The conference

Anticipating 2025 – originally a conference (details below) and now a book (details here)

Venue: Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck College, London
Date: Sat 22 and Sun 23 March 2014
The conference: Anticipating 2025

  • Paths to 2025: visions, nightmares, roadblocks, and plans
  • Transformations in thinking and lifestyle: health, spirituality, organisations, politics, transhumanism, and transcendence

Note: Video recordings of all the presentations have been embedded into the Schedule page.

About this conference

This two-day conference brings together 18 expert speakers and an audience of 200 budding futurists of all shapes and sizes. The goal is to elevate serious analysis of the potentially radical scenarios that may unfold between now and 2025.

The speakers will be giving their views as to which future scenarios are technically feasible and desirable. They will also be debating the best steps to take to bring these desirable visions into reality, despite the many roadblocks that are likely to be encountered en route.

The schedule for each day

Each day will be structured as follows (for more details, see the Schedule page):

  • 09.15: Registration, refreshments, and networking
  • 09.45: Three opening talks
  • 11.15: Break for networking and refreshments
  • 11.45 Two further talks
  • 12.45: Lunch break
  • 14.15: Two further talks
  • 15.15: Break for networking and refreshments
  • 15.45: Final session (two more talks, followed by panel discussion)
  • 17.30: End of day.

This totals nine speakers per day, with each speaker having around 18 minutes to make their key points (the same length as a TED talk), followed by 10-12 minutes of audience interaction.

Speakers

Speakers at Anticipating 2025 will include the following (for more information, see the Speakers page):

  • Natasha Vita-More, Chair, Humanity+
    – “Transhumanism: An Iterative Design Challenge”
  • Aubrey de Grey, Chief Science Officer and co-Founder, SENS Research Foundation
    – “When the days of aging are clearly numbered, how will humanity react?”
  • David Levy, President of the International Computer Games Association
    – “Love and sex with robots”
  • Mark Stevenson, Author: An Optimist’s Tour of the Future
    – “The Shift: Why our systems are failing us and what will replace them”
  • Sonia Contera, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Nanotechnology
    – “Nanotechnology in 2025”
  • Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO Azuri Technologies
    – “(em)Powering Africa”
  • David Pearce, co-Founder, World Transhumanist Association
    – “The Molecular Biology of Spiritual Experience”
  • Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University
    – “Smarter policy-making through improved collective cognition?”
  • Rohit Talwar, Global Futurist and Founder of Fast Future Research
    – “Driving forces, global challenges and potential disruptions”
  • Ben McLeish, The Zeitgeist Movement
    – “Updating Technical Values and Hacking Culture-Lag“
  • Maneesh Juneja, Digital Health Futurist and Health 2.0 London Chapter Leader
    – “Healthcare in the future: will advancing technology make doctors unemployed?”
  • Paul Barnett, Founder & Acting CEO, The Strategic Management Forum
    – “Re-Thinking Strategy: How organisations can thrive during rapid change ahead”
  • M Amon Twyman, Founder, Zero State and Wave
    – “The Wave of change: Convergent technologies and disruptive trends in 2025”
  • Andrew Vladimirov, information security expert and DIY brain hacker
    – “The near future of accessible cognition enhancement and modification”
  • Calum Chace, author of ‘Pandora’s brain’
    – “Minds and AIs: six important questions”
  • Riva-Melissa Tez, co-Founder, Kardashev Communications
    – “The three obstacles that prevent emerging technologies from fulfilling their potential”
  • Marco Vega and Peter Brietbart, directors, British Institute of Posthuman Studies
    – “Cultivating the Future: Benevolent Memes and How to Spread Them”
  • David Wood, smartphone pioneer and Chair, London Futurists
    – “Predictions, good, bad, and ugly: roadblocks en route to 2025”.

The sessions will be moderated by Dean Bubley, the founder of Disruptive Analysis, and by Natasha Vita-More, Chair of the international Humanity+ organisation.

Ticket availability

Registration is now open – via this registration page.

Tickets have been priced to cover room hire costs, three servings of tea/coffee/biscuits per day, and small additional operating expenses:

  • To attend a single day: £30 (£25 if booked and paid by February 3rd)
  • To attend both days: £50 (£40 if booked by and paid by February 3rd).

Note: the conference does not provide lunch or dinner, but the venue has been chosen so that there are plenty of places nearby where people can get some lunch cheaply and reasonably quickly.

Press passes

See the registration page.

Preview material

For a discussion of various topics that will feature in the Anticipating 2025 conference, see the London Futurist Hangout On Air Which technologies will have the biggest impact by 2025?

See this Previews page for video previews featuring individual speakers.

To provide feedback

To provide feedback about this conference, please visit http://londonfuturists.com/2013/10/27/anticipating-2025/.

About the organisers

Click here to find out more about London Futurists, and here to find out more about Humanity+. Short Logo

“Civilisation’s path from yesterday to tomorrow passes through London”

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