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SUMMARY OF ROCKEFELLER SCENARIO - 2010

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carl164:
SUMMARY OF “SCENARIOS FOR THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY AND
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT” BY ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION
(RF) AND GLOBAL BUSINESS NETWORK (GBN), PRINTED 2010.
Judith Rodin, President, The Rockefeller Foundation.
Peter Schwartz, Cofounder and Chairman, Global Business
Network.
Investigating future scenarios.
Technology was chosen as a focal point addressing
challenges like climate change, healthcare,
agriculture, housing, transportation, and education.
Examples of literature focusing on technology,
development, and social systems.
- RAND Corporations, “The Global Technology
Revolution 2020, In-Depth Analyses”, 2006.
- World Bank, “ Science, Technology, and
Innovation: Capacity Building for Sustainable Growth
and Poverty Reduction”, 2008.
- UN Millennium Project, Task Force on Science,
Technology, and Innovation, “Applying Knowledge in
Development”, 2006.
Global population growth will put pressure on energy,
food, and water resources.
Choosing critical uncertainties based on technological,
social, environmental, economic, and political
uncertainties. Some examples:
- New innovations that substantially reduce child
and infant mortality (vaccines, treatments, cures).
- Opportunities for women.
- Disease, famine, and natural disasters.
- Air, water, and sanitation.
- Global climate change.
- Rules and norms around entrepreneurial activity.
- Food security.
Global political and economic alignment.
Political structures to deal with the flow of goods,
capital, people, and ideas. RF would like to see more
cooperation at the supra-national level, fostering
increased collaboration, strengthened global
institutions, and the formation of effective
international problem-solving networks. RF suggests
weakening of governance regimes that raise barriers to
cooperation, thereby hindering agreement on and
implementation of large scale, interconnected solutions
to pressing global challenges.
Philanthropic organizations fill an important role.
“Clever Together” - Nations, non-governmental
organizations (NGOs), and companies establish the
Global Technology Assessment Office.
Lock step - a world of tighter top-down government
control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited
innovation and growing citizen pushback.
In 2012, the pandemic finally hit and unlike the
pandemic 2009, was extremely virulent and deadly. The
United States’s initial policy of “strongly
discouraging” citizens from flying proved deadly in its
leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just
within the U.S., but across borders. However, a few
countries did fare better - China in particular. China
imposed mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well
as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off all
borders, saved millions of lives, stopping the spread
of the virus far earlier than in other countries and
enabling a swifter post-pandemic recovery. China used
2012 mandatory wearing of face masks and bodytemperature
checks. Citizens willingly gave up some of
their sovereignty - and their privacy - to more
paternalistic states in exchange for greater safety and
stability. In developed countries biometric IDs for all
citizens.
Presence of so many top-down rules and norms greatly
inhibited entrepreneurial activity. Well-off countries
and monopolistic companies with big research budgets
still made significant advances, but the IP behind
their breakthroughs remained locked behind strict
national or corporate protection. China’s investment in
Africa expanded as the bargain of new jobs and
infrastructure in exchange for access to key minerals
or food exports proved agreeable to many governments.
By 2025, people seemed to be growing weary of so much
top-down control and letting leaders and authorities
make choices for them. Sporadic pushback became
increasingly organized and coordinated.
Technological innovations in “Lock Step” is largely
driven by governments and is focused on issues of
national security and health and safety. Technology
trends and applications we might see:
- Scanners using advanced functional magnetic
resonance imaging (fMRI) technology become the norm at
airports and other public areas to detect abnormal
behavior that may indicate “antisocial intent.”
- New diagnostics are developed to detect
communicable diseases. Screening becomes a prerequisite
for release from a hospital or prison, successfully
slowing the spread of many diseases.
Clever together - highly coordinated and successful
strategies. The planet’s climate was becoming
increasingly unstable. Sea levels were rising fast. The
governments hashed out plans for monitoring and
reducing greenhouse gas emissions in short term an
improving the absorptive capacity of the natural
environment over the long term. Worldwide, the pressure
to reduce waste and increase efficiency in planetfriendly
ways was enormous. New globally coordinated
systems for monitoring energy use capacity - including
smart grids and bottom-up pattern recognition
technologies. Centralized global oversight and
governance structures sprang up, not just for energy
use but also for disease and technology standards.
Enormous, benign “sousveillance” systems allowed
citizens to access data - all publically available - in
real time and react. New inexpensive technologies like
better medical diagnostics and more effective vaccines
improved healthcare delivery and health outcomes.
Companies, NGOs, and governments - often acting
together. Pharmaceuticals giants released thousands of
drug compounds shown to be effective against diseases
like malaria into public domain as part of an “open
innovation” agenda. Growth in developing world was more
“green”. In Africa there was a big push for solar
energy. Enormous strides were made to make the world
less wasteful, more efficient, and more inclusive.
