Each week Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker, summarizes the top-5 future looking developments and news items that I find to be inspiring, interesting, concerning, or downright strange. Each day he reads through dozens of blogs and news websites to find those things that we should be aware of.
In Future Trends: Cyborgs, Democracy, and Cardboard Houses we look at the trends that we should be aware of today, April 22nd, 2016.

Hearing Colors with Neil Harbisson

The life of Neil Harbisson is like something out of a sci-fi novel. Neil was born with achromatopsia, a rare condition that leaves 1 in 30,000 people completely colorblind. But Neil isn’t colorblind, far from it. After convincing his doctors to implant an antenna into the back of his head, Neil now possesses a new sense – the ability to hear colors. In this short film by Greg Brunkalla, HEARING COLORS, Neil takes you through a day in his life and into an entirely new world.

Via Vimeo

Decriminalize all drugs, business and world leaders tell UN

Mexico City is crowdsourcing its new constitution using Change.org in a democracy experiment

Mexico City just launched a massive experiment in digital democracy. It is asking its nearly 9 million residents to help draft a new constitution through social media.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBQ37uSiO6s

The crowdsourcing exercise is unprecedented in Mexico—and pretty much everywhere else. Chilangos, as locals are known, can petition for issues to be included in the constitution through Change.org (link in Spanish), and make their case in person if they gather more than 10,000 signatures. They can also annotate proposals by the constitution’s drafters via PubPub, an editing platform (Spanish) similar to Google Docs.

The idea, in the words of the mayor, Miguel Angel Mancera, is to “bestow the constitution project (Spanish) with a democratic, progressive, inclusive, civic and plural character.”

Via Quartz

Wikkelhouse

A special little house, made out of cardboard. Sustainably built to last. And suit all your needs.

Via Builder Online

See the last 4 week’s Future Trends articles here:

• Future Trends: Facebook Wants it All

• Future Trends: Storing Data in DNA, and VR Drugs

• Future Trends: Unbiased Robot Bosses and Holoportation

• Future Trends: Curing AIDS and Accidental Racist Sex Robots

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Nikolas Badminton is a world-respected futurist speaker that researches, speaks, and writes about the future of work, how technology is affecting the workplace, how workers are adapting, the sharing economy, and how the world is evolving. He appears at conferences in Canada, USA, UK, and Europe. Email him to book him for your radio, TV show, or conference.