We believe that with a better understanding of what future social and environmental challenges and opportunities might look like, and of how digital technologies might evolve in the near future, we stand a better chance of achieving our more positive vision for the future.

The first stream of the programme is led by betterplace lab. We are working on identifying some of today's most cutting-edge technological trends within DSI and analysing how these trends might affect DSI in the coming decade. This analysis will be based on existing best practice cases, interviews with experts and data analysis. The analyses will also feed into a set of trend guides, which will help social purpose organisations to make the most of these emerging opportunities and help them respond to the changing technological landscape.

The second part of our work is carried out by Nesta. We are building a set of speculative, positive future scenarios detailing how our society might be using open and collaborative technologies to tackle social challenges in ten years' time. Alongside this, we're providing recommendations to policymakers, funders and other stakeholders on how to lay the path towards these positive futures. The research is exploring future scenarios related to five of our six DSI clusters: healthcare, skills and learning, democratic participation, migration and integration, and the environment. We're aiming to engage and consult a wide range of experts, practitioners and policy-makers, through a series of interviews and workshops.