The opening keynote address for the 2015 annual N4A conference, for the national Area Agencies on Aging, by Glen Hiemstra, Founder and CEO of Futurist.com, with a focus on financial, mobility and housing needs of seniors, along with future technology and health breakthroughs.

1. glen hiemstra

2. “If you don’t go far enough back in
memory or far enough ahead in hope,
your present will be impoverished.”
Edward Lindaman

3. what is your image of the future?
probable?
possible?
preferred?

5. the future creates the present…

6. not a mystery

7. ✦ older younger diverse
✦ everything becoming intelligent
✦ health innovation and longevity
✦ income gap economics, working
and saving
✦ living and moving around
✦ shaping the future

8. 27
Florida’s
by
2025
States
where
at
least
20%
of
The
popula:on
will
be
elderly

9. ◆ 2020 Census will show that 50% of
people under age 30 in U.S. are
minorities
◆ 2060 Census will show for first time that
the older population age 65 and over
outnumber those 18 and under

10. Marc Prensky originated
“digital native” term
digital natives
digital immigrants
in charge
retiring
over the next decade

11. people of the screen...
will not accept old limitations

12. internet of everything
In the next 20 years PC’s will be replaced by
millions of tiny intelligent systems embedded in
our clothes, jewelry, cars, furniture, and walls.
They will recognize voice commands and carry
out simple wishes. They will cost less than a
penny, less than scrap paper, so companies which
do not put chips [intelligence] in all their
products will be at a severe disadvantage.
Michio Kaku, 1998

13. what is internet of everything?
platform for devices to communicate with the world around
them and to integrate human, natural and built worlds

14. From Harbor Research Infographic

15. when things are smart

16. nano | bio | info | cogno | robo | space
3D | connectivity | convergence

17. health innovation and longevity...
✦ access expanded
✦ enhancing brain focus and understanding
✦ diagnosis through genome
✦ rejuvenation therapy research
✦ systems pharmacology
✦ 4P disruption: personalized, predictive,
preventive, participatory

18. Geneticist Richard Cawthon and colleagues at the
University of Utah found shorter telomeres are
associated with shorter lives. Among people older
than 60, those with shorter telomeres were three
times more likely to die from heart disease and eight
times more likely to die from infectious disease.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/chromosomes/telomeres/
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2015/01/telomere-
extension-turns-back-aging-clock-in-cultured-cells.html
Now we have found a way to
lengthen human telomeres by as
much as 1,000 nucleotides, turning
back the internal clock in these
cells by the equivalent of many
years of human life,” said Helen
Blau, PhD, professor of
microbiology and immunology at
Stanford and director of the
university’s Baxter Laboratory for
Stem Cell Biology.

19. global knowledge value economy

21. disintermediation, dematerialization,
disruption and lessons of the
“marketplace”…

22. $50 Billion $20 BillionUBER
dematerialized economy

23. income gap economics

24. “In only four countries surveyed
—South Korea, the U.S.,
Germany and Britain—
do more than 1/3 of the public
say that the primary
responsibility for the economic
well-being of people aged 65 &
over rests with the elderly
themselves.”
- Pew Research Center

25. aging in america
Photo
Credit:
Dreams:me

26. end of retirement

27. Measures of labor force participation rate of people aged
65 and over continue trending up and
58% who work, work full time
Primary reasons:
•Sense of value
•intellectual
challenges
•economic
necessity

28. The average balance of 401k savings for people
approaching 65 is $73K median and $203K mean.

30. hAp://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsiedle/2013/03/20/the-­‐greatest-­‐re:rement-­‐crisis-­‐in-­‐american-­‐history/

31. “Aging
is
the
adults’
version
of
the
birds
and
the
bees;
we
need
to
talk
about
it.”
-­‐Rob
Lowe
Social
Innovation
Summit
2014

32. senior mobility issues

33. Danielson Grove Kirkland WA
Chapin Architects
✦ housing for donut hole - middle class
✦ cluster housing
✦ dementia friendly neighborhoods
✦ training market staff
✦ infrastructure fixes
✦ neighbor to neighbor support
✦ children day-care on site
✦ attention to bullying in group housing

34. what is your
image of the
future?

35. The future is not
something that just
happens
to us
The future is
something we do

36. www.futurist.com
glen@futurist.com
twitter.com/glenhiemstra
linkedin.com/glenhiemstra
thank you for your time
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