What does it mean to be a Futurist? I see my role as a Futurist to be an Integrator of systems, designer of intelligent technologies, and a strategist of the future. If I could define my purpose as a Futurist, it would be to connect the codes that build the world of tomorrow. I naturally gravitate towards the decoding of sophisticated ideas in order to Integrate them into hybrid solutions that fuse sets of technologies together.
My passion is synthesizing advanced concepts from multiple fields of study into strategic solutions for mapping the future. As a polymath, I chose not to devote all of my intellectual energy towards a single field of study, but instead take key concepts from multiple fields and fuse them together in order to imagine new technological capabilities. The 21st century will see both an acceleration and convergence of emerging technologies. While designers, coders, engineers, and researchers, are the experts building specific technologies, the Futurist is the technology-strategist who integrates these advances into a roadmap for navigating the next generation. My methodology uses both macro and micro scale approaches to exploring the future, ranging from business concepts to the physics and engineering behind tomorrow's devices and ecosystems. A key concept in futurism is the idea of the technological Singularity or the point of convergence between all human beings and their technological devices. The idea is put forth by the Russian Futurist, Alex Vikoulov in his book the "Syntellect Hypothesis" which refers to a global brain that fuses all of humanity into a singular network enabled capability.
A key element of my role as a Futurist is to design the “Constellation of the Future”, which I envision as a network enabled capability designed from interconnected codes, algorithms and protocols. The next generation system architecture will serve as a solutions based roadmap for the transition towards a smart society. The question that my work seeks to answer is, How do we converge sets of technologies together in order to create a game changing capability at the systems level? The approach that I have persued for investigating the evolutionary potential of a given technology is based on three levels of analytics.
Descriptive, prescriptive and Predicitve. Descriptive analytics provides a dashboard view of the current state of a system or process. It uses descriptive statistics and machine learning algorithms to provide insight into a system. Prescriptive analytics is a natural outcome of descriptive analytics. It sugests ways to improve a current process or system using simulation and optimization algorithms. Finally, Predictive analytics enables answering “what-if” questions by building predictive models using inferential statistics and forecasting techniques. It enables organizations to make data-driven strategic decisions. Through the effective utilization of Descriptive, prescriptive and Predictive analytics, Futurist can map out scenarios, global trends and trajectories for social and technological change. These advanced analytics platforms are especially beneficial for investing in Emerging technologies which typically go through four phases of development in order to become a reality, Hypothetical, Experimental, Demonstrators and Diffusion.
My approach to Futurism integrates both Digital physics and philosophy, technology and humanity. The coming decades will see technological advances that will turn science fiction into reality. Society will need a new language for interfacing with the technologies of the Future. The universe communicates through the language of physics, and the future will speak to us in a language of codes, algorithms and protocols that emerge from physics.
As a Futurist, I am learning how to decode the prose of this language and turn it into poetry. Futurist Gerd Leonhard says society is driven by technology, but defined by humanity. All technology comes from decoding the laws of Nature, so an advanced understanding of physics will be a key element in the development of strategic solutions. Philosophy is an important factor as well because it helps to establish ethics, purpose, and a guiding vision for emerging technologies leading towards positive benefits for humanity.
A futurist is someone who can understand the big ideas, connect the dots, and can strategize their way into the future. The future will be a constellation of trillions of interconnected elements built from codes, algorithms and protocols. I believe that the most valuable asset that I have as a Futurist is my Mindset. The way that I perceive space and time is unique, because it is based on algorithmic thought, an innovative approach that uses formulas and patterns of computation to generate complex adaptive systems.
It will require a convergence of capabilities in order to succeed in the world of tomorrow. It will take purpose, curiosity, foresight, critical thinking, imagination and passion to build the future according to Futurist Gerd Leonhard. The ways in which Intelligent Technologies, Integrated Systems, Strategic solutions and next generation networks converge their capabilities will enable the acceleration of the cybernetic singularity, the gravitational center to which the future is guided forever forward.
Nolan JT Nahar
Futurist
Evolutionary Cyberneticist
Digital Philosopher
2021
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