I’ve been working on three projects over the past ten weeks that have helped me see the future. All three companies are well funded, well connected RDCs. All three companies are missionary entrepreneurs. All three companies are on a mission to change and reinvent the world for the better.
And I have to say that I haven’t felt as agitated and stimulated and excited for a long time. The possibilities literally are endless. And while it is impossible to predict exactly when this or that will happen, 2045 is looming as a pretty big year.
2045 is the year futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts a technological singularity. The year TIME Magazine predicts man will become immortal. The year NASA predicts a manned mission and colonisation of Jupiter’s moon Callisto. The year when we will all be driving [or not driving] self-driving cars.
Sometimes it feels like I’m experiencing another chapter of an Arthur C. Clarke novel. Then I’m reminded that the companies behind these crazy ventures and schemes are real, multi-billion dollars businesses who employ thousands of people, today.
Looking at a closer time horizon, Kevin Kelly [the founding Executive Editor of Wired Magazine] says, “The next 20 years are going to make the last 20 just pale. We’re just at the beginning of the beginning of all these kinds of changes. There’s a sense that all the big things have happened, but relatively speaking, nothing big has happened yet.”
Nothing big has really happened! That’s the message I’m hearing. I’m also hearing it’s all about to really take off [like in the next 5-10 years]. All of this makes me think more about my life, and my future. What I do. How I do it. And how will I do it differently tomorrow. And because I’m now thinking about my future – and timelines and timeframes – I start thinking about my past.
When I grew up I was told the world is the way it is. At school I was taught that every major problem in life had already been solved, and all I needed to learn was the answers. And I could could find them in the teacher’s head or in the back of the book.
That educational message was not only a very limited view of life, it was wrong. Life is broad and rich once you discover one simple fact: The world is not an unsolved puzzle, waiting for the occasional genius to unlock its secrets. The world is an empty space waiting to be filled. And when you learn that you’ll never be the same again.
This is the world I’m working in right now. People who don’t stand by and watch others solve the mysteries and puzzles. People who set their sights higher than anyone can see. People who just take life on – influence it, shape it, change it, create it. Whatever “it” is, because “it” can be anything and everything.
Are you in?
