In a world pervaded by the rapid entrance and development of new technologies, the pace at which ethical concerns are addressed is not always in sync. TechEthos, a Horizon 2020 project, wants to facilitate “ethics-by-design” in order to push forward ethical and societal values into the design and development of new and emerging technologies at the very beginning of the process.

PRO-Ethics’ overall objective is to create a comprehensive, co-developed, tested and widely consulted Ethics Framework that enables a more effective handling of the ethical dimension of innovation, with a special focus on the engagement of citizens in participative innovation, to the benefit of more relevant, fair and effective innovation activities.
In order to reach this overall objective, PRO-Ethics has the following specific objectives:

• To gather and systematise needs, requirements and values of citizens (including the underlying ethical principles) within participatory processes to improve access and avoid a technological divide
• To create and promote fair and gender sensitive interaction modes taking into account legal frameworks, governance structures and regulations, codes of practice, and tools (including IT Tools)\
• To test, pilot and assess novel participation configurations in three fields of action of RFOs‘ activities: Participation in innovation projects, participation in strategy development and participation in evaluation processes
• To validate findings in interactive learning formats and in dialogue with stakeholders and ethic bodies
• To secure a widespread take-up of the developed framework across the European Union (and beyond) by consulting, sharing, and promoting standards, principles, and guidelines

It would be short-sighted to assume that we, as humanity, have reached such a level of maturity that our descendants will not find some aspects of our – apparently civilised – everyday life repulsive and sad.
So we asked 60 futurists from around the world: “What will we disgust our descendants with?”
Many of the submitted ideas are already present in public discourse and confirm areas in which we need to change. But we were especially interested in novel barbarisms that humanity is still largely oblivious to.
The resulting infographic shows the futurists’ answers grouped into 93 contemporary barbarisms ranked in a public vote according to how eye-opening they are.

4CF The Futures Literacy Company