Mini Trip report: Brussels

The European Commission’s KT (Knowledge Triangle: Innovation, Research, and Higher Education) 2050 Scenarios project brought me back to Brussels for the second group meeting. Three presentations were given as input to the scenario process: Demographics, Technology, and Globalization. I gave the talk on technology. Much of the discussions focused on the potential of the acceleration and integration of technological change that could lead to long-term structural unemployment, and if so, what should the group recommend in March 2015 to the current restructuring and prioritization of the European Commission. I could not stay for the second day of the meeting, since I had to travel to Lima, Peru the next day.

Prior to the EU meeting I meet with Tony Judge (a leading futurist, editor of the world encyclopedia of world problems, former head of the Union of International Associations) and Cadell Last (MP Tele-Intern working on his PhD at the Global Brain Institute, who I hope will bridge their theoretical work and our applied work on GFIS). We talked for 6 hours non-stop (well, we did stop at three different bars/ restaurants throughout the day and evening). Tony is part of the group on the Big Picture project with Dennis Bushnell that The Millennium Project is getting organized. Tony stressed that we should ask those questions not usually asked in such mega studies and address why they are not asked so that the work has more fundamental impact then previous related projects. The following evening I meet with Blaz Golob, MP South Eastern Europa Chair and head of the new European Foresight (European Nodes and other Futurist organizations and individuals) and Barbara Haering, participant in several MP studies – both were in Brussels for another EC meeting.

Jerome C. Glenn, CEO