Between 2005 and 2011 I've presented my vision on the future during seminars, conferences and conventions. During these days I got many questions like: 'Erwin, will we be like like CyBorgs? Half human, half robot? Will our organs be printed? Do we learn by knowledge 'beaming' in our brains rather than learning from life, from a teacher or from each other? What we will be the role of teleportation in society? What do you think about personalised medicine?.

The assumption beyond this questions was that the trend of us getting older combined with the trend that we would be get ill earlier in life. That the horrifying health numbers of today would even get worse. That 1 out of 2 would get cancer. That the costs of diabetes in 2050 will be higher than all other diseases together. That autism will be the new standard for our children. They assumed that we won't learn from what goes wrong in our society. That our smartest scientists won't be able to put their fingers on the essence of human health.

During answering those questions I noticed that it is actually quite difficult for me to explain my vision in just a few minutes, that I think the selfhealing ability of humans is so strong that I expect that we'll find a universal accepted methodology for people that keep themselves vital and that we'll create a society that stimulates people to do so. That combination is absolutely essential for a 100% healthy world.

In 2017 I will release my new book on the future of health which will be focussed primary on the individual reader. In the upcoming period, people will take back responsibility for their health, and will integrate recovery and maintenance of their mental, emotional and physical health in their lives. We'll use the next decennia to integrate our own insight and experiences in a new health system, supported by the latest universal and yet scientific insight.

Over the past months I have been working on the outline of the book, researching by interviews, by sharing and by reading a lot from different angles, and obviously by writing the first chapters. Although I love it, I won't be finished the coming months. To be continued! . Life has just begun.

Related trends

• 2050-2100: Pamper planet

Tanita's BC-1000 Body Composition Monitor is a sophisticated scale, collecting measurements on muscle mass, overall physique, daily caloric intake, metabolic age, bone mass and visceral fat. From there, the unit can either send those details wireless to your watch, or it can beam them to any PC. The device will be shipped for $279.99 with a USB stick or $399.99 with an FR60 watch.

Wehkamp lets image stylist Dyanne Beekman, known from various Dutch tv shows and the DYANNE collections give advice. Based on nine questions regarding hair colour, hairdo, skin tone, eye color, figure type, length, weight, style group and size Dyanne puts together a personal style advice and shows which clothing the customer is best off wearing. Every six weeks wehkamp.nl shows a new collection and with every new collection the customer can count on new advice by Dyanne.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is how brand advice becomes increasingly more personal. Later on we’ll stand in front of the webcam in our underwear (or naked) and our body will be measured immediately. At first we’ll have to show a marker with a set length so that the length can be measured too, but that’ll be automatic too in time. We’ll also get a better insight in our skin colour, the exact shape of our face or the proportions of the limbs and the trunk. And the advice will be a lot better then. This is another step in that direction.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

This March, NIGZ-Donorvoorlichting will start a recruitment campaign (for organ donation) under all 18-year-old Dutch people. Beside a letter to the home address the webcam is central to this campaign. All youths born in 1990 will receive a donor form and a pamphlet at home in mid-March.

Both the pamphlet and the form have a spectacular 3D animation. This animation will come to life if the form or the pamphlet is held in front of the webcam. That makes the NIGZ-Donorvoorlichting one of the first parties to use web based augmented reality, or combining the real world with virtual data.

A preview of the campaign can already be seen on www.donorformulier.nl. Click on through to the webcam part and an ActiveX-application will appear. The installation will take about 10 seconds.

Then the webcam will be recognized. When the webcam is activated the donor form and the pamphlet can be shown to the webcam. The 3D animation will then start on its own. When the form is taken out of the webcam's sight the effect will disappear.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands will bring to life anything they can produce physically. Not just products, but flyers, forms and their products. This is a nice example.

Related trends

• Product activation

With the Intel Health Guide a patient is given a user-friendly touch screen which can be used to measure one's health. For example, reminding one to move or to take certain kind of food or medicine. The system is also connected to several other devices, such as a scale, a glucose meter and a thermometer.

You connect through speech and video with the diagnosing and treating doctors. Those doctors can analyze trends, advise (instruction) videos and ask research questions. Here's a demo

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This is a big step forward in health care: we’re automating what should have been automated long ago. In the next step we’ll analyze trends cleverly automated, advise pro-actively, before we’ve even seen a doctor. With smart artificial intelligence we can automate the most frequently asked questions to Health Guide, the brand with which we enter the dialogue and that will get an increasingly more important role in our lives.

Related trends

• Brand-dialogue

Doctor have managed to let the blind see (something) again. Linda Moorfoot, blind for over ten years, can see her granddaughter dance again. This thanks to an implant to the eye ball. The miniscule weight of the camera lets it move with the eye's movements. The images are vague as of yet, she sees an image built up of 16 large black and white blocks and reading or facial recognition is still out, but newer versions are already on the way with over 1000 blocks (pixels) which should enable facial recognition.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Later we’ll be able to repair all accidents and flaws in nature. This’ll unburden health care and daily support immensely. Blind that can walk by themselves? You won’t need a guide-dog anymore.

Using Flu Trends, Google predicts the spread of the flu. Google's researchers have discovered that there's a relationship between people who have the flu and who search for flu-related words. From their own research it shows that there are more flu-related queries during the flu season. The movement of this trend

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

This example hides two trends. First brands are taking on the role of coach more and more often, start to stand by our side 24 hours a day and study a specific area, like in this case health. Furthermore brands are letting themselves be represented by virtual characters, brand agents or chatbots more and more often.

The next steps are predictable as a result. The link to our shopping list, recognition of products before we even buy them, and the spoken dialogue. And after that it just goes on. The world is progressing step by step, and you can see it by this kind of ‘gadgets’.

