There are two types of predictions; those that will take place sooner, and probably sooner than even the most optimistic believer thinks they will, and those that are likely to languish in the realm of daydreams, unless something drastically changes.

How to tell them apart does not always require hindsight.

In October this year, a group of Bulgarian architects announced a project called Годината е 2020. Мястото: София (The year is 2020. The place: Sofia).

The project, which included a website and a Facebook page, along with an exhibition in front of the National Palace of Culture (NDK), aimed to publish new and innovative ideas about possible developments in public space in Bulgaria’s capital, and what the city could look like by the year 2020.

Eventually, the group intended to start a public debate and hoped to influence policy decisions.
Projects presented ranged from ambitious plans like creating a new city centre around the central railway station, to the construction of a new concert hall or moving roads underground in order to use the overground space as pedestrian areas, to planting grass between the tramlines in the city.

Just days after the end of the project, Intel technicians in Pittsburgh told journalists that they were working to find ways to harness human brain waves to control computer, television sets, mobile phones and so on, using brain-implanted chips.

The year this vision is to take shape and become reality? 2020.
Surveys have shown previously that a fair percentage of people would consider getting web-enabled brain implants that would allow them to make phone calls, surf the web and do many other things, all with the power of their brain.

As futuristic as the idea might seem, people walking the streets of Sofia with brain implants is, unfortunately, more likely to materialise by 2020 than having green grass replacing the broken paving that now decorates Sofia’s tramlines. To up the challenge a bit; the grass should of course be watered and cut regularly enough to not reach waist-height every summer.

Of course I would not dare think even for a second that Sofia’s new mayor would actually put energy into proving my humble self wrong.