Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013 - (Page 6)

in my own words building the Future Futurist, Intel Corporation Brian David Johnson grew up surrounded by technology and computers, so it’s not surprising that he ended up working in the technology field. As a futurist at Intel, the world’s largest semiconductor chip maker, Johnson travels the world gathering information from such diverse realms as sociology, economics, and even science fiction in order to determine what people will want their world to be like 10 or 15 years from now. Then he helps figure out how to create that world. growing up technical my father was a radar tracking engineer for the faa, and my mother was an it specialist. When i was very young, my father would bring home electrical schematics from the radar and explain how electricity moved through one part of the machinery. the next week, he would bring home that part so that i could take it apart and understand it. my mother used to bring computers home. she taught me how to speak computer. to me, writing computer software when i was young was just like writing stories. i think of the work i do today as storytelling. i believe it’s a myth that there’s a difference between creative and technical. there’s tons of creativity inherent in being an engineer or computer scientist, just as there’s tons of technical knowhow involved in being an artist or musician. interdisciplinary advantage i attended college at the new school for social research in new York. it was interdisciplinary: i could take economics, art, literature, and technical classes and pull them all together, which is what i do in my job now. i loved writing, technology, and design, so i did different internships to try out different jobs. But i was practical—i had very good computer skills, and i wanted to be able to apply them. By the 1990s, i was doing high-tech product design, making interactive television applications and set-top boxes. it took five to eight years from design to production. i mixed technology, creativity, and design with business and economic principles in order to build these products. around 2000, intel began to design chips 5 to 10 years out, so they needed to know 10 years out what 6 imagine people would want to do with them. i came to intel to work with engineers, creative people, and researchers to conceive of and build a product over this long timeline. eventually, that role led me to be intel’s futurist. shaping the future i work with a team of social scientists, anthropologists, and ethnographers who fan out all over the world to study how people live, shop, and work. i use economics to understand gross domestic product and forecasts of population growth—the math of the future—to see what the world will look like 10 to 15 years from now. then we consider the technical research to understand what we can potentially do with computers, and ask how this technology can make people more efficient, happier, and healthier. if you look at what people want—what they think is cool, and what makes them happy—that’s usually a pretty good indication of where technology’s headed. once we understand what people want, what the technology is going to be able to do, and what the world’s going to look like, i hit the road to talk with as many people as i can, from other companies, governments, and militaries to universities and students, to find out what they want from their future. sometimes i write fact-based science fiction stories, using the intel research, to provide a common language so we can talk about the future. i say, “here’s this vision for the future,” and then try to learn what others think about it. A growing conversation the future doesn’t just happen. it’s not some fixed point on the horizon that we’re all running toward, helpless to do anything about. the future is made by the actions of people every day, and one way to change the future is to start having conversations with others about what kind of future they want. the tomorrow Project grew out of this desire to get everyone to be an active participant in their future. it explores the human, cultural, and ethical implications of technology through conversations with scientists and science fiction authors, experts, advocates, and everyday people. We’re prototyping ideas. may/Jun 2013 SHUTTERSTOCK BRIAN DAVID JOHNSON

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013
Contents
Big Picture
In My Own Words
Code Me In
Getting Started With Computational Problem Solving
Coding for Gold
The Computer Science Connection
Magical & Practical
The Creative, Collaborative Universe of Minecraft
Going Mobile
Connecting Students and Cultures Through Technology
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Words With Friends
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Creative Minds Imagine
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - May/June 2013