The State of the Future

Inspired by Ray Strong, the IBM futurist researcher I met at the WMSCII-conference I scanned the internet for some other authorized and public future studies. One of the most impressive is the UN-project called The Millenium Project.
More than this, UN has now taken it to the World of web 2.0 and anybody can now contribute and add comments and viewpoints on YouTube or directly to their website. See the YouTube introductory videos on these 15 global challenges.
United Nations started this formidable project some 18 years ago and concentrated on the 15 global challenges, that you see in this illustration.
The project has attracted a lot of experts and specialists and are trying to make predictions using an enormous arsenal of forecasting and prediction techniques:
Environmental Scanning, Delphi studies, Futures wheel, Trend Impact Analysis, Cross Impact Analysis, Systems Perspectives, Decision Modeling, Technology Sequence Analysis, Relevance Trees and Morphological Analysis, Interactive Scenarios, Simulation and Games, Genius Forecasting, and a few more.

Each year the Millenium Project updates the outlook and evaluation of the so-called State of The Future Index (SOFI) trying to focus on the challenges that have improved and those that have deteriorated. This will result in a ‘wheel’, showing the trend for the challenges. In this wheel, the 6 most important challenges have been mapped since 1990. From this wheel we can observe that UN estimates that both human wealth, intellectual capital (level of education) and health will improve from now on until 2017, where as people’s physical living conditions as well as political and social security status will be extremely challenged; this is due to environmental changes and social and political unrest, that may happen as a consequence of regional climate changes, lack of water, social tensions due to increased migrations.

Other parts of the Millenium Project are focused on Technology, how it will develop and which issues regarding political management and control might result. For this part of the on going study the Scenario method is used, and reading these scenarios will give you the creeps … the Fantasy is beyond the imagination of even Ray Bradbury.

When you have enjoyed these studies, you might wonder what is happening in Europe; I found that the UK ministry of Science most likely is the most advanced in EU, and have now started an ongoing series of so-called Foresight studies. While the UN study is an overall Study looking at the Future in a more holistic way, the Foresight study in UK seem to be much more concentrated on the intermediate term and on technology and technological development as such. But a really interesting collecting of studies, enjoy!

Swedish Surveillance Case - New Comments

According to Computerworld.dk, http://www.computerworld.dk/art/47163?a=newsletter&i=1914, the Swedish MOD Sten Tolgfors has stated in the media that surveillance of all electronic communication is crucial to evaluate and act against external threats and plots directed towards Swedish interests, citizens or authorities. This of course is the reasoning behind the newly accepted and much debated Swedish act, that allows the Swedish Defense Radioservice (FRA) to collect and analyze the content of all electronic communication going in and out of Sweden.

But the Swedish minister added to this general statement, that the way the FRA is operating based on the new law will be in a way where individuals, particularly Swedish inidviduals are not the target for the surveillance, but other states and organisations in other countries with a direct interest in Sweden. Tolgfors further claimed that the only individuals that would have their electronic communication surveilled would be known terrorists or gangsters. He also lifted the curtain or the type of technology used to scan this enourmous amount of data:

'Very advanced search techniques are being deployed,' her said, 'that ensures that only information concerning some of the key variables for which FRA is looking, will be selected and stored. Everything else will pass on.' (Svenska Dagbladet) ( http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/artikel_1436287.svd ). He also stated that it would be 'practically impossible' to scan all communnication, and further that a parliamentary committee is looking at ways to clarify the legiaslation and to build integrity measures into the rules, that eventually will govern the practical apllication of the law.

For lay people and for some fanatics this is not good enough, but it clearly illustrates the dillemma that all nations are facing these days: Even if natural disasters are muh more likely than terrorism to kill and injure people, there is a strong political interest in strengthening surveillance to increase the perceived security level. And if you look into it, the Swedish Minister may have a point, depending on how the legislation in it's final form actually will be formulated.

Without amendments a simple permission to capture any communication would without doubt be contractory to the wording and the spirit of the European Human Rights as stated in my earlier blog. This goes without any argument like 'it is not practically possible' - because storage constraints are disappearing, and technology progressing; instead an amendment stating that the surveillance will be made following clear criteria and using advanced techniques to encrypt any linkage until a 'hit' with a wanted list or linkage of message to known criminals occur.

Tools like this actually exist - but the exact wording of the Swedish Law plus the accompanying administrative rules should be discussed the Working Party 29 before the law comes into effect - this advice would help clarify for all European nations where the borderline is between privacy and security. The discussions following the Swedish Act clearly illustrates the need to draw this line in a way that can be communicated also to people without technical understanding as well as to Stefan Engberg.

