Rockefeller Foundation: 4 Future Scenarios for World Development

Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development
Produced by The Rockefeller Foundation and Global Business Network.
May 2010
54 Pages

THE FOCAL QUESTION

Every scenario project has a focal question — a broad yet strategic query that serves as an anchor for the scenarios. For this project, the focal question was:

How might technology affect barriers to building resilience and equitable growth in the developing world over the next 15 to 20 years?

In other words, what new or existing technologies could be leveraged to improve the capacity of individuals, communities, and systems to respond to major changes, or what technologies could improve the lives of vulnerable populations around the world? A 15 to 20-year timeframe was chosen on the assumption that it is both sufficiently long enough that significant technological change is plausible and sufficiently short enough that we can imagine some possibilities for the kinds of technologies that could be developed and applied. Focusing on how to overcome a set of obstacles associated with the application of technology to the challenges of development helped to both bound the inquiry and promote a problem-solving approach that seeks to identify potential, systematic intervention opportunities.

ENGAGING YOUR IMAGINATION

It is our hope that these scenarios help inspire the same future-orientation in other initiatives that are broadly concerned with technology and international development. Of course, there is no hard data about the future — nobody yet knows precisely what technologies will be successful at addressing new and evolving development needs. Rather, as you read the scenarios, think of them as a journey — four journeys — into a future that is relevant, thought-provoking, and possible. Imagine how the world will function and how it will be organized to tackle the challenges it faces. Who will be responsible for driving local and global development initiatives and what would that require? And what is your own role in leading your organization, community, or region to a preferred future?

They explore the following scenarios in rolling out the advance of their stanglehold planned direction of humanity's path.

Lock Step
A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback

Clever Together
A world in which highly coordinated and successful strategies emerge for addressing both urgent and entrenched worldwide issues

Hack Attack
An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive, and dangerous innovations emerge

Smart Scramble
An economically depressed world in which individuals and communities develop localized, makeshift solutions to a growing set of problems

Source / DDL: http://www.gbn.com/articles/pdfs/GBN&Rockefeller%20scenarios.technology&...