In thinking about the future over the next few decades, the Dubai Future Foundation sees one that is highly varied, changing both rapidly and unevenly, with global trends affecting different people and places in different ways. How the next half-century will unfold is impossible for us to imagine. And our conceptions of growth, prosperity and well-being may evolve. However, people’s basic human needs and higher-order motivations, the human nature in which we are rooted, will endure. The Future Opportunities Report: The Global 50 covers the breadth of human experience and our relationship with our environment, spanning energy, communications, health, medicine, governance, ecology, education, culture and business. They range from universal access to energy to evolved digital and immersive realities, from machine-run companies to advances in medical screening that promise to reduce the burden of disease dramatically. It is important to remain focused on the future at a time when our world is still adjusting to the impact of a global pandemic that has cost millions of lives and inflicted economic damage on countries, companies, communities and individuals. The response to the crisis has demonstrated the power of innovation – with solutions that would not have been available had innovators not been focused on creating a better future over the past few decades. Researchers created vaccines from recently developed classes of medicines. People used new video-conferencing technologies to continue to work and engage with their families and friends. Companies and governments worked to restructure supply chains to maintain the flow of essential products. The experience has shown that, while external, unplanned-for events can disrupt our civilization, human ingenuity and innovation can respond.