Futurologist Georges T. Roos – Futurology helps to make the future imaginable. So that better decisions can be made today for tomorrow. The future is uncharted territory – megatrends a first cartography of it. Uncertainties are anticipated in scenarios. Early recognition processes provide a head start for shaping the future.
Georges T. Roos has been dealing professionally with the strategic future challenges of companies and organizations for 20 years. He is Switzerland’s leading futurologist, known as an inspiring speaker on disruptive scenarios, megatrends, value change and strategic future fitness. Georges T. Roos is founder and director of the private future think tank ROOS Trends & Futures. Furthermore, he is founder and director of the European Futurists Conference Lucerne and member of the board of swissfuture – Swiss Association for Futures Research.
Georges T. Roos – The Future Theses
- Megatrends
What are the megatrends of tomorrow? The early signals are becoming stronger that new megatrends are emerging around artificial intelligence, genetic editing and blockchain. I’m talking about “technological autonomization,” “bio-transformation” and “trusted networking.”
- Future challenges after the Ukraine and energy crises.
The long-term challenges as a compass. The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the energy crisis have led to great uncertainty about the near future. In such a situation, it is difficult to maintain a long-term compass. Current crises always take precedence, but in order not to turn the coordinate system upside down with short-sightedness, it is nevertheless, or precisely because of this, necessary to look into the medium to long-term future. What do we see then? Several major transformations. An attempt to place the current uncertainties in the larger future horizon.
- The uncertain Future
Today, the future seems more uncertain than ever. The impression is not deceiving, for the indeterminacy of what is to come is inherent in the constitution of the modern, interconnected world.
- Health – The improvement of human nature
The most frequently mentioned wish for the future is health: when asked about wishes for the future, many people cite their own health and the health of their loved ones. There’s no question about it: health is a focal point personally, politically and also economically.
How we will live in 20 years’ time cannot be predicted as a whole: Too many events and developments will occur that we cannot imagine at all today (Unknown Unknowns). However, the scenarios described here have a high probability of being part of our future. Dealing with them helps to be at least a little bit less surprised by the future.
Georges T. Roos spent the first part of his professional career already during his studies at the University of Zurich in journalism, lastly as a member of the editorial board of a medium-sized Swiss daily newspaper. From 1997, he was a member of the executive board of the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute until he set up his own institute on January 1, 2000.
Since 1997, Georges T. Roos has been analyzing the driving forces of social change. “Silver Economy – investing in demographic change.”
His diagnoses of the times point to the future of our society in the globalized world, name the challenges, bluntly present the risks, but always emphatically emphasize the opportunities. Georges T. Roos has also been called an optimist for the future. The truth is that Georges T. Roos, as a philosophically trained futurologist, is not seduced by hypes or apocalyptic images, and is able to show how the human entrepreneurial spirit repeatedly produces leaps forward – in the past, in the present, and directed toward the future. He has been able to inspire thousands of executives in companies, organizations and from the administration with his explanations of megatrends.
He is the author of several studies. Most recently published: Megatrends 2038: Challenges for Switzerland; Lifestyle 202X. Versuch einer Zeitdiagnose (2011, out of print); Wertewandel in der Schweiz 2030. Vier Szenarien (2011); Suva Zukunftsstudie 2029 (2009).
Georges T. Roos was born in Basel in 1963, but grew up mostly in Central Switzerland. He studied education, journalism and psychology at the University of Zurich and graduated as lic.phil.I.. He is the father of Juan Alberto (b. 1999) and Maria (b. 2000) and now lives in Lucerne.