The future holds much potential, whether we'll end up in Utopia or Dystopia will be up to us and the following few generations.

In this talk Walter looks into different examples of high-risk research on the technologies of the future and sketches a path how to cross new technological frontiers.


Walter Vandevelde is the program- and policy officer for the department of Future and Emerging Technologies (FET), the European Commission's deep future technology program.


He has a background in mathematics, a PhD in Artificial Intelligence and experience of research and innovation in many contexts: in academia, in private research labs, large and small companies.

He is the guardian of the FET spirit, nurturing its unique role for visionary, interdisciplinary and high-risk research that makes FET the European reference for creative thinking on the technologies of the future.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx