Dr. James Canton (@futureguru) is a renowned global futurist, social scientist, keynote presenter, author, and visionary business advisor. He is the CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a leading think tank he founded in 1990 that advises business, the Global Fortune 1000 (like IBM, GE, HP, Boeing, Intel and more) and many governments on future trends in innovation, financial services, health care, population, life sciences, energy, security, workforce, climate change, and globalization. In addition, James is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Research in Innovation at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, on the advisory board of the Corporate Eco Forum and has advised three White House Administrations, the National Science Foundation and MIT’s Media Lab, Europe. Dr. Canton is the author of the following books:
The Extreme Future: The Top Trends That Will Reshape the World in the 21st Century (2006)
Future Smart: Managing the Game-Changing Trends That Will Transform Your World (2015)
Technofutures: How Leading-Edge Technology Will Transform Business in the 21st Century (2004)
And James is no stranger to media. He was named “the Digital Guru” by CNN and “Dr. Future” by Yahoo, is a commentator on CNN and has been featured on/in CNBC, Fox, PBS, ABC, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Bloomberg Report, The New York Times, US News and World Report, CEO, CIO and CFO Magazines. And finally, Dr. Canton serves as Co-chairman of the Futures and Forecasting Track at Singularity University.

In our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including:
- How the pace of technology acceleration is accelerating
- The 5 most impactful areas of tech
- How government surveillance and privacy as balanced in the future
- Why James is optimistic about the future
- The future of work, even including AI
- How humanity needs to reinvent healthcare
- What it is like working in a governmental think tank
- Why quantum computing will change the world
- How James advises government and corporations about change and the future
- What James learned working at Apple Computer
- How systems thinking changes can solve most of the world’s problems
- Why our education system is broken and how to fix it