Technology

Project 2020 is an initiative of the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance (ICSPA). Its aim is to anticipate the future of cybercrime, enabling governments, businesses and citizens to prepare themselves for the challenges and opportunities of the coming decade. It comprises a range of activities, including common threat reporting, scenario exercises, policy guidance and capacity building.

The scenarios in this document are not predictions of a single future. Rather, they are descriptions of a possible future, which focuses on the impact of cybercrime from the perspectives of an ordinary Internet user, a manufacturer, a communications service provider and a government. The events and developments described are designed to be plausible in some parts of the world, as opposed to inevitable in all. They take their inspiration from analysis of the current threat landscape, the expert opinion of ICSPA members and extensive horizon scanning, particularly of emerging technologies.

Questions about the reliability, affordability and sustainability of our energy future often boil down to questions about investment. But are investors ready to commit capital in a fast-changing energy world? This special report in the World Energy Outlook series takes up this question in a full and comprehensive update of the energy investment picture to 2035 – a first full update since the 2003 World Energy Investment Outlook. With benchmark data on past investment trends and updated projections for investment at regional and global level, the report provides insights into:
- The structure of ownership and models for financing investment in different parts of the energy sector.
- The continued importance of oil investment in the Middle East to meet demand, and the consequences of delay in such investment.
- The dynamics and costs of LNG investment and how this can shape the future of global gas supply.
- Where investment in the power sector might fall short of what is required, with important findings on the reliability of electricity supply in Europe and in India.
- The outlook for investment in low-carbon technologies, including renewables, and energy efficiency and the barriers to their realisation.
- How global investment and financing requirements change if governments take stronger action to address climate change.

The document is a contribution to a growing body of knowledge and is aimed at the defence community. It seeks to build on previous editions of Global Strategic Trends with a more accessible format. It has a greater focus on defence and security issues and expands on other subjects, including resources, and the resurgence of ideology. From a comprehensive review of trends, it draws out 3 key themes: how we will adapt to the reality of a shifting climate and breakneck technological innovation (see the Human Environment); the dominance of the West in international affairs will fade and global power will become more evenly distributed between the West and the rising powers in Asia (see the Dynamics of Global Power); and finally, as society and the distribution of global power changes, the challenges to defence and security will increase (see Evolving Defence and Security Challenges). It draws lessons from contemporary events to conclude that globalisation is a more volatile process than previously envisaged and that this volatility may leave globalised systems more vulnerable to strategic shock and systemic failure. It also draws out high level global defence and security implications.

Through a combination of stable technology, dedicated technicians and, resistance to random outages, the Internet has been resilient to attacks on a day-to-day basis, creating an extended period of prosperity. Yet, as we approach nearly absolute dependence on the Internet, cyber attacks of the future can and will affect globally interconnected systems like electrical grids and worldwide logistics systems. This Internet of tomorrow will be a source of global shocks for which risk managers, corporate executives, board directors, and government officials are not prepared.

Futurium is a small concrete attempt to respond to the growing demand for citizen participation in policy making. Its structured approach to content co-creation and synthesis allows streamlining otherwise expensive traditional foresight processes.
The Futurium is an open source project, free for download by any public administration or private organisation. It is work in progress. Everyone can contribute to its further improvement and development or use it to support specific foresight and policy making needs.

The world is moving rapidly towards ubiquitous connectivity that will further change how and where people associate, gather and share information, and consume media. A canvassing of 2,558 experts and technology builders about where we will stand by the year 2025 finds striking patterns in their predictions. The invited respondents were identified in previous research about the future of the Internet, from those identified by the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, and solicited through major technology-oriented listservs. They registered their answers online between November 25, 2013 and January 13, 2014.

In their responses, these experts foresee an ambient information environment where accessing the Internet will be effortless and most people will tap into it so easily it will flow through their lives “like electricity.” They predict mobile, wearable, and embedded computing will be tied together in the Internet of Things, allowing people and their surroundings to tap into artificial intelligence-enhanced cloud-based information storage and sharing. As Dan Lynch, founder of Interop and former director of computing facilities at SRI International, wrote, “The most useful impact is the ability to connect people. From that, everything flows.”

UK Space Vision 2025 is a glimpse of what a space enabled world may look like in 2025, what it will mean for UK’s economy, for UK’s Government, and for consumers, families and citizens. It was inspired by the recommendation of various stakeholders and presents a forward vision of a space enabled world and the benefits to the UK of maintaining its lead role in Space.

This report evaluates the National Space Technology Programme (NSTP) against delivering support for growth of the space sector. Although overall the programme is deemed to have been very successful, the report provides detailed recommendations for areas which can be improved.

The Space Innovation and Growth Strategy, published in February 2010, created real momentum in the sector. It brought industry, academia and Government together around the common cause of driving economic growth and provided the foundation for a transition of the UK space sector from a niche industry towards a high-technology, mainstream, industrial and science sector.This report affirms the ambition to grow and identifies the new actions that are needed to deliver further growth.

As the Congress considers the existing space policy challenges, the major issues it faces can be summarized as three broad questions: What is NASA for? What should NASA do? How? This report analyzes these questions and some possible answers. It also addresses a number of cross-cutting issues, such as NASA’s interactions with other federal agencies and the growing role of the commercial space industry.