How might our world have changed by 2030?

Stage 1/1: Speculation Stage completed

Out of every present moment, endless possibilities for our future emerge. What might mean the world for us tomorrow, may only seem like a niche oddity today. Things that make the world go round today, might hardly be remembered in some years time.

Speculation Stage

28.10.2020: Exhibition Opening: Fabric of New Beginnings

Speculations: 68
Ratings: 339

Challenge closed

Probable

Desirable

Improbable

Undesirable

How might our world have changed by 2030?

How might our world have changed by 2030?

2030 is dark, there might be a war between huge private armies and the 99% around the world.

Large, corporate platforms die out in favor of smaller ones

The Sumatran tiger will have disappeared due to deforestation.

All trends - positive and negative will gain more traction and rip our societies apart. Accelerating movements to address the different crises on a global scale will be confronted with a fatalist movement, pursuing individual and nationalist agendas.

Loss of biodiversity has further grown. By erasing other living beings from the planet, we might destroy our own foundation of life.

Many countries around the world will experience extreme poverty and a bigger class divide between their citizens.

Nanobiosensing technologies will have created internal modes of real-time molecular surveillance.

The world will understand what is essential and what is not. People will have discovered back their humanity.

A second Corona wave and lockdowns will have further weakened the economy and ability to realize sustainable development.

Because of Covid and internet, people have realized the positive possibilities of global remote collaboration and start practicing it.

We will see an increase in forced migration due to more frequent catastrophic climate events.

Younger generation will not live better then older generations however have a completely new and different set of values. The generational divide will increase.

Zero carbon is still a far-fetched dream.

Even though today the state and national governments tend to be challenged by private organizations and horizontal civil networks, often transnational, it will remain the best political structure to deal with future crisis. At the condition that it becomes the non-discriminating servant of society.

Germany will be one of the first countries that have established the basic income for everybody.

Universal Basic Income will have helped to reduce social inequalities.

We will eat much less meat.

Advancements in urban design will inspire a fundamental shift in the sustainability, resilience, and identity of the majority of the world's population.

AI will have played a major role in helping to slow down climate change.

Cities will not be the focus of economic activity, or social life. By leveraging new technologies, people will be able to work remotly and have local/global communities.

Developing a tool that enhances empathy might have helped prevent political and societal crisis.

Digital learning will play a central role in school, university and in our whole life.

Global crises, poverty and corruption would have negatively impacted children’s ability to acquire basic skills through education.

Growing societal awareness of the environmental harm caused by animal agriculture at industrial scale will have led to many plant-based alternatives and lab-grown meat has become the new normal in food consumption.

Humanity will be more self conscious, work will take up a smaller part of our daily lives and we will go back to the 'thinkers' era where existential discussions will be as important as career path and financial success.

Humanity will start all over on Mars.

I am working 80% of my time from my garden.

In 2030 we will have less violence in the world.

Increased transparency in science will challenge societal perceptions of ethics and morality, especially the use of animals in biological and medical research.

Politicians all over the world will have learned that building borders is not the right thing and that only by collaborating with each other we can solve the world's biggest problems.

The integration of AI in healthcare will have further increased the sociodemographic inequalities in quality of medical treatment.

There will be car free cities all over the world.

We will see more ecological awareness at the same time with an increasing resistance to change.

A huge reduction in the production and selling of plastic will have given our planet the chance to stay green.

An inclusive growth model within planetary boundaries will become the baseline for a new international peace and security agreement

Cities will transform to decentralised multifunctional, agile, digitally connected neighbourhoods with direct links to green spaces. New modes of urban production, economic circles and digital distribution will change inner cities radically and turn them into more livable neighbourhoods.

Diversity is not just a buzz word anymore but a largely valued norm leading to better results in business and societal processes.

Due to further global climate destabilization and ensueing food scarcity even industrial nations will experience food shortages.

Equitable access to education that involves skills, mindsets and the talent requirements of companies will have created a better world by offering sustainable and valuable professional careers.

Facing the greed in us will have moved us forward as humanity.

Food scarcity will have led to greater international conflict.

Home Office has become the new standard. One negative side effect will be a decrease in creativity because spontaneous interactions are limited.

Instable political constructs will have increased the importance of local initiatives and projects.

Jobs will finally be paid by their relevance and the worth they create.

Nuclear fission power will provide us with the energy resource of the future.

Once the material conditions of our current world have shifted beyond recognition, we will understand that we have no choice but to reinvent everything. With the blank slate that comes out of chaos, we will have the courage to rebuild with people and planet at the heart.

Our world will look scarred, but there will be a huge chance for renewal.

Populists will loose in popularity and more liberal and green oriented parties will lead governments.

