The world according to Itskov: Futurists convene at GF2045 (Part 1)

Futurists, visionaries, scientists, technologists, philosophers, and others who take this view to heart convened on June 15-16, 2013 in New York City at Global Futures 2045 International Congress: Towards a New Strategy for Human Evolution. GF2045 was organized by the 2045 Strategic Social Initiative founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the main goals of creating and realizing a new strategy for the development of humanity – one based upon our unique emerging capability to effect self-directed evolution. The initiative's two main science projects are focused largely on Transhumanism – a multidisciplinary approach to analyzing the dynamic interplay between humanity and the acceleration of technology. Specifically, the 2045 Initiative's projects seek to (1) enable an individual's personality to be transferred to a more advanced non-biological substrate, and (2) extend life to the point of immortality – and those skeptical about the likelihood of achieving these goals should consider Arthur C. Clarke's laws of prediction2: