Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Dr Catherine Ball, Major Street Publishing, $32.99.
An optimistic study on life as we know it, and the decade ahead. It’s refreshing to hear the positive voice of multi-award-winning scientific futurist Dr Catherine Ball as we face challenges globally on multiple fronts.
She presents insights into how technology and science are providing answers to many of the challenges the world is facing today – food shortages, war and conflict, the decline in local manufacturing, health and ageing, and global warming – and asks why we are not embracing these technologies more widely.
In many cases, the answer is “because we don’t know about them!” Now we do as Dr Ball opens our eyes to the amazing, wide world of technological advancements and explores the role we all have in learning more, owning the conversations, and determining what we want technology to be.
We are taken on an astounding journey through the next big technology breakthroughs that have the potential to positively shape our world. It’s a roller-coaster ride into the future.
“Whether you view it as a terrifying ghost train or a gravity-defying thrill ride is really up to you. Technology is neither good nor bad – it is how it is applied that matters. How we live, the choices we make, how we want our politicians to represent us, and the manner in which we regulate the companies making use of the future is all up to us. We have choices about how we consumer, how we communicate and how we determine what is valuable.”
In the foreword, CEO, XPrize, Anousheh Ansari says: “Converge is an invitation to be curious and open-minded; to understand and explore all the changes that are happening around us in our world, and their potential; and to choose to build a better future. It is an invitation to care about and demand change in the way our systems look at and value risk…”
