet style

• Experimental, low cost engagement

2015-2025 (?)

2010-2014 2015-2019

Barroso II

2010-2020 (Europe 2020)+Anticipation

+Evidence

+Participation

Citizen's Engagement

Futures

Next College

Key Issues

Make sense

Co-create

Influence

Purpose

Policy choices

Timeline

Oct 2012

Mar 2012Nov 2012

EP/EIF

(futurium

kick-off)

ICT2013

Nov 2013

Co-Creation

• Bottom-up• Spontaneous• Emergent

Sense Making

• Top-Down• Structured• Convergent

Futurium

Foresight methodology

Reporting to

decision makers

Two-step process

Outcomes

DigitalFutures

Futures

100+ Events, 2000+ co-creators

20 Webinars

4000+ Futurium members

Breaking into new policy making practices

Futurium model

20+ Requests for take-up

Themes

Futures

Policy ideas

Evidence items

Digital Futures content structured according to six dimensions

Science & Technology

Personal life

Society

Economy

Environment

Governance

Digital Futures

Hexagon

The dawn of a trans-humanistic era

What are the ethical and regulatory implications?

Will people adapt?

What are the opportunities?

Science &Technology

Economy

EnvironmentPersonal

Life

Society

Governance

Implants

Identity

Bioethics

Super-

sensesEco-friendly

Regulation & law

Organ

farms Nano-

robots

Plug&Play

Human

PerformanceSafety

Freedom

& control

Preventing

Divides Productivity

growth

Adaptation

Acceptance

Hyper-connected human

How to support European industrial competitiveness?

How to ensure EU values are reflected in future Internet Governance?

How to ensure that hyper-connectivity is brought to all?

S&T

Ec

EnPL

So

Go

Broadband

networks

Organic

computing

IoT

Storage and

Big Data

Siloed

infrastructuresHyper-

distributed

architectures

Open HW&SW

Regulations

Spectrum

Emerging

societal

applications

Prevent

Divides

Innovation

Trustworthy

technologies

Standards

PrivacyBiz models

Outcomes

DigitalFutures

Futures

100+ Events, 2000+ co-creators

20 Webinars

4000+ Futurium members

Breaking into new policy making practices

Futurium model

20+ Requests for take-up

Themes

Futures

Policy ideas

Evidence items

Futurium purpose

To enable a collective inquiry

into the ideas and aspirations of

citizens, in order to feed future

policy reflections

It's a bit of a…

• Social network

• Wiki

• Ideation tool

• Foresight platform

• …

Evidence + Participation

Digital4Eu

Digital4Science

eGovAction plan

Innovation 4EU

REGIO EPSO

Futurium (common IT platform)

Beyond foresight: policy arenas on a shared engine

• Avoids duplication/mushrooming of platforms• Sharing features/data• Sharing experiences/best practices/lesson learnt• Customisable/adaptable (with some limitations)• Scalable to all commission

…..

• Define an engagement strategy first

• Be clear on the purpose, make it a shared one!

• Set expectations (policy sponsors, citizens, …), set targets for getting "viral"

• Inter-leave online process with in-person conversations , "go local", engage all,

organising thematic events/webinars

• Be focused: fewer topics is better than discussing about everything

• Start simpler, make it gradually more complex, if needed

• Be clear on the rules of the game (data, workflows,…)

• Define roles: community managers, content curators,…

• Work on people, value their creativity, set incentives, reward contributors

• Feedback is key (draw summaries, make sense of conversations…)

The lessons (being) learnt

The Challenge is Not The Toolbox…

…but the design of a (viral) engagement process with a lot of variables:

- Political- Communication- Engagement- Content- Technical- …

Technical solution must ensure rapid adaptation to emergent business needs

More information

Paper: "The Futurium - a Foresight Platform for Evidence-Based and

Participatory Policymaking"

http://www.springerlink.com/openurl.asp?genre=article&id=doi:10.1007/s1334

7-013-0108-9

The Futurium platform today:

http://ec.europa.eu/digital-agenda/futurium/

Digital Futures Futurium (archived):

http://ec.europa.eu/archives/futurium/digital-agenda/en.html

Thanks!