Paul Saffo

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Paul Saffo

Paul Saffo (born in 1954 in Los Angeles) is a technology forecaster based in Silicon Valley. A Consulting Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University, Saffo teaches courses on the future of engineering and the impact of technological change on the future. In 2008, Saffo was named Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Stanford Media X research network.

He is also a board member of the Long Now Foundation^[1]. He has degrees from Harvard College, Cambridge University, and Stanford University.

Saffo is frequently quoted in leading publications on issues ranging from high technology to global lifestyles. Saffo has over two decades experience exploring long term technological change and its impact on society. Since 2006, he has been on an extended sabbatical from Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California where he worked for the last two decades. He left IFTF in 2008.

Saffo is a columnist for ABCNews.com, and his essays have appeared in numerous publications, including Business 2.0, Fortune, The Harvard Business Review, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, The New York Times, The Washington Post and Wired.

Saffo is the author of several books, including Dreams in Silicon Valley and The Road From Trinity, and the introduction to E.B. White: Notes on our Times^[2]

Saffo was a McKinsey Judge for the Harvard Business Review in 1997, and was named a "Global Leader for Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum in the same year. Saffo is Chairman of the Samsung Science Board, and serves on a variety of other boards and advisory panels, including the Stanford Advisory Council on Science, Technology and Society.

In 2000, Saffo was elected Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences.

Quoted at UC Berkeley for his statement on Wikipedia: "Wikipedia is a researcher's dream."