The policy futurist’s reading list. How speculative fiction can inform better public policy as our society changes and grows in response to new tech

Tim de Sousa is a privacy and information governance policy specialist who established and ran the NSW Government Policy Lab, Australia’s first whole-of-government human-centred policy design lab. He says that sci-fi has offered predictions and inspired many of the technologies we now take for granted. What one person can imagine, another can build. Being able to conceive of the optimistic outcome (and not just what you believe to be the achievable outcome) is the first step to making it happen – in both technology and public policy.