Technology, foresight and the desirable future ahead

| Khalfan Belhoul Chief Executive Officer, Dubai Future Foundation

Decision-makers are often challenged to balance visionary thinking and bold action with on-the-ground realities. During periods of rapid technological acceleration, acting on the future without addressing critical questions can become the norm. Conversely, when market realities shift and disruptions take hold, we are quickly reminded of the need for practical, grounded and long-term thinking. Effective leadership is the ability to strike that balance – and this is the purpose of technological foresight.

Technologies are the mechanisms by which innovative ideas are delivered, enabling public and private sector organizations to capture and sustain value. Rather than reacting to short-term hype, technological foresight enables organizations to deliberately explore futures – acting on near-term opportunities while anticipating longer-term implications. Whether preparing to capture the benefits of new technologies or mitigating the financial and societal risks that may accompany them, leaders must evaluate technology through the lens of desirable futures: futures defined by growth, prosperity and well-being.

Together, this lens and the 10 megatrends that shape it form the Dubai Future Foundation’s view of the future. It is through this perspective that each of the 10 technologies in this report is assessed. For each of the emerging technologies, we:

• Work backwards to understand what it would take to realize a desirable future

• Evaluate the technical and contextual conditions required for the technology to enable the desirable future

• Assess the regulatory, organizational, sectoral and societal factors that accelerate or obstruct the realization of that future

• Identify the risks that delay development and the decisions that determine whether those risks are managed or ignored

While the strategic outlooks presented here may not fully reflect your context, we encourage you to use this approach to inform your own technology strategy, long-term priorities and decision-making.