(Illustration above made by Anders Duus Østergaard - another way of identifying an ugly duckling or? )

Impressions from WMSCI

I enjoyed participating in a remarkable event in Orlando, Florida from June 29th to July 3rd.
It happened to be the 12th consecutive ‘World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics’. http://www.sciiis.org/wmsci2008/website/default.asp?vc=1 .The ‘Multi’ should be taken quite literally: It consists of the RMCI – Symposium on Risk Management and Cyber-Informatics, of the International Symposium of Energy, Informatics and Cybernetics, of MEI, the International Symposium of Management, Engineering and Informatics, of BMIC, international symposium of Bio-Medical informatics, PISTA, The international Conference on Politics and Information Systems (See http://www.socioinfocyber.org/imsci2008/website/default.asp?vc=4 ), Technologies and Applications, as well as eISTA, conference on Education, Information, Technology and Applications.
The idea behind this enormous conference is rather unique; all the participants are speakers at one of the conferences, and you are free to pick and choose from all the sub-conferences. So this is really a place where the audience is extremely active and alive, and all the speakers try to do their best as they are in front of knowledgeable colleagues from universities, industry, governmental and research institutions. (I have participated as a speaker on several occasions, in PISTA as well as RMCI.) And it is indeed a very productive conference: every morning at breakfast 2 lessons are given in plenum and this time covered a wide range from Gary S. Metcalf’s (http://www.interconnectionsllc.com/management.htm )extremely interesting presentation on ‘Patterns of Significance – Complexities between Human and Scientific Decision Making, to prof. Yaroslav Sergeyev’s (http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/s/Sergeyev:Yaroslav_D=.html ) views on ‘The infinity Computer’, and a remarkable overview of the history of Cybernetics by prof. Ranulph Glanville (http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/people/glanville/ ) – plus of course several others.
In my own session – labeled Human Information Systems – I was co-chair together with a Russian born, now US resident, Dmitry Zinoviev, that gave a very interesting presentation on how to describe topology and geometry of on line social networks. This is indeed very useful when we expand on the line, which I produced, the joint paper between me and Michael Hvass, my assistant, on ‘eGovernment 2.0 – how can government benefit from Web 2.0?’. Our paper was later acknowledged ‘Best Paper in Session’, so I was deeply honored.
If you scan through the list of presentations and papers you will be astonished to see the span of the articles – regardless of your line of profession there is bound to be something of interest: From molecular Bio-Engineering, to Energy preservation, to managing risks in banks, preventing terror, assessing risk and warning systems for the mining industry, demonstrating how robots can assist in emergency situations and so on and so forth.
What struck me as one of the most interesting sessions happened to be presented by an IBM colleague, Ray Strong, coming from the Almaden research Lab in California. (See http://www.almaden.ibm.com/ ).

Together with colleagues Ray developed an exciting methodology for technology outlook and future studies. And this is not ‘just’ 5 years ahead: Based on a request from NASA a few years ago, Almaden lab was forced to think of meaningful ways to develop foresight methodologies to look 40 or even 50 years into the future. This of course cannot in any way be accurate forecasts, but the methodology actually develops what Ray calls ‘Sign posts’ , events, inventions or breakthroughs, that mark a breaking point, and once these signposts occur, there is a sort of roadmap attached to it, so it is relatively clear, what a threshold or signpost would possibly open up for. At the Almaden homepage you can find and download general descriptions of this methodology, which we in fact sell as a part of the IBM consulting offering to corporations or Governments that want to look into the future. (www.ispim.org/ispim2008/files/Ray%20Strong.ppt ) Examples such as mobile phone companies, utility companies, energy and oil companies, NASA – of course – and many others have gained insight from this. My friends at the Danish technology Council (See description of Foresigt : www.tekno.dk/pdf/aarsberetning02/aarsberet2del.pdf ) would be impressed, this is more than the traditional foresight methods, although the starting point in any engagement is the creation of scenarios combined with analysis of patent trends and disruptive trends in consumption, production or ecological factors. I intend to follow this development and see how ‘Future Planning’ as a discipline is coming to fruition.

