Simulating The Future Can Help Reduce Waste, Emissions And Inequalities
Author: Judith Magyar
Dubai’s new Museum of the Future (MOTF) has created an immersive experience to help people not only envision the future but actually understand the consequences of decisions made today. Visitors are invited to explore SAP’s Orbital Space Station (OSS) Hope , a fictitious space station set in the year 2071 built to redirect solar energy to power the Earth. The OSS showcase highlights the fact that like Earth, the space station has limited resources. To build and maintain this home among the stars, it is crucial to sustainably balance energy, materials, and opportunities for all the residents and for the station itself. Working with SAP technologies and solutions, the simulator demonstrates that it’s possible to reduce emissions, waste, and inequalities to zero in order to have self-sustaining circular economies here on Earth and beyond. In the simulator, visitors can interact with various modules to understand the challenges facing the station, for example, ensuring a constant, renewable supply of energy. Players can then choose the SAP solutions they want to use to successfully resolve the challenge. The goal is to keep emissions, waste and inequalities close to zero for the longest time. If one of these elements is in excess, it will mean the OSS Hope is inhabitable for humans, resulting in the simulation reset. Players learn that the best solution always depends on context factors, and it takes human compassion combined with data-driven insights to pick the optimal solution for a sustainable future.