Summer Reading Gift: On Inventing the Perfect Future for Our Kids
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A few years ago, my daughter Zoe saw me referred to as a “futurist” and quipped, “Well, I hope you adults don’t mess mine up.” Her very real concern started me on the long path to writing a book which tries to address just that: How can we “adults” not mess up our kids’ future but instead build a future that we can proudly leave to them?
In celebration of the kids everywhere, I’d like to give you and your kids free copies of that book for your summer reading stacks.
In A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the world we can proudly leave to our kids by 2050, Paul Carroll, Tim Andrews and I ask whether we can reassure our kids, honestly, about their future; or, are they doomed to dystopian times? There sure is a lot going wrong. We settled on hope. We tried to envision a grand future, putting a stake in the ground for our kids and their kids. We drew on our decades of experience working at the intersection of strategy, technology and innovation in both the public and private sectors to envision what we’re calling a “Future Perfect.”
We’re not saying we can predict the future. We very much abide by the oft-used line that “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” Besides, at their best, predictions represent the most likely outcomes based on the current trends and, in pivotal times like today’s, the most likely scenarios might well be the ones we want to avoid.
No, rather than predicting the future, we drew on what we’ve learned from our long-time friend, colleague and mentor, Alan Kay. The best way to predict the future is to invent it. More precisely, we want to help you invent it.
We hope the book gets you excited about the wonderful possibilities enabled by human ingenuity over the next several decades. We also hope you will embrace the sort of work we could be doing now to translate those possibilities into reality.
To help turn the possibility of your excitement and engagement into reality, I’m giving away up to 21,000 free eBook copies between now and the 4th of July, 2022. (21,000 is only about 50% of the subscribers of my LinkedIn newsletter, where this offer was first made, so download your free copy while it is still available.)
A few big favors, please: If you like the book, give it a review at Amazon or your favorite book lover site. This would really help spread the word. Also, hit “like” on the this article, add a comment, and share it with your connections — including, especially, your kids.
Happy summer. And, happy summer reading.
A special thanks to Paul Carroll and Tim Andrews for agreeing to this crazy, giveaway. And, thanks to our many contributors and early readers who made the book better.
Chunka Mui focuses on innovation at the intersection of exponential technology and societal good. He’s also the author of five books on innovation including, most recently, “A Brief History of a Perfect Future: Inventing the World We Can Proudly Leave Our Kids by 2050.” Connect with him at his website and LinkedIn.