Sustainable Energy for 1000 years – Hot in Iceland

During a stay in Iceland last week I was taken to a Thermo Power plant 27 kms outside Reykjavik that demonstrated the benefits of a country residing on top of volcanoes; Orkuweita geothermal plant is a fantastic building and a not less fantastic story to tell: From a number of drillings down to 1- 1.5 km. beneath earth, the power and heating plant gets 200 degrees centigrade steam and hot water. Water, because the pressure is around 22 BAR. The water is separated from the steam, the steam drives a number of turbines producing 120 Megawatt. The hot water is used to heat lake water from Lake Thingvellir, and this is it’s turn used to heat the houses in Reykjavik and a population of around 170.000.
The hot water from the boreholes is re-circulated and brought back to it’s original depth to keep the pressure. It is estimated that this could last for another 1000 years.
No wonder why the Icelanders are fond of their sustainable energy – and that to the extent that they are not any more so keen on inviting in new aluminium plants as the real environmentalists think it is a shame if all this nice and green energy should be wasted on an industry that simply consumes what it can get. This will probably give Greenland a chance to attract more plants, but that’s another story! See http://www.c40cities.org/bestpractices/renewables/reykjavik_geothermal.jsp
In the meantime it is going to be interesting to see if Iceland can find out ways to export their energy without too much loss. When that day occurs, Scotland, Shetland, Orkney and the Faroe Islands will probably be the first to benefit.

In the meantime Iceland is aiming at attracting large back up centers from Google, Yahoo, IBM, MS and whoever is interested in being really green.

Co2 savings? This power plant/heating system saves at leas4 4 mio tons of C02 pr. year.

When neighbours are peeping through your windows..

On June 18 the Swedish parliament accepted a law that enforces the Swedish Armed Forces (Försvarets Radioanstalt) to listen into the content of all electronic traffic going in and out of Sweden.
This is – on a European scale – quite remarkable, as the surveillance directive for tele services so far has only required that the ID’s of telecommunication between sender and receiver to be logged and stored for a limited period of time.

It created a lot of critical articles in Sweden and even demonstrations in front of the Parliament. http://www.vasabladet.fi/story.aspx?storyID=22256 – but the law was passed with only 4 members majority. (See also http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article2712002.ab )
The new law covers e-mails, SMS, on-line traffic as well as phone conversations.
According to Computerworld a similar legislation is on it’s way in UK.
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/46358?a=rss&i=0

This may not be a major issue if not for the fact that some of the major Swedish tele companies like Telia is also servicing customers in other countries, among them Denmark and – behold – the Danish Parliament. http://www.computerworld.dk/art/46613?

At the first glance this seems to be in direct conflict with the European Human Rights declaration:

http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html#P1

ARTICLE 8

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.

But in Article 8, paragraph 2, it is stated:

2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

So the real question is whether or not the threat level in Sweden (or for that matter, in Europe) has risen to the point where it can said that it is politically acceptable to have a major surveillance of every kind of correspondence from every citizen or company.

To my knowledge this has not yet been discussed in the committee that are the official watch dogs of the Human Rights declaration. The so-called WP29 – Working Party or sub-committee responsible for advising the European Parliament on human rights issues as stated in Article 29, has not yet discussed the Swedish legislation. (See http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559540 for a description of the WP29).

The question is if the Swedish Law is in conflict with the Data Protection Directive 94/96.

As this has not yet been discussed by WP29, it is obvious that we can look at the outcome of a similar case just a few years back where it suddenly came to the attention of the authorities that the data content of data in international money transfer using the Belgium based SWIFT system, was actually decoded by US authorities. This was discussed by the WP29 that concluded that SWIFT had to adhere to the 94/96 European directive on data protection.(See www.cbpweb.nl/downloads_int/Opinie%20WP29%20zoekmachines.pdf )

It seems that the Swedish are on a thin ice, and I expect that the case will be brought up for the WP29. In the meantime, Swedish critics suggests that everybody encrypts their data; this may be OK, but you have to take into account that the Swedish Defense actually owns a 128 Terraflop supercomputer and has asked for additional funding, so ..

In a follow-on article I will dig into the recommendations on protection of personal data as proposed by the PRISE consortium and the result of the EU project to describe policies and best practices when investing EU funds in IT projects that might infringe on individual’s privacy.

http://prise.oeaw.ac.at/

Arctic Challenges (2)

Sisimiut - formerly known as Holsteinborg - is located just north of the Polarcircle. It is Greenlands second largest city with some 4.500 inhabitants. It is clearly an industrial center - the capital for KNI - the Greenland Home Rule owned Industrial company that runs industry as well as the distribution of goods along the Greeland coast including the Pissifik - shops.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisimiut

The hotel capacity is somewhat limited and Sisimiut Hotel seems to be the only major hotel, unfortunately not always serving Greenland specialities - probably believing that the Danes that visit the place as temporary workers, fishermen, engineers, are missing their home cooking

http://www.hotelsisimiut.gl/Engelsk/Frame.htm

The city is named as one of the 4 growth areas in Greenland. Some years ago the home rule decided to abandon a number of the small villages and move the huntersmore or mainly less voluntarily into the bigger cities; there was a need for industrial workers in the fishing industry - which was taken up by women - and for fishers in the fishing fleet. Now as the shrimps are declining, the bigger ships are facing the risc of going out of business. So the challenge is to find new employment opportunities and do it rapidly.

