Futures Group

Did You Know 4.0 (designed by XPLANE)
This video above is the latest edition of the popular “Did You Know” presentation from which the ‘Rise of the Rest’ was inspired from.

From IFTF, on authorship, appropriation and control here. And you should watch this together with TED’s Larry Lessig’s piece on how the law is strangling creativity (below).

Jeff found this, and I found it delicious to convey the depth of debt the US has gotten itself into. I am reminded of the exorbitant debt the Qing dynasty government owed the Western nations through military defeats, and the interest that ultimately broke the imperial government and led to a century of turmoil. I am not saying this is a similar case between the USA and Qing China, we are not living in colonial/feudal times after all. Still, debt makes most of us nervous. It’s quite ingrained culturally.

We’ve just released our latest animation “The Great Reset”. This is our attempt to describe the world as it emerges from the fog of the current crisis. There’s a more complete introduction to the topic found on our page here.

You are welcome to use it, please attribute to futuresgroup.wordpress.com, thanks!

From TED, PW Singer talks about the proliferation of robots for everyday war activities, and the impact on future wars.

Excellent crowdsourcing here for an infographic to capture the complexity of the financial crisis. h/t to Jasmine for putting this up on Facebook where I saw it. GOOD magazine put up a prize of $500 for the best infographics, and some of the entries were really good. You can see the GOOD blog post here. I’m highlighting my favourite from Jonathan Jarvis, who I think also translated this into an animation.

Cool simulation of air traffic flow from Zurich University of Applied Sciences (h/o to Worldchanging).

Wow, finally! The video for the ‘Rise of the Rest’ is available.

If you like this, you are very welcome to use it! Please attribute, much appreciated! You can grab from youtube or a larger version from google video.

The Rise of the Rest is a term coined by Fareed Zakaria on the post-American world. It is not a world marked by American decline, but the rise of everybody else. The rise of China and India are the most obvious signs, but the Gulf countries are also remaking themselves beyond hydrocarbons, Africa is beginning to be distinguished into tier 1, 2 and 3 countries of promise etc. As you can see in the wordle crunch, China and India are big but they are not the whole story.

In the video, I try to capture this rise in a 5 min animation. Not easy. The grunt work is the research, and the elegance I attribute to the video editor. I’ve already been asked to list down the sources and here they are below:

1. Babies born per year from Unicef
2. Global Fortune 500 by country
3. Middle class figures – Wharton and McKinsey’s “China’s Emerging Middle Class”.
4. China’s outbound tourists figures from World Tourism Organisation.
5. China as the largest English speaking nation by the British Council.
6. Mumbai, Dhaka, Calcutta, Delhi and Karachi in the future top ten most populous cities. I like the IFTF’s cool map here.
7. Urbanisation of China figures from McKinsey’s “Preparing for China’s Urban Billions”. and the Concrete Dragon.
8. China Internet figures from the Economist, QQ figures from company website.
9. GCC oil windfall figures from McKinsey’s “The Coming Oil Windfall in the Gulf“.
10. Africa figures from “China in Africa” by Chris Alden. Chinese settlement in Africa figures and FT special titled “Africa-China Trade” on 24th Jan 2008.
11. China and India engineer graduate figures vs US from “Is America Losing at Globalization” and “Why Economics Isn’t a Zero-Sum Game”, Newsweek 8 Sept 08″
12. R&D figures for various countries from Charles Wessner, Director, National Academies. Original source Battelle, Global R&D report 2007
13. Working age population figures for India and China from from UN Population Division.

I’m fiddling around with a better way to get the word out. I consume information through videos, RSS feeds, interviews and attending conferences. Our main output is consumed through slide formats. That allows for some depth and breadth. This video is a stab in the same direction, with an overlay of music and line animation. It is inspired by “Shift Happens” and let’s see how it is received, consumed and used.

I am also a great admirer of the Institute of the Future’s futurescapes. I have them pinned liberally around my three walls. I love mash ups. I hope to be able to acquire the skills, or at least crowdsource, outsource, to create our own soon.

The Rise of the Rest video is in production right now and I’ll post it up likely next week. I’ll be making a Chinese version as well at a later date. Here’s a wordle glimpse on what it looks like.