The emotional atomization of society is a radioactive blast. Art reverses the process.

The future breathes thick air!

The increasing conversation around Trans Rights will have resulted in a safer and more accommodating society.

The world will no longer use fossil fuels.

There will be more focus on the nation-state interests, and less globalization and regional alliances.

We will see a grand exodus of intellectual capital from urban centers to more remote locations.

With the successful implementation of gender equality throughout all spheres of life, we will be facing a holistic, consensus-driven and therefore more just, sustainable, tolerant and inclusive future.

As people continue to live longer the 3-stage learn-work-retire life will no longer be the accepted norm, and life stages will stop being associated with age.

As promoting mental health becomes a theme of ubiquitous importance, therapy sessions are offered to children and youth for free as part of their regular education curriculum.

Austerity politics and underfunding of public service, economic instability and destabilisation by migration will make quality healthcare and public safety a private luxury in western countries.

Circular economy is the new normal in 2030!

Huge leaps towards a new sustainability will have been made. Many countries in the world are celebrating their transition to a zero-carbon economy.

Humankind will finally have been able to leverage on the Tipping Point to a zero-carbon circular economy that is inclusive and based on the idea of world peace and joint prosperity rather than a few countries exporting weapons and infrastructure to hamper sustainable development.

Humans will be visiting Mars.

Many governments are collapsing as they prove unable to deal with multiple global and intertwined crises. International organizations become irrelevant, migration surges and a minority of multinational corporations and their shareholders save themselves in gated, interconnected utopias.

Medical nanotechnologies will have addressed shortfalls in healthcare and created more precise treatments and diagnostic tools.

New leaders will have emerged opposing division and separation in our societies, together striving towards a more holistic, healthy and sustainable future in which countries have founds effective models of collaboration for our common good.

People will realize that by transforming city green areas into local plant food production, they can create lots of compound wellbeing for themselves and others. This can also lead to them making the cities more free from pollution, in order to produce cleaner local food.

Scientific and technological agendas will be co-designed together by trained and non-trained citizens, which will lead to a more democratic and inclusive society.

The societal devide will have further widened. For example, conscious and sustainably-minded people and those who are mostly self-centered and delimiting will not talk to each other anymore and isolated stable sub-groups in society.

Challenge Details

Change is already out there. When looking closely, we see change emerging everywhere in society and its niches. But often such threads of change are perceived as fragments. To reflect on and tackle the complex challenges of our time, we aim to interweave these threads of change into a collective framework. For that, new cartographies are needed – beyond cultural, political, institutional or disciplinary boundaries.
The patterns of new beginnings may come to the surface through interweaving threads of change. Interweaving Change is about opening up spaces for empathetic encounters, meaningful connections and artistic speculations necessary to responsibly lead toward a more just and sustainable future.
We collect and cluster inputs from contributors across regions, sectors and communities to gather diverse perspectives on two guiding questions: What are the threads that make up the fabric of a just and sustainable future? What are the developments that might shape it?
The collected data is co-curated regarding probability and impact in order to build a shared understanding of the diverse and possibly contradictory entries. We aim to interweave thoughts, knowledge and perspectives on possible futures across generations and cultures.
Cartographies of Change is a public, crowd-sourced knowledge platform to map trends and speculations about what a post-crisis society might look, feel and sound like.

Highlighted Speculations

Most Controversial

Medical nanotechnologies will have addressed shortfalls in healthcare and created more precise treatments and diagnostic tools.

Most Desirable

With the successful implementation of gender equality throughout all spheres of life, we will be facing a holistic, consensus-driven and therefore more just, sustainable, tolerant and inclusive future.

Most Propable

Digital learning will play a central role in school, university and in our whole life.

Least Propable

Politicians all over the world will have learned that building borders is not the right thing and that only by collaborating with each other we can solve the world's biggest problems.

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Connected Exhibition

Fabric of New Beginnings

The interactive knowledge map emerging from Cartographies of Change as well as the observations over the course of three Community Interplays and four Responsible Leaders Sessions culminate in the exhibition Fabric of New Beginnings. The Fabric of New Beginnings was presented at the exhibition Hypertopia at STATE Studio in the fall of 2020.

The Fabric of New Beginnings is a collection of individual and collective dreams and aspects of a sustainable and just future that will be exhibited to open up the process of Interweaving Change. We intend to give an impetus for change and commitment by means of participative public display. The exhibition includes the co-creative contributions from the Responsible Leader Sessions, the Community Interplay Series and the crowdsourcing platform Cartographies of Change. These contributions are interwoven in order to maintain a long-term framework for leading toward hopeful planetary visions – visions that interconnect the individual and the collective, the local and the global, the human and the non-human.