As a side effect of the global warming it has become easier to construct power stations relying on melting water from the glaciers; this has resulted in competitive prices for energy to the degree that Greenland has got an LOI from ALCO to build the next aluminiumfactory in Greenland (Manitsoq). The deal is not done yet - ALCOA wants Greenland to have a stake in the factory and to build another power station to ensure back up. If this deal comes through, Greenland will have an additional income measured in Billions of Danish kroner/year, quickly overshadowing the lump sum paid each year by the Danish Government. http://www.savingiceland.org/node/1123

At the same time exploration for minerals of almost any kind is going on in Greenland; areas that were until now covered in snow can be exploited, and it is expected that in 5-6 years time at least 5 new mines would be opened up. This pits a lot of pressure on the training of the Greenland population. They can't get a job in a mine if they don't know enough of the English Language to understand the security training. This of course is only part of the problem - it is also a matter of culture. The income possibilities for the Greenland home rule is enourmous, even if they don't expect taxes from the mining companies. They do get taxes - flat rate, 40% - from the workers independent of nationality - but the growth created by additional services needed, housing, building harbours maintaining distribition systems etc. is tremendous.

Because of the bottlenecks in Greenland this can easily lead to inflation, so it is a potential problem for politicians. http://www.infomine.com/countries/greenland.asp

In Sisimiut the Danish Technical University together with Greenland home rule has set up the ARCTEC center which concentrates on developing and deploying the special tecniques that are needed in Greenland. The Innvation Centre in Sisimiut operated by the city's Trade and Industrial center is a fine show case on what type of techniques apply to the arctic: They do use solar panels, but a special sort, so-called Chinese tubes, are able to extract energy from a sun that never sets during summer time.

(See also http://artek.byg.dtu.dk/upload/centre/artek/uk/at-pjeceuk.pdf )

One of the problems of the global warming is that the layer of permafrost is thawing. As the roads are laid directly on this layer, this will lead to massive disturbances, for which reason a techniques is involving where new roads are placed on a layer with imbeeded tubes. During summer time, (with 3-12 degrees centigrade), the heat in this layer is used to warm the houses and in this way keeping down the temperature of the roads themselves.

Also we visited the language school that has the responsibility to train 1200 potential Greenlander mine workers in the English language. They are using mixed techniques - partly classes, partly distance learning.

http://www.oqaatsit.gl/eng.htm

Because of a very rigid pricing structure from TeleGreenland (Due to lack of capacity) it has until now been expensive to carry out distance learning using video or heavy audio files. Tele Greenland is this year implementing a sea cable - or rather 2: one from Narsaq to Scotland via Iceland, and another from Nuuk to Halifax. At the same time they are upgrading the radio chain system along the coast and putting in a cable between Narsaq and Nuuk. So in just a year from now we should see a revolution in the application of modern Internet technology.

Another problem is that there has been a lot of focus on making the population real Greenlanders, which means that several years of school teaching without Danish has led to a situation where it is a problem to get a higher education. This almost invariably has to take place outside Greenland - traditionally in Denmark, but US and Canada might also be used.

So we have a backlog of children with no second language skills that simply have to be trained.

Finally the visit to the industrial school in Sisimiut: The school is the sole building construction research and education centre in Greenland. The centre accommodates about 200 students every year and the teaching staff counts around 30 members.

http://www.sanilin.gl/index.asp?lang=eng&num=2

It is encouraging to see the quality of the training again focusing on the specific building skills needed in a harsh environment. Also Sisimiut has an experiemental low energy house which they are happy to exhibit.

