Treating blindness by giving channelrhodopsin to neurons and making them responsive to light:

- to “help doctors and patients gain insights into the safety and efficacy of specific drugs at the early stages of clinical trials beyond information that is publicly available.”

Complete B.S.

(Click on the detailed profile.)

Look inside Jason Carver’s profile, under “MIT”.

Photo Credit: Neely Steinberg

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Tom Malone

MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence

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PS: The guy on the computer is Jason Carver.

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Inkling Markets’ Advisory Board (curiously named “Friends Of Inkling”):

1. Bo Cowgill, Google Inc. — Product developer, expert on decision markets for Google; creator of Google’s prediction market and co-author of Using Prediction Markets to Track Information Flows: Evidence From Google.
2. George Gendron, Clark University — Founder and director of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Program at Clark University; former Editor-in-Chief of Inc. magazine.
3. Our Michael Giberson. — His recently updated website states: *Update:* Beginning in August, 2008, Michael Giberson will be joining the faculty of the Center for Energy Commerce in the Rawls College of Business, Texas Tech University.
4. Bob Johansen, Institute for the Future — Author of Get There Early: Sensing the Future to Compete in the Present and six other books; Distinguished fellow and former CEO of Institute for the Future (IFTF), a Palo Alto based think tank that does ten-year forecasting.
5. Jane McGonigal, PhD, renowned gaming developer — Award-winning innovative game designer, researcher and analyst. MIT Technology Review named