FutureHero Adam Clarke: The wonderful Wizard of Minecraft
Move over Harry Potter, there’s a cooler wizard around, and he’s got blocks and pigments up his sleeves. Wizard Keen (AKA Adam Clarke) teaches people how to experience art, culture and politics like never before. Through Wonder Quest and the creation of some of the most innovative Minecraft maps out there, the artist and digital producer proves video games are the perfect tool to
FutureHero Carlo Ratti: The Choral Architect
As more and more sensors, electronics and data radically transform the way we understand cities, Carlo Ratti makes dazzling interactive environments from the information we create – like our phone calls and the garbage we throw out – to create surprising visualisations of city life. Known as ‘The Choral Architect’, he senses the future of architecture as collaborative; with design intervening at the
FutureHero Birgitta Jónsdóttir: Icelandic poet-ician
Hacker, activist, geek and poet Birgitta Jónsdóttir is best known for founding Iceland’s Pirate Party – a movement of anarchists and techies that asks for direct democratic reform beyond party politics. We chatted to her about civil rights, transparency and accountability. She wants us to know that we can all participate – beyond protesting. Birgitta Jónsdóttir: “I am a poetician. You
FutureHero podcast ► The good energy of Juliet Davenport
In episode 3 of their podcast, the Atlas Futurenauts (AKA top selling author and futurist Mark Stevenson and leading sustainability expert Ed Gillespie) interview the extraordinary Juliet Davenport, founder and CEO of leading renewable and ethical energy provider Good Energy. A true renewable pioneer, Juliet built Good Energy from scratch in 1999 to tackle climate change. Learn about her
FutureHero Steve Rader: NASA, Mars – and you
The things NASA want to do next are “really, really hard”. That’s why Steve Rader appreciates the way the space agency harnesses people power and diversity. We circumnavigated the mighty Saturn V with the Center of Excellence for Collaborative Innovation‘s crowdsourcing evangelist to find out about NASA’s current challenges – and The Martian. Steve Rader: “NASA want to go to Mars – which is
FutureHero Ramez Naam: More than human
The Cairo-born futurist, technologist and award-winning science fiction author on Elon Musk, how his best ideas come on hikes and why we’re all transhuman. Ramez Naam: “Transhumanism is a weird word to most people. If you have a cell phone, you are already transhuman, as you have abilities above your human ancestors. If you have learned to
FutureHero Marley Dias: Mini-literary activist
Bored of only reading about “white boys and their dogs” at school, an 11-year-old from New Jersey launched a book drive. She collected books from around the world with one thing in common; they all represented black girls or “girls like me”. Then she donated them to schools, starting in Jamaica. Since November 2015, #1000blackgirlsbooks has amassed over
FutureHero Nelly Ben Hayoun: Astronomical
Faster-talking than the speed of light, louder than a sonic boom and sparkier than a volcano, extreme ‘experience designer’ Nelly Ben Hayoun has simulated all of the above. From the safety of her East London pad, the French space enthusiast catapults us through her flights of fancy-made-real – including what to do if an asteroid
Wanted: FutureHeroes!
Since the Atlas launch just a few months ago we’ve seen some of the most forward-thinking and insightful minds on the planet walk through our virtual doors. We call these high profile futurists, farmers, tech stars, entrepreneurs, 3D computational artists, design economists and epic people doing things differently ‘FutureHeroes’. Each one inspires us with what really matters – from cunning ways of solving
FutureHero Camila Achutti: Brazil’s leading grrrl-geek
The tech evangelist behind Mulheres na Computaçao (Women in Computing) on spreading the good news about technology’s power to change the world, educating people out of poverty – and getting more women into IT… Camila Achutti: “I grew up listening to my dad talking in COBOL on the phone. For me it was like a secret language