Arctic Challenges (1)

In May ministers from the 5 arctic countries surrounding the Northpole met in Ilulissat, Greenland to try to reach agreement on the process needed to determine rights for exploration as well as rights for sailing in the arctic area; as a consequnce of the global warming, it is now evident that explorations for oil and natural resources would be only a matter of few years away, and as the polar cap ice cover will retreat, new lines for freighters and cruising vessels would open up for more traffic. Both activities are bound to have a huge impact on the very fragile environment in the Arctic. (See http://benmuse.typepad.com/arctic_economics/2008/05/representatives-of-the-five-arctic-countries-russia-the-us-canada-denmark-and-norway-meet-tomorrow-at-ilullissat-on-greenlands-baffin-sea-coast-to-discuss-their-territorial-claims-arctic-powers-hold-summit-in-greenlandafp-may-27.html )

The choice of Ilulissat for this conference is not a coincidence: The glacier at Ilulissat Icefjord is the most productive glacier on the Northern Himesphere producing more than 20.000 million liters of water pr. day corresponding to the City of New York's water consumption in a year.

It is a part of the World Heritage and Denmark/Greenland's 4th landmark on this prestigeous list. http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=1149

The glacier is running faster and faster - from 20 kilometres pr. year a few years ago to now 40 km/year.

The meeting ended on a positive note, in spite of the fact that US never ratified the UN 1982 Sea Convention, Canada, Russia, Norway, US and denmark/Greenland agreed to use this as a foundation for defining rights of traffic and exploration in the future.

As part of my trip to participate in the IT Council Meeting in Sisimiut on June 11-12th, we first visited Ilulissat, located 250 km. north of the Polar circle. A beautiful city on the brink of the Disco Bay. It is the 3rd largest city in Greenland, but with it's 3.500+ inhabitants, the humans are outnumbered by the sledge dogs. These huge dogs are out of work during the summer period, and they spend the time breeding and changing their fur.

The noice these dogs are capable of producing is unbeleiveable, so they are located just outside of the city - but for vistors probably not far enough. They are definitely NOT pets - each year tourists and children are attacked by these half-wild animals. In this case the procedure is that they are shot immediately. In winter time it is a real tourist pearl to sit on top of a Dogsledge - typically 2-3 meters long and drawn by 8-10 dogs. The leader dog is almost always an old female. A young male dog is tied directly behind her to ensure protection from the old 'rouges'. The strongest and biggest males are tied closest to the sledge beside each other to compete. The first hour or so should be awful sitting on the sledge; only by that time the air has left the dogs' stomachs and then the air feels a lot better !

During our stay in Ilulissat we took a boat to Rodebay, a small village with 50 inhabitants an hours sailing up the Disco Bay. This place - The Red Bay - was originally used by the Dutch whalers, who in 1600 and beginning of 1700 used the bay for extracting the whale oil, by then a very precious thing as it was lightning the houses of Europe. As Denmark started to exploit Greenland, at that time and until May 1. 1979 where the new law on Homerule for Greenland was accepted, a genuine colony with a mixture of nice preachers and rough merchants. One of these, Jacob Severin, manned his vessels, took 5 dutch ships as prison and created the alternative whaling spot Jacobshavn, now adays Ilulissat, in 1741.

http://www.go2greenland.com/pages/Settlements-and-Icebergs-of-the-Diskobay.html

Ilulissat has 3 hotels and a youth hostel and is a marvelleous starting point for Arctic ventures. Because of the reputation, the city is now hosting more than 20.000 tourists a year and it is beginning to take it's toll on the route along the Icefjord. (Seee the upper picture). The area holds old graves from the original pre-escimo people, the Saqqaq culture, believed to come from Sibiria. The current population comes from the Aleutian Islands and arrived only around year 800, aproximately at the same time as the Nordic Vikings reached the southern tip of Greenland sailing from Iceland.

Ilulissat does not any longer rely on whaling; A quota of whales are each year allocated to Greenland, but the main catch is shrimps and fish. Because of the content of oxygen in the large icebergs that are melting in the Disco Bay and outside the Icefjord, this gives life to plankton and hence create a very rich environment for a lot of fish - and seals - to thrive. But the global warming is also chaning the pattern of fishing: Some years ago the cod declined sharply, and now the shrimps are declining. This is a potential threat to the economy of the Greenland fishing industry. But more about alternatives in the next blog.

We left Ilulissat on a sunday evening sailing through the sunny polar night to Sisimiut. The traffic between the cities on the east coast relies mainly on this line, the Umiaq line, and the passenger ship arrives twice a week to the towns from Narsaqq in South to Ilulissat in the north.

Also Greenland Air is an important means of transporation, relying mainly on their fleet of Dash 7 - 4 engined monoplans with a very robust landing gear (compared to 'crash 8' )