Related trends

• Coaching brands
• Brand-dialogue

Google is launching a web service that can map a potential flu epidemic in an early stage: Google Flu Trends. The company assumes that people who feel sickly will google words like 'flu', 'symptoms' and 'muscle ache'. If the term is entered in the same region multiple times that region will be given a different color on Google Flu Trends. Stopping an epidemic with Google Flu Trends. Furthermore the company thinks they'll be faster than officials.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Brands are aiming their sensors at consumers, and combine what they see. Currently with pictures, but soon they’ll be listening to our coughing and we’ll be carrying biosensors which are permanently connected to our health coaching brands. This is a step in that direction.

VisibleBody allows people to travel through the human body in 3D. The demo starts with the skeleton and then allows you to turn layers on and off separately, like the digestive track, the nervous system, organs, lungs or blood vessels.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

There are two developments in this example: a media development and a brand development:

• The media development shows that, in the virtual world that’s being created, we map everything that walks on Earth (in general: exists, drives, moves etc, and also what’s beyond that). Third parties will later be able to add layers to this model (although it’s not yet supported by creator Argosy Medical). For example, photos, documentaries about operations, exceptions or treatment methods. And of course: commercial entities that offer services to the body. Don’t just think of surgeons, but also of masseuses, physiotherapists or beauty specialists.
• At the same time a possible health brand is being created. This type of brand studies health, knows everything about it, what’s for sale in the world, and know everything about it. This is a generic model of a human being, but soon it’ll be exactly our body. And every time a change occurs (for example, we start to stand differently thanks to a visit to the physiotherapist) that’s taken into account. Or a new filling in our teeth. We can see the impact of every change immediately. And our life expectancy. What would happen to our body if we lost ten pounds? That’s the domain of health coaching brands and this could be a start for VisibleBody.

We could put this development directly beside Google Earth (or Visual Earth). So that you can, for example, come into immediate contact with a specialist anywhere in the world if you have an SL distortion. And the EPD can be connected to this effortlessly. Worldwide, immediately. Enough chances for marketers to link up new services. (Now we just have to wait for the APIs )

Related trends

• Brand worlds

My Health Coach for Nintendo DS combines a virtual, personal fitness trainer and a professional nutritionist. Your movements are measured by a pedometer. You connect it to your Nintendo DS and keep track of your daily movements. You create your own profile based on age, weight, length, body movement, etc. Based on your BMI and lifestyle a personal program is put together for you.
Then you fill in your own goal which ten training sessions help you reach. Based on this data the program also supplies tips for a balanced diet.
To read your goal, you only need to play 10-15 minutes a day and to keep the game fun you can set yourself challenges. For example: 'don't use elevators or escalators all day long' or 'sit in the Lotus-position for 15 minutes' or 'eat two bowls of vegetable soup', etc. The result of the exercises and eating habits are converted to graphs. This allows you to see whether your lifestyle has really changed after a few weeks or months.
My Health Coach has a one time fee of €39,99.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Now all we need to do is connect and synchronise everything. Soon you’ll hear directly in your ear piece which movements are good for you right at that moment. Get up! Health brands are with you all day long, and, dosed, know exactly the right way to coach you.

People who want to lose weight would benefit from keeping a diary in which they also photograph the food they're eating. Research by Lydia Zepeda en David Deal (University of Wisconsin-Madison) shows that a confrontation with photographs works better than a regular diary. On top of that it also works preventively. The quantity of food is, in contrast to in a written book, judged before hand which forces one to think. There have been examples of participants who no longer ate crisps or candy because it was too confronting to photograph these beforehand.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

A comparable technique from hypnosis is writing down what you feel before you start eating, then you’re allowed to eat anything afterwards. When you’re aware of being frustrated and have earned a cookie for it, you almost won’t want the cookie anymore.

With this technique it’s a combination of the two. People think in images and not in text, so it’s not surprising that this works better. It’ll be even better when people put it on video. Just tell the camera why you’re eating that. In the step that follows we’ll have real-time contact with our health coaching brand. Then we’ll get 24/7 feedback on our eating habits. Hear immediately what the impact on our body is if we eat at that moment. Then losing weight will be a completely different story.

Kiesbeter.nl (Dutch) compares health care per complains. Instead of searching through the available offers, the user can choose from: respiration; allergies; bones; joints; muscles; genetics and chromosomes; mental health; genitalia; heart; arteries; blood and lymph; brains and nervous center; hormones; skin; mucous membrane and connective tissue; infections; cancer; throat, nose and ear; mouth and teeth, kidneys and urinary system; eyes and line of sight; accidents and poisonings; digestion]; metabolism; reproduction and pregnancy. Then those who treat these can be compared. Furthermore there's a medical encyclopedia that filters by age and gender. Men will get specific explanations and pictures of the male body and women of the female body.

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

Health coaching brands are getting a more solid shape. Currently with a simple generalization on age and gender, soon such a brand will keep a very detailed profile. That profile is connected to your medical file. Furthermore not just health care in your own country will be involved, but in the whole world. And a next step is guiding us in our health. A lot to do for now, but KiesBeter (ChooseBetter) is nicely on its way.

Related trends

• Coaching brands

Researchers have discovered that monkeys can control an extra robot arm along with their own arms. Brains are apparently so flexible that they can connect additional 'devices'. That offers plenty of opportunities for the future to let the world around us be controlled by robots that do as we think. Below is a summary of the complete text:

Future vision by Erwin van Lun

With this we won’t be able to control just prosthetics, but also robots or cars. But what happens when we can invent an interface that links people and copies concepts? Now we’ve developed speech, but there’s a lot of interference there. Or we can start to observe things we couldn’t before, like infrared, magnetic pull, warmth, vibrations, high and low tones, etc… That could turn us into a very special species. Those are the insights that are coming to life here.