Dubai Future Forum: experts gather to predict future course of the world

As GITEX continued in full-swing at the Dubai World Trade Centre, a few hundred metres away another event that made onlookers ponder over the future was taking place.

The Dubai Future Forum, held at the Museum of the Future on October 11 and 12, brought together "the world’s largest gathering of futurists” where 400 experts, scientists and innovators joined to predict the future trajectory of the world.

A statement issued by the Dubai government quoted Amy Webb, Chief Executive Officer at the Future Today Institute, as saying: "The world's most eminent forecasters gathered at the Dubai Future Forum to challenge leaders – and each other – to be more ambitious in meeting our emerging global challenges."

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“Business and government leaders need to confront their cherished beliefs, to seek out signals of change, understand their implications, as well as to plan for the best possible outcomes,” she said.

In a session titled 'How Do We Define Wealth in the Future?', Joseph Raczynski, Technologist and Futurist at Thomson Reuters, talked about blockchain and NFTs in terms of their real-world functionality to protect wealth in a way that would have far-reaching implications.

He said an NFT is a “store of value conveying that this particular picture is something that's stored on the blockchain which allows you to leverage and confirm that that is what that is. So it's a confirmation of something that you can possess.

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“That’s the beginning. If you extrapolate out from that technology, you can now create deeds to property using an NFT, marriage licence, deeds to your car or anything else.”

He said 80% of the world is ‘undeeded’, with people living on land that they do not have a deed for.

"But once you're able to prove that using something like NFT, you can start to move in the direction of developing wealth for people that have never had that before.”

Dr Susann Roth, Chief of Knowledge Management at the Asian Development Bank, had a different perspective. She said the meaning of wealth doesn't have to be money and it changes depending on your circumstances.

“If you speak to someone in Pakistan or Afghanistan, they would like to have peace. If you speak to someone in, let's say the Philippines, they would like to have electricity and water and an opportunity to get to a hospital in a fairly timely manner. We have to understand the perspectives."

She added that a 'futurist' is someone "who can think about how these perspectives fit into a future that is livable for everyone".

"I realised after working in these very diverse and different countries over the last 14 years that everyone has a different understanding of wellbeing and what wealth at the end is. I think definitely one area everyone agrees on is wealth is the investment in our children.”

As for the role of the government, Roth said: "We have to start with the question what are central banks there for? What is their mission? What do we make sure people exchange money for?"

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She said “rather than consuming more stuff, which is currently an understanding of value and wealth and maybe consuming less, but having more ideas and exchanging more ideas and then thinking about how can we make that efficient and fast.”

Meanwhile, Her Excellency Ohood Khalfan Al Roumi, UAE Minister of State for Government Development and the Future, said governments must adopt innovative new approaches to developing legislative and regulatory frameworks to empower human development.

“Today, due to the fast-paced transformations taking place around the globe, the role of governments has become more prominent than ever. Either the legislative framework adapts to become more agile and an enabler for change, or it remains as is and becomes a barrier to development.”

A major issue up for discussion at the Dubai Future Forum was also climate change.

Angeliki Kapoglou, Strategy and Innovation Researcher, European Space Agency said “there is a clash between our climate ambitions and the energy reality. Annual clean energy investment worldwide will need to more than triple by 2030, to around $4 trillion.”

Jose Cordeiro, Vice Chair at Humanity Plus, spoke about achieving longer life. He noted that as tech giants like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google enter the biology, health and medicine sectors, the world is in the "middle of a technological revolution that will soon achieve radical life extension and indefinite lifespans," adding that "more and more people are now study aging as a disease."

Experts also heard of a world where hydrogen will be extracted from seawater to create a new era of renewable energy and that the total value of investments in the space industry could reach USD 20 trillion by 2040.

The event was organised by the Dubai Future Foundation, which plans to make it an annual gathering.

Museum of the Future

The Dubai Future Forum was held in what many call the most beautiful building in the world - the Museum of the Future.

The metallic structure on Sheikh Zayed Road with giant Arabic calligraphy that could easily be mistaken for an art installation opened its doors to the public in February earlier this year.

Rather than a typical museum that showcases the past, the museum looks at what life will be like in 2071 - 100 years after the founding of UAE - using tech like artificial intelligence plus augmented and virtual reality to provide visitors with experiences about what life will be like in the future not just on earth, but in outer space as well.