List of the world’s top female futurists (Update #5)

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[UPDATE: We have added 25 additional futurists to the list for a total of 203. Thank you for your help building out the list!]

I find I am frequently asked where all the female futurists are. The discussion on why the profession of futurist appears to be so male-dominated has grown in recent years.

I know many outstanding female futurists, so whenever I am asked I point to a range of exceptional futurists to show that there are indeed many women in the field. However it is true that many are not as well known as they should be.

As such I thought it would be useful to compile a list of the world’s top female futurists, for those who are looking for diversity in their insights into the future. The following list provides a brief profile of 178 fabulous female futurists [up from 78 in the original list of September 2015, 143 in the update of November 2015, 158 in January 2018, 167 in February 2017, and 178 in the 2018 revision].
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James Lovelock: Gaia and the rise of hyperintelligence

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James Lovelock, the creator of the Gaia hypothesis, that the Earth is a holistic self-maintaining system, died last week. As a coincidence I read his last book, Novacene, over the weekend before I had heard the news.

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The future of professional services lies in amplifying networks

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In all my extensive work in professional services, I have long focused on the powerful role of networks in success and value creation. The central role of networks in professional services is now being amplified even further.

This is one of the points that came out in the fascinating conversation I had with Daniel Newman, Principal Analyst of Futurum Research and Hans Kroes, Global VP and Head of the Industry Business Unit for Professional Services at SAP in a webcast on Transformative Trends Influencing the Professional Services Industry. 

You can watch the full webcast below. More comments on the intensifying role of networks in professional services below.

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Will a “Google PhD” become as good as a university-granted PhD?

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Jordi Muñoz became President of prominent early drone company 3D Robotics at age 22, having made himself a world-leading expert in drone design and manufacturing, teaching himself through the universe of resources available through the web and his own experiments. He says:

“I come from a generation where we have Google PhDs, we can virtually figure out everything by just Googling around and doing some reading online”

Sci-Fi author William Gibson became a deep expert in antique watches by dint of five years research for “the sheer pointless pleasure of learning this vast, useless body of knowledge.” He notes that:
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How do we know when AI becomes conscious and deserves rights?

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Machines becoming conscious, self-aware, and having feelings would be an extraordinary threshold. We would have created not just life, but conscious beings.

There has already been massive debate about whether that will ever happen. While the discussion is largely about supra-human intelligence, that is not the same thing as consciousness.

Now the massive leaps in quality of AI conversational bots is leading some to believe that we have passed that threshold and the AI we have created is already sentient.

An article in Washington Post The Google engineer who thinks the company’s AI has come to life tells the story of a member of Google’s Responsible AI team, Blake Lemoine, who has become convinced that the Google’s (Language Model for Dialogue Applications) LaMDA chatbot platform has become sentient, and after being placed on administrative leave by Google, ‘blew the whistle’ to media.
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How ‘Do Your Own Research’ is opening a fracture line in society

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DYOR: Do Your Own Research

This recommendation sounds reasonable. I do that.

Yet those words mark deep divides in society.

An article in New York Times today They Did Their Own ‘Research.’ Now What? examines the now-powerful phenomenon of DYOR.
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Announcing my new book Thriving on Overload!

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I am delighted to share that my book Thriving on Overload is being published by McGraw-Hill, and is available for pre-order for its availability on September 6, 2022.

It has been a long journey

It has been far, far too long since my last book. After writing Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, Living Networks, Implementing Enterprise 2.0, and Getting Results From Crowds I got caught up in an over-ambitious set of ventures and then a period as co-founder and CEO of a new startup group as well as life transitions.

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Brain computer interfaces in smartglasses – coming soon

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Two central themes in the next generation of human interaction with technology are smartglasses and brain interfaces.  

In that vein, the acquisition by Snap of NextMind (included in our list of top brain-computer interface companies) is fascinating.

Major companies including Microsoft, Google, Lenovo, Magic Leap and others have high-end augmented reality glasses on the market, with those initially having considered consumer offerings now focusing on enterprise.

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The subtle path of leadership from centralized to decentralized organizations and society

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One of the biggest, broadest shifts in place across human society is from centralized to decentralized organizations and structures.

Yet there is massive uncertainty about how far it will go. It is possible we are moving towards a world defined by Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), participatory democracy, decentralized finance, and self sovereignty. It is also possible that existing institutions and hierarchical societies and organizations will dominate indefinitely.

What will determine the path forward is the quality of leadership in enabling a decentralized world

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Looking back at what Living Networks got right 20 years ago

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I began work as a professional futurist in 1998, and it has been my full-time avocation (other than entrepreneurial endeavors) since 2006. 

For many years my reputation and credibility as a futurist has been significantly supported by my 2002 book Living Networks, which anticipated many developments of the last two decades, including pointing to the rise of social networks and micro-messaging before any of today’s social platforms existed. 

That was not the only thing it got right. 

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