Last week I was in Somerset, New Jersey to give the keynote presentation at the 31st Annual New Jersey Science Convention. The name of my talk was “The Exponential Educator: How Eight Emerging Technologies Will Transform Education.” One major underlying theme of the presentation was that because of exponential advances in technology the future is going to be host to some very exciting inventions and, by openingly discussing many of these exciting possibilities with kids, teachers can get kids interested in science once again.
To this end, I think one such possibility is a flying car and recently MIT Technology Review has an informative article discussing the advances that a small start-up company, Terrafugia, is making. One of the big question marks surrounding the flying car’s development is concern over whether it will be able to keep its weight low enough. It is a major problem to be sure, but as a result of advances in lighter, stronger nanomaterials and smaller and longer lasting batteries many of these concerns will be overcome sooner rather than later. In fact, Terrafugia expects to have a prototype developed by later this year; another company, LaBiche, plans on having a flying car operational by 2009; and, SkyCar, which has been existence since the 1960’s is also closing in on the goal.
These prototypes may not work perfectly and they may not be immediate commercial successes, but their time is coming. Exponential advances in many of the flying car’s enabling technologies—better nanomaterials, more effective sensors, smarter software, etc.—are all getting better, and I am convinced that it is not a matter of if flying cars will become a reality but when! And, of course, we will all get to this future sooner if we can get kids excited about science and technology again.
Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequenter speaker on future trends, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and associations.
