Advancing Beneficial Nanotechnology

Foresight is the leading think tank and public interest institute on nanotechnology. Founded in 1986, Foresight was the first organization to educate society about the benefits and risks of nanotechnology. At that time, nanotechnology was a little-known concept.

Today, with the basic framework of public understanding in place, we are refocusing our efforts on guiding nanotechnology research, public policy and education to address the critical challenges facing humanity.

Foresight’s new mission is to ensure the beneficial implementation of nanotechnology.

Foresight is accomplishing this by providing balanced, accurate and timely information to help society understand and utilize nanotechnology through public policy activities, publications, guidelines, networking events, tutorials, conferences, roadmaps and prizes.

Foresight is a member-supported organization. Our membership, including over 14,000 individuals and a growing number of corporations, is diverse demographically and geographically. They are interested in ensuring that the future of nanotechnology unfolds for the benefit of all. These concerned individuals include scientists, engineers, business people, investors, publishers, artists, ethicists, policy makers, interested laypersons, and students from grammar school to graduate level.

Foresight ® is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. Donations are tax-deductible in the US to the full extent provided by law.

Foresight Making News

Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno Revolutions to be Explored at Convergence08 Unconference

Forecaster Paul Saffo to Keynote

The Convergence08 conference (www.convergence08.org) on Nano-Bio-Info-Cogno (NBIC) technologies and their interactions will be held November 15-16, 2008 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif. The event will use an innovative "unconference" format to enable participants to customize the event in a highly interactive way.

For more information, see the press release. This event will serve as Foresight's Vision Weekend for 2008.

Registration details available at http://www.convergence08.org/registration.


		"At this event we aim to use the power of collective intelligence to see farther along the convergence trajectories — each of the NBIC technologies is transformative on its own, and there's a strong interplay among them."
		*—Dr. Barney Pell, founder of Powerset and search strategist & evangelist at Microsoft*

From Here to There: Nanotechnology Roadmap

Foresight Nanotech Institute and Battelle Unveil a Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems

Menlo Park, CA – The potential for nanotechnology to "build molecule-by-molecule" has been greatly discussed with one question invariably being asked: How do we get from here to there?

Foresight Nanotech Institute, a leading nanotechnology think tank and public interest organization, and Battelle, a leading global research and development organization, have officially unveiled "Productive Nanosystems: A Technology Roadmap." Productive nanosystems are molecular-scale systems that make other useful materials and devices that are nanostructured.

What Industry Experts are Saying

To download Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems files: http://www.foresight.org/roadmaps.

Foresight Nanotechnology Challenges

While nanotechnology has made great advances in the last two decades, it has yet to fulfill its ultimate potential. Foresight is dedicated to fostering nanotechnologies that can make a significant contribution to solving critical challenges which humanity faces— Foresight Nanotechnology Challenges. These challenges are: