The FuturIcT Knowledge Accelerator: Unleashing the Power of Information for a Sustainable Future

TL;DR

The paper advocates for a large-scale ICT-driven knowledge accelerator to better understand societal dynamics and address global challenges through integrated socio-economic and environmental research.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of a knowledge accelerator as a major initiative to leverage information technologies for societal and environmental understanding.

Findings

Calls for a socio-economic knowledge collider

Highlights the need for ICT-based research on global challenges

Proposes a large-scale, collaborative scientific project

Abstract

With our knowledge of the universe, we have sent men to the moon. We know microscopic details of objects around us and within us. And yet we know relatively little about how our society works and how it reacts to changes brought upon it. Humankind is now facing serious crises for which we must develop new ways to tackle the global challenges of humanity in the 21st century. With connectivity between people rapidly increasing, we are now able to exploit information and communication technologies to achieve major breakthroughs that go beyond the step-wise improvements in other areas. The need of a socio-economic knowledge collider was first pointed out in the OECD Global Science Forum on Applications of Complexity Science for Public Policy in Erice from October 5 to 7, 2008. Since then, many scientists have called for a large-scale ICT-based research initiative on techno-socialeconomic- environmental issues, sometimes phrased as a Manhattan-, Apollo-, or CERN-like project to study the way our living planet works in a social dimension. Due to the connotations, we use the term knowledge accelerator, here.