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[watch exhibition video]

Challenge Background

Interweaving Change

Interweaving Change is an artistic exploration of leadership, purpose and future possibilities, recognizing the interconnectedness of all living beings and systems. The program strives to interweave the patterns of change that have been emerging in the face of crises, in order to co-create planetary visions for new modes of coexistence.
It is guided by an inquiry into the threads and patterns that make up the fabric of a more just and sustainable future and aims to advance the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
Interweaving Change is an open process to inspire responsible leadership, unlock creativity and collectively envision a just and sustainable future. Alongside leaders and communities from across Europe and the Mediterranean, we want to take the culmination of large-scale crises in 2020 as a starting point for hopeful thinking in times of radical upheaval and to collectively create planetary visions for new modes of coexistence.

Who Is Interweaving?

Responsible Leaders Network

The BMW Foundation’s Responsible Leaders Network is a diverse and joyful community of purpose, connecting more than 1,800 Responsible Leaders in over 100 countries. Each member commits to playing an active role in shaping the network: connecting with others, sharing knowledge or experiences, collaborating, and co-creating across sectors, cultures and countries. Members of the network are highly diverse in origin, profession and background, yet they are united by a shared purpose to advance the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.

Befriended Communities

We believe in the strength of the Responsible Leaders Network as a community of purpose. What’s more, we believe in the power of community – in communities’ ability to provide a sense of belonging and purpose, and in their potential to foster collective impact.

Growing curious about the change that we can achieve together rather than alone, we invited a selection of six change-creating communities with strong ties to the Responsible Leaders Network to join and interplay with us in our inquiry into the threads of a more just and sustainable future.

ATÖLYE

ATÖLYE is a 21st-century creative services organization that places an Academy and a Strategic Design Studio within a vibrant Creative Hub. The interdisciplinary interaction that takes place within ATÖLYE is enabled by our diverse community. Consisting of individuals working in different professional areas including the creative industries, social sciences, business development, technology and engineering, our community develops new ideas, prototypes them, and shares their experiences.

Central Tunis

Central is the dream of an Art decompartmentalized, fun and open, where the multidisciplinary exhibition becomes an artistic experience. Art is Central!

Curious Minds

The community platform Curious Minds (STATE Studio) is an open environment where members can build meaningful connections over time and engage in creative, collective experimentation. Working in small groups on the wicked problems of our times, the members explore new forms of collective thinking and learning beyond disciplinary boundaries.

Digital Arabia Network

Digitalisation has long since ceased to be an option. On the contrary, the world needs innovative solutions and strategies to keep on turning even in challenging times. Under the motto Connect. Transform. Create., we believe that DAN has an important role to play in shaping our future across all spheres: whether arts & culture, business & the future of work, citizen participation, gender equality & inclusion or online media & journalism.
As the platform for digital pioneers in the MENA region DAN connects all those who contribute to the transforming of our life into a better future.

London E

Not every community has a name, not every community needs a brand. But in every case, community evolves around something that connects – your craft, your place or the desire for a more just society. East London is a creative hub full of individuals and organisations affecting change in different ways. To reflect the different concepts that make community, we invited a hybrid selection of local communities based in East London through members of our UK Responsible Leaders Network to participate.

Reach for Change

Reach for Change is an international non-profit founded in Sweden. We find local social entrepreneurs and empower them to develop and scale innovative solutions to improve the lives of children and youth so that they can reach their full potential. Since 2010, we have supported more than 1,000 social entrepreneurs in 18 countries, improving the lives of 4 million children and youth.

Challenge Hosts

The project is a collaboration of the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt together with STATE Studio and associated community partners across Europe and Africa.

BMW Foundation

The BMW Foundation promotes responsible leadership and inspires leaders worldwide to work towards a peaceful, just and sustainable future. Through its activities, the Foundation aims to advance the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda.
The BMW Foundation’s Responsible Leaders Network is a diverse and joyful community of purpose, connecting more than 1,800 Responsible Leaders in over 100 countries. Each member commits to playing an active role in shaping the network: connecting with others, sharing knowledge or experiences, collaborating, and co-creating across sectors, cultures and countries. Members of the network are highly diverse in origin, profession and background, yet they are united by a shared purpose to advance the goals of the UN 2030 Agenda.

STATE Studio

STATE Studio is an art-science gallery and exhibition laboratory in Berlin, founded and developed in partnership with Wissenschaft-im-Dialog, the umbrella organization for science communication in Germany. It is a place for creative synergies between science, art and innovation, for discovering and exploring the breakthrough developments that shape our future. Through its open exhibition laboratory, it showcases inspiring works of artists and researchers, exploring the creative friction between cutting-edge science, artistic expressions and societal discourse.