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What do we know about the future?

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Difficult question,
simple answer: nothing.

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We cannot predict the future.

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We only can create a vision
of the future, how it might be,

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a vision which reveals disruptive
ideas, which is inspiring,

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and this is the most important reason

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which breaks the chains
of common thinking.

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There are a lot of people

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who created their own vision
about the future,

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for instance, this vision here
from the early 20th century.

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It says here that this
is the ocean plane of the future.

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It takes only one and a half days
to cross the Atlantic Ocean.

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Today, we know that this future
vision didn't come true.

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So this is our largest
airplane which we have,

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the Airbus A380, and it's quite huge,

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so a lot of people fit in there

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and it's technically completely different

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than the vision I've shown to you.

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I'm working in a team with Airbus,

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and we have created our vision

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about a more sustainable
future of aviation.

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So sustainability is quite
important for us,

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which should incorporate social

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but as well as environmental
and economic values.

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So we have created a very
disruptive structure

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which mimics the design
of bone, or a skeleton,

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which occurs in nature.

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So that's why it looks
maybe a little bit weird,

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especially to the people who deal
with structures in general.

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But at least it's just a kind of artwork

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to explore our ideas
about a different future.

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What are the main customers of the future?

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So, we have the old, we have the young,

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we have the uprising power of women,

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and there's one mega-trend
which affects all of us.

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These are the future anthropometrics.

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So our children are getting
larger, but at the same time

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we are growing into different directions.

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So what we need is space
inside the aircraft,

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inside a very dense area.

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These people have different needs.

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So we see a clear need
of active health promotion,

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especially in the case of the old people.

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We want to be treated as individuals.

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We like to be productive
throughout the entire travel chain,

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and what we are doing in the future is

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we want to use the latest
man-machine interface,

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and we want to integrate this
and show this in one product.

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So we combined these needs
with technology's themes.

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So for instance, we are asking ourselves,

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how can we create more light?

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How can we bring more natural
light into the airplane?

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So this airplane has no
windows anymore, for example.

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What about the data
and communication software

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which we need in the future?

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My belief is that the airplane
of the future

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will get its own consciousness.

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It will be more like a living organism

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than just a collection
of very complex technology.

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This will be very different in the future.

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It will communicate directly

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with the passenger in its environment.

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And then we are talking
also about materials,

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synthetic biology, for example.

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And my belief is that we will get
more and more

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new materials which we can
put into structure later on,

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because structure is one of the key
issues in aircraft design.

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So let's compare the old
world with the new world.

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I just want to show you here
what we are doing today.

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So this is a bracket of an A380
crew rest compartment.

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It takes a lot of weight,

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and it follows the classical design rules.

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This here is an equal bracket
for the same purpose.

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It follows the design of bone.

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The design process
is completely different.

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At the one hand, we have 1.2 kilos,

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and at the other hand 0.6 kilos.

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So this technology, 3D
printing, and new design rules

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really help us to reduce the weight,

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which is the biggest issue
in aircraft design,

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because it's directly linked
to greenhouse gas emissions.

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Push this idea a little bit forward.

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So how does nature build its
components and structures?

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So nature is very clever.
It puts all the information

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into these small building
blocks, which we call DNA.

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And nature builds large
skeletons out of it.

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So we see a bottom-up approach here,

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because all the information,
as I said, are inside the DNA.

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And this is combined
with a top-down approach,

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because what we are doing
in our daily life

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is we train our muscles,
we train our skeleton,

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and it's getting stronger.

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And the same approach can be
applied to technology as well.

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So our building block is carbon
nanotubes, for example,

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to create a large, rivet-less
skeleton at the end of the day.

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How this looks in particular,
you can show it here.

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So imagine you have
carbon nanotubes growing

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inside a 3D printer,

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and they are embedded
inside a matrix of plastic,

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and follow the forces
which occur in your component.

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And you've got trillions of them.

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So you really align them to wood,

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and you take this wood and make
morphological optimization,

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so you make structures, sub-structures,

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which allows you to transmit
electrical energy or data.

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And now we take this
material, combine this

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with a top-down approach,

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and build bigger and bigger components.

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So how might the airplane
of the future look?

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So we have very different
seats which adapt

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to the shape of the future passenger,

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with the different anthropometrics.

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We have social areas inside the aircraft

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which might turn into a place

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where you can play virtual golf.

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And finally, this bionic structure,

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which is covered by a transparent

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biopolymer membrane,
will really change radically

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how we look at aircrafts in the future.

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So as Jason Silva said,

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if we can imagine it, why not make it so?

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See you in the future. Thank you.

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(Applause)