This report outlines trends, challenges, and opportunities relating to the future of
Smart Spaces and ICT-mediated human communication, as observed from within
one of the EIT ICT Labs focus areas: Mediating Presence, during 2012-2013. The
study should be seen as an initial and open-ended exploration that seeks to
contribute a productive point of departure for more ambitious work, which will be
undertaken across the Smart Spaces Action Line and using the Innovation Radar
platform in future years. In particular, the business potential of mediating presence is
the focus of a forthcoming 2014 Foresight Technical Report.
As a foresight, Mediated Futures identifies and exposes future themes with high
innovation potential relating to presence technologies, using a time frame roughly six
months to five years ahead. Its purpose is to create a common outlook on the future
of ICT and to establish a shared vocabulary and fruitful methodologies for future
strategy thinking across the EIT ICT Labs nodes and partner organisations.
A series of workshops and other collaborative activities have been organised within
the Mediating Presence activity over the last 15 months. The pivotal output is a
series of one-pagers, short fictional texts, three of which can be encountered on the
following pages. Tentative and possibly provocative, these are slogan-based
descriptions of future scenarios that serve to trigger new perspectives. A total of six
clusters of topics were covered by one-pagers:
Data doubles
New magic
Luddites
Socialites
Future of Work—A working future
Spaces and things