More than 1,000 Futurists to Converge on Washington D.C. for World Future Society Conference

Bethesda, MD: Futurists from such organizations as UPS, NASA, George Washington University, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security, and from countries all over the world will converge on the Hilton Washington for the annual conference of the World Future Society, July 26-28.

Among the confirmed speakers, Bill Drayton, CEO, founder, and chairman, Ashoka: Innovations for the Public; Dennis M. Bushnell, chief scientist, NASA Langley Research Center; Dave Barnes, senior vice president and CIO of UPS; Marvin Cetron, president, Forecasting International, Inc; Leon S. Fuerth, former national security adviser to Vice President Al Gore; Jerry Allan, president, Criteria Architects, Inc; Maddy Dychtwald, executive vice president, co-founder, Age Wave; and AI expert Ben Goertzel among dozens of others. Complete list available at www.wfs.org.

The topics covered will include:
* Future[s] of Energetics;
* Trends in Education: Implications for the Future;
* Is It Immoral to Seek to Be Immortal?: The Promise and Perils of Advances in 21st Century Biomedicine;
* Forecasting the Technology Revolution;
* The Coming Global Crisis of Maturity;
* The Future of Law Enforcement;
* Futuristic Investing in the Financial Markets: Where Are the Assets of; Tomorrow?
* The Future of Virtual Worlds;
* The End of the Written Word.

"I will never forget attending my first World Future Society annual conference," writes this year's conference chairman, Nat Irvin II, on the Society's Web site. "What I remember most was the sheer excitement of seeing hundreds of people from all over the world engaged in serious debates about the future. The Hilton bustled with scientists, economists, historians, philosophers, business people, academics, teachers, ordinary people debating and presenting new ideas about the social, political, economic, and technological trends and events for the next hundred years."

WorldFuture 2008 will take place from July 26-28 at the Hilton Washington, Washington, D.C. Interested individuals can download a conference program, read selected speaker interviews, or register online at www.wfs.org . Registration is $595 for Society members, $650 for non-members.

Founded in 1966 as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Washington, D.C., the World Future Society has members in more than eighty countries around the world. Individuals and groups from all nations are eligible to join the Society and participate in its programs and activities.

The Society holds a two-day, international conference once a year where participants discuss foresight techniques and global trends that are influencing the future. Previous conference attendees have included future U.S. President Gerald Ford (1974), Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1975), behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner (1984), age-wave expert Ken Dychtwald (2005), U.S. comptroller general David M. Walker (2006), and scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil (2006).

For information about WorldFuture 2008, contact the World Future Society at 1-301-656-8274 or e-mail director of communications Patrick Tucker, ptucker@wfs.org, or Susan Echard, sechard@wfs.org, vice president for membership and conference operations, or check the World Future Society's Web site, www.wfs.org.