David Passig

David Passig (born 1957) is an Israeli futurist who received his Ph.D. in Anticipatory Anthropology from the University of Minnesota. He specializes in technological futures, as well as social and educational futures. He is an Associate Professor at the Bar-Ilan University[1] in Israel. He heads the Graduate Program in Information and Communication Technology and the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the School of Education.

Biography

Passig was born in Meknes, Morocco to a Jewish family. As a young child, his family immigrated to France, where he spent his early childhood. When Passig was 11, the family moved to Israel. Passig holds dual French and Israeli nationality.[2]

In 1982, at age 25, Passig fought in the 1982 Lebanon War. During the war, his army unit was ambushed by Syrian troops, and was later mistakenly attacked by Israeli warplanes, and sustained heavy casualties, including some of his friends. According to Passig, it was during this time that his interest in the future started, as he began wondering whether Israel's fate would be to be in a constant state of war. When he returned from the army, Passig took a vacation to Europe at the urging of his father. While in Brussels, he visited an exhibit on homes of the future. Although he was studying psychology at the time, he decided to enroll in an Anticipatory Anthropology course at the University of Minnesota.[3]

Passig, an observant Orthodox Jew, is married with four children and lives in Netanya. He works as a consultant, and advises companies, including Fortune 500 companies, science fiction film producers, and the Israeli government. He has consulted the Ministry of Education, Bank Hapoalim, and the Israeli Air Force. He served as an adviser to the commissioner for generations at the Knesset and is a member of the Israeli National Committee for Research and Development.

Predictions

Among Passig's accurate predictions were the September 11 attacks - in the 1990s, he predicted that a terrorist attack would take place on a major symbol of world order in the early 21st century. Passig also predicted the 2008 financial crisis in 1998, when he said that there would be a global economic crisis that would start in either 2007 or 2008. He wrote about the coming financial crisis in his book The Future Code, which was written in 2006 and published a few months before the crisis started. Passig also accurately forecasted major developments in wireless technology.[3]

Among his future predictions are space advertising by 2015, Moore's law being repealed by 2017, a brain-powered personal computer by 2020, a commercial quantum computer by 2027, laboratory-grown human organs on demand by 2028, a space elevator by 2029, an artificially intelligent computer similar to the fictional HAL 9000 by 2047, an undersea city by 2068, cryonics reanimation by 2085, nanorgasm by 2089, and warp drive by 2095. He has contradicted widespread predictions of human colonization of space in the late 21st and 22nd century, and believes that humanity will not begin to seriously colonize space until the 23rd or 24th century.[2][3][4]

A Future Taxonomy of Cognitive skills

He has developed a Taxonomy of Future Cognitive and Learning Skills. This Taxonomy attempts to refresh Blooms taxonomy of cognitive skills to reflect future needs. It also suggests a new thinking skill that was not included in Bloom's categories—named Melioration. It is assumed that this skill will be much required from the alumni of the schooling system in the future. This Taxonomy is being taught worldwide at teachers' colleges and MBA programs. He is developing tools with which one can measure the skill and develop it as well. The following papers represent the taxonomy of cognitive skill that he has published:

Imen Delphi

He has also developed a Future’s Research methodology named "Imen-Delphi" (ID). This methodology reflects a new paradigm in Futures' Thinking. The ID aims at structuring a procedure through which a group of experts could invent preferable futures, as opposed to the classical "Delphi" forecasting technique with which a group of experts is engaged in figuring out the most probable future. He is conducting various case studies to enhance its reliability and validity in helping various groups shaping their future imageries. The following papers represent the ID methodology in the published literature:

Enhancing Cognitive Skills with Virtual Reality

He has established the Virtual Reality Laboratory at the School of Ed, and he is conducting studies on various aspects of the Human User Learning Interface of Virtual Reality. His Lab is the first Lab in Israel aimed at researching and teaching Virtual Reality in Education.

He is studying also the impact of ICT interfaces on a variety of human cognitive and social aspects as well as learning processes. He is suggesting that ICT interfaces are having unexpected impact on the users awareness to a variety of cognitive phenomena. He is also suggesting that VR can enhance some cognitive skills. The following papers represent this ongoing endeavor:

Books

He has published several books about the future - one titled: The Future Code. In this book that was in the best seller list for 25 weeks and received the Gold Prize he has developed 16 predictions about Israel in four categories: Social, national security, economics and national identity.

A second book was published in 2010 titled: 2048. In this best seller the author engage to describe the possible conflicts of the 21st century, the technologies that will drive these confrontations and how they will be reflected in the Middle east up to the mid 21st century.

In 2011 the book was also published in Turkish by kotonkitap entitled 2050

This book has been translated to Turkish and English.

The Turkish version is titled: 2050

A third book was published in 2013 titled: Forcognito - The future mind. In this best seller the author describes the neurophysiological mechanusm of Futures Thinking. He suggests that the mind is in the midst of an accelerated evolutionary process in which a variety of cognitive skills are enhanced. The author does a meta analysis of his studies regarding the way to enhance a variety of IQ skills with Virtual Reality.

References

  1. ↑ BIU
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 What does the future hold in store? - Israel21c.org
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Israel: Don't Overreach
  4. ↑ http://www.passig.com/vault/presentations/banner2.swf

External links