From medicine to food — the crucial change in direction
Illnesses related to diet and lifestyle are multiplying at a phenomenal rate, and with them the costs of medical care and medicines. Unless this trend is broken, health services may collapse. Many of the current illnesses — heart attacks, type 2 diabetes, obesity and arteriosclerosis — can be avoided with sounder dietary habits. That may seem to be simple, but developments are heading in the opposite direction.

INNOVATION IN MIND 2010 lays the cards on the table, and provides concrete examples of how research, the food industry and health services working together can reverse this trend.

The nano-scale revolution
How can a rising world population be provided with sufficient energy without exhausting finite resources and destroying the environment? Life in our cities and our outlook on energy must be changed. Nanotechnology is breaking new ground, for example by increasing our understanding of the fundamentals of energy and by facilitating the extracting of energy from renewable resources with a level of effectiveness and efficiency never before possible.

INNOVATION IN MIND 2010 presents some of the small-scale bits of the puzzle that can elucidate the provision of energy in the future.

The personalized medicine
Curative pharmaceuticals that are produced specifically according to the patient’s genetic construction or the protein profile of the illness. Strong cytotoxins taken through inhalation that put a tumor out of action with no side effects. Targeted nanospheres that package and deliver a perfect amount of insulin at exactly the right moment. Entire laboratories in the space of a few square millimeters. We find ourselves on the brink of a new way of relating to the human body, and the medicines we are familiar with today will be relegated to the Stone Age of pharmacy.

INNOVATION IN MIND 2010 demonstrates a fraction of what is already possible, and cracks open the door to an exciting future.

The “Always and Everywhere” technology
The explosive development of the information technology enables innovations within many areas. Its influence on our way of living and working exceeds our wildest expectations time after time. And there’s a whole lot more coming. Computers are, literally speaking, becoming an extension of our brains, and soon all of us can be part of a collective consciousness where we can augment our reality through interactive exchange of information and accessibility in real time forever and everywhere. That future is already here in some areas.

INNOVATION IN MIND 2010 offers illustrations of how Information Technology will continue to influence our everyday lives, and asks the question, “What does this mean in a human perspective?”