The following list, compiled with the help of my team member Vanessa Cartwright, provides a brief profile of 143 [up from 78 in the original list] fabulous female futurists. It is tricky defining a futurist, so while we have largely selected those who describe themselves as working in this space, we have also included others whose work is largely that of exploring the future. We have limited this list to those who have a significant profile and impact, but I’m sure we have missed some who should be included.
Phi Beta Iota: The female list is vastly more interesting in part because the author has gone the extra mile in providing photos, bio snap-shots with links, and website likes. Twitter and Facebook have potential, but right now they represent mobs working with 1% of the knowledge, and all that “content” is largely divorced from the proven process of intelligence (decision-support). Although we place high value on future speculation — David Brin ranks highly with us — our focus is on creating a future that overturns all the past assumptions and bias and built-in predatory calculations of the top-down combination of state and corporation against the public interest. The future we want and need will be based on holistic analytics, true cost economics, and open source everything engineering. It will create a prosperous world at peace, a world that works for all, using the one resource we have in abundance: the human brain. Connecting and empowering those brains is the next big step.