Program for the Future Challenge
An annual competition on improving collective intelligence, inspired by the vision of Doug Engelbart.
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The Challenge:
Develop a practical method, tool or technology that connects people so that they collectively act more intelligently. We are looking for new ideas – even simple ideas – that help people work better and smarter together in some important area. The challenge embraces all areas of human endeavor – not just technical domains like computing or engineering but also the arts, business, economics, education, government, health, law, philanthropy, science and other spheres. Winning entries will be displayed in the participating museums.

Background:
The Program for the Future Global Design Challenge is inspired by the
vision of Douglas C. Engelbart, who fifty years ago saw that the big
problems mankind faced were growing faster than our ability to solve
them. In response, Dr. Engelbart began his life-long quest to improve
our collective intelligence. It is in that spirit that The Tech Museum
and the MIT Museum are sponsoring a design challenge to
inspire innovators around the world to build the next generation of
tools to augment our ability to think and work collectively.
The Program for the Future Design Challenge is organized by the Tech Museum of Innovation in collaboration with the MIT Museum, under the supervision of a distinguished Board of Advisors. The kickoff for the challenge was the Program for the Future Summit and Workshop, held Dec. 8-9, 2008, on the 40th anniversary of Engelbart's "Mother of All Demos."
Calendar and Deadlines - click here for more
Timeline for the 2009 Challenge
Dec. 8, 2008 2009-10 Design Challenge Launch
Feb. 8, 2010 Entry Deadline for 2009-10 Challenge
Mar. 3, 2010 Program for the Future Conference 2010
Mar. 3, 2010 Stage 1 judging selections announced
Mar. 3, 2010 2010-11 Design Challenge Launch
April ?, 2010 Winners of the 2009-2010 Challenge announced
About the Prizes
Awards for winning entries
$5,000 US (per team)
Invitation and travel support (for one team member) to accept award at the award ceremony.
Honor of having your demo on display at The Tech and possibly other participating museums. (read more)
Advisors
Distinguished Board of Advisors to the PFTF Challenge (complete list)
Current Entries
Browse the existing demo projects. You can also request to join a project! (complete list)
How Can I Help?
There are ways you can contribute to the Challenge, whatever your skills and available time or resources (more)
Suggest a Problem
Do you know of a problem that might be solvable by technology and collective intelligence? (read more)
Click here to see current problem suggestions
Nominate an Existing Collective Intelligence Tool
Suggest a tool that you know about that could be a good entry for the Challenge. (nominate a project)
Click here to see current nominations
What Is a Collective Intelligence Tool?
See some examples of Collective Intelligence Tools. (read more)

- PFTF Challenge Guidelines.
- PFTF Challenge Rules.
- PFTF Judging Criteria.
- Videotaped proceedings of the 2008 PFTF Summit and Workshop.
- Other media from the Summit and Workshop.
- 2009 Book: The Engelbart Hypothesis by Valerie Landau and Eileen Clegg in conversation with Douglas C. Engelbart.
- Engelbart's collected papers.
- MIT's online Handbook of Collective Intelligence
- Engelbart Timeline Mural by Eileen Clegg and Valerie Landau.
- UN Millenium Goals http://www.undp.org/mdg/
- Millennium Project Global Challenges for Humanity
Program for the Future annual conference: An annual conference. (http://programforthefuture.org/conference)
Program for the Future partners:
Groups that have formed around this challenge:
Tapping our Collective Wisdom / Makers and Doers:
(http://www.meetup.com/Tapping-our-Collective-Wisdom-Silicon-Valley)
Makers and Doers wiki: (http://pftfchallenge.wik.is/)
A Silicon Valley-based Program for the Future monthly meetup:
(http://www.meetup.com/Program-For-The-Future/)
Future Talk TV show "Experimental TV for a sustainable future"
http://www.futuretalk.net/
http://futuretalk.ning.com
http://futuretalk.wik.is/
http://www.deeperlook.net/tvshow.html
http://futuretalk.blip.tv/
http://www.youtube.com/programforthefuture
Program for the Future on social networking groups:
(main PFTF group)
(challenge entrants)
(main PFTF group)
(challenge entrants)