A Consortium of Foundations launches Third Green
Revolution as food shortages loom 2027. Global
cooperation issues technological breakthroughs that
combat disease, climate change, and energy shortages.
Technology trends and applications we might see.
- The cost of capturing data through nano sensors
and smart networks falls precipitously. “Sousveillance”
improve governance and enable more efficient use of
government resources.
- Intelligent electricity, water distribution, and
transportation systems develop in urban areas. In these
“smart cities”, internet access is seen as a basic
right.
- Solar power is made vastly more efficient through
advances in materials, including polymers and
nanoparticles.
- Flexible and rapid mobile payment systems drive
dynamic economic growth.
Life in clever together - Standing next to his desk at
the World Meat Science Lab in Zurich, Alec took another
bite of the steak that his lab assistant had just
presented to him and chewed it rather thoughtfully.
This wasn’t just another steak. It was research.Alec
and his research team had been working for months to
fabricate a new meat product - one that tasted just
like beef yet actually contained only 50% meat; the
remaining half was a combination of synthetic meat,
fortified grains, and nano-flavoring. Alec also had
strong motivation. There was no doubt that meat science
- indeed all science - was much more exciting,
challenging, and rewarding in 2023 than it was a few
decades ago. The demand for meat, in particular, was
rising, but adding more animals to the planet created
its own set of problems, such as more methane and
spiking water demand. And that’s where Alec saw both
need and opportunity: why not make the planet’s meat
supply go further by creating a healthier alternative
that contained less real meat?
Hack attack - In 2015, the U.S. reallocated a large
share of its defense spending to domestic concerns,
pulling out of Afghanistan - where the resurgent
Taliban seized power once again. Resource scarcities
and trade disputes, together with severe economic and
climate stresses, pushed many alliances and
partnerships to the breaking point; they also sparked
proxy wars and low-level conflict in resource-rich
parts of the world. Israeli-Palestinian bloodshed
escalated; and across Africa, fights over resources
erupted along ethnic and tribal lines. “Global
guerillas.” Criminal networks grew making tainted
vaccines and anti-malaria drugs. People start avoiding
vaccines and it was not long before infant and child
mortality rose to levels not seen since the 1970s.
Patent applications skyrocketed and patent thickets
profilerated, as companies fought to claim and control
even the tiniest innovations. Blockbuster
pharmaceuticals quickly became artifacts of the past,
replaced by increased production of generics. More
focus on technologies that could not be replicated or
re-engineered. And once created, they were vigorously
guarded by their inventors - or even by their nations.
Genetically modified crops (GMOs) and do-it-yourself
(DIY) biotech became backyard and garage activities,
producing important advances. The very rich still had
the financial means to protect themselves; gated
communities sprung up from New York to Lagos, providing
safe havens surrounded by slums. The wealthy also
capitalizing on the loose regulatory environment to
experiment with advanced medical treatments and other
under-the-radar activities. By 2030, the distinction
between “developed” and “developing” nations no longer
seemed particularly descriptive or relevant. Islamic
terror networks thrive in Latin America 2016. Guerilla
philanthropy.
Technology trends and applications we might see.
- Rise in synthetic chemicals and biology.
- New threats like weaponized biological pathogens
and destructive botnets.
- The internet is overrun with spam and security
threats.
Life in the hack attack - Trent never thought that his
past experience as a government intelligence officer
would convert into something…philanthropic. On-time
flights were rare these days. It took 6 hours to clear
customs and immigration. The airport was bereft of
personnel, and those on duty took their time
scrutinizing and re-scrutinizing his visa. Botswana had
none of the high-tech biometric scanning checkpoints -
technology that could literally see right through you.
As expected, counterfeit vaccines were being
manufactured. Bur so were GMO seeds. And synthetic
proteins. And a host of other innovations that the
people who hired him would love to know about.
Smart Scramble - in a economically depressed world. The
United States, too, lost much of its presence and
credibility on the international stage due to deepening
debt, debilitating markets, and a distracted
government. Depressed economic activity, combined with
the ecological consequences of China’s rapid growth,
started to take their toll. Great numbers of immigrants
who had resettled in the developed countries world
suddenly found that the economic opportunities that had
drawn them were now paltry at best. Immigrants headed
back to their home countries. Cheap edible vaccine
against tuberculosis. Micro communities and micro
energy grids were developed.
Concluding thoughts - the link between technology and
governance is critical.
One external member of significance.
- Caroline Wagner, Senior Analyst, SRI
International and Research Scientist, Center for
International Science and Technology Policy, The George
Washington University.
B.P. March 2024.

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