The future should spark curiosity, as we are all heading there. I have led several foresight projects and organized future-oriented excursions. Now, I am writing about 50 stories on the history of the future—how development unfolded.
The aim of the project is to illustrate changes in the operating environment for current and future businesses, revealing opportunities for new products and services. The project progresses within the Council of Academic Engineers and Architects in Finland (TEK)’s Technology and Innovation Committee, where I serve as chair. As an additional touch, I write short science fiction stories set in the same environment. (One of them is included in this leaflet.)
The work focuses on three groups. If something is not functioning well, it attracts pressure for change, and we can hypothesize how the issue might be resolved. There is also the extrapolation of technological development and its consequences. The third group involves the evolution of various societal phenomena and conditions. The process involves analysing the current situation and brainstorming potential changes. Following this, a backward-looking narrative is written, explaining why and how development took its course.
For simplicity, I maintain the project’s documents on my website. I would be happy to receive comments about them via email.
Jouni J Särkijärvi 