Woburn, MA – February 27, 2017 – Kaspersky Lab, a global cybersecurity company celebrating 20 years in the market this year, today announced the launch of Earth 2050, an interactive multimedia project that accumulates predictions about social and technological developments for the upcoming 30 years.

To create Earth 2050, Kaspersky Lab has teamed with futurologists such as Ian Pearson, added the future visions of its own researchers and spoken to artists and scientists to develop a realistic view of the not-so-distant future. Users can help shape their vision of the future by studying over 200 predictions online, and they are invited to submit their visions for inclusion on the Earth 2050 site.

Kaspersky Lab seeks to understand what the world will look in the relatively near future to better understand the challenges the future will bring. For example, if all our lives are digitalized, how will we handle privacy? If people have their devices implanted inside them and their data in the cloud, how will we protect that data? Perhaps most importantly for Kaspersky Lab: if endpoints do not exist anymore, will the industry move quicker towards providing security solutions which adapt to customer circumstances, regardless of which device they are using at any one time?

“All of the forecasts you can find about Earth 2050 could become a reality in just a couple of decades. Earth 2050 is not only a creative exercise for us,” said Andrey Lavrentyev, head of the technology research department at Kaspersky Lab. “For the last 20 years, Kaspersky Lab experts have been fighting cybercrime, and they have seen threats evolving over this time. They are therefore able to share their knowledge, expertise and, in many cases, encourage users to take a more thorough look at the security of future technologies. Although inventions might be amazing – like driverless cars, intelligent infrastructure and the ability to instantly share medical data between doctors across the world – they can still trip us up. Each of them brings new opportunities for cybercriminals to exploit.”

Currently, Earth 2050 contains predictions for 80 cities around the globe. Users can select any of these cities and forecasts will appear at the top of the map. The portal is divided into three time categories: 2030, 2040 and 2050, with each of these containing predictions from recognized experts in their fields. For example, users can explore the thoughts of Ian Pearson and various experts at Kaspersky Lab about what the future holds.

The forum is not limited to written predictions. Earth 2050 also contains 12 VR-enabled panoramas of cities like Barcelona and Shanghai, as well as illustrations of different artifacts from the future. Users can take a 360 degree look at how future cities might be operating. Will we be able to adjust the appearance of every person we see in the street? Will we invent a dress that change its style? Are driverless cars the future of the taxi business? Will we see ads while we sleep? These questions are just a glimpse of what a user can find on the site.

Filling in a special feedback form allows visitors to add their own ideas to the portal. These will be published once they have passed the editorial team’s review. New content from the experts and forecasts compiled from different sources will frequently appear on the site.

Lavrentyev added, “We hope to see many more names on the portal and encourage our users and site visitors to submit their craziest ideas on what the future might look like.”