This week I sat down for a conversation with Europe's leading futurologist and business trend spotter, Ray Hammond. The author of 14 books which have been translated into 31 languages, Hammond is a visiting lecturer at the City University Business School, London.

SOX FIRST: How do you go about predicting the future? It's hardly a science.

HAMMOND: I study trends in the present and work out ways they will impact in the future. This doesn't mean being able to predict anything in concrete terms. I can't tell who is going to win the 3.30 race tomorrow afternoon. But I can be certain there will be an energy crisis in the next 50 to 100 years.

SOX FIRST: So what are the big trends?

HAMMOND: I see six key drivers of the future. Number one is world population explosion. The second is the climate crisis. Then we have the looming energy crisis. The fourth is globalization. Then there's medicine with the unravelling of the human genome. Most of us in the developed world in the next decade will have our own profile on a memory stick so that if we are sick, the physicians can plug that in and can tailor the medicine specially for us. More than that, they can see what our genetic predispostions are and prevent it. Then we have the impact of stem cell medicine. It promises to be even more amazing. It actually offers the chance to grow any organ again. This suggests within a 25 year frame, humans in the developed world, the rich lucky ones, the elite, will have the opportunity to extend their lives very considerably while at the same time, going through rejuvenation of internal organs by using stem cells, inserting them with nanotechnology techniques. They will start to regenerate organs so that a liver of a 90 year old becomes the liver of a 30 year old. People will be having rejuvenation therapy within five years but it will be relatively minor. By 2030, there will be 90 year old men and women who look like they are 35 and are 35 in biological terms. Whether that is ethical and morally okay in a world short of resources is another question. And the other question is are we as humans psychologically prepared to live beyond 90 and 100. Number six is accelerating exponential technology. I use Google as a metaphor for an emerging intelligence. Every single day that I use Google, and I use it constantly, I notice that it's getting a little bit more capable at understanding what I mean when I don't say precisely what I mean. If brainpower in the computer in the computer is doubling less than every 12 months and if Google is gathering every single minute of every single day the intentions of all the humans on the planet, imagine where that might lead in 10 years, and then imagine where that might lead in 20 years. Somewhere between the years 2020 to 2035, artificial intelligence will equal human intelligence and by definition, it will then double it.

SOX FIRST: So what are the business opportunities of the future?

HAMMOND: If I were back in business today, I would actually be looking to do something that exploited something in those six key areas. I would be very attracted to virtual businesses. For example, it seems very clear to me that the virtual communities like Facebook, Second Life and MySpace are not fashion phenomena. They are not something that young people would do for five years and forget about. They are in fact real places where we are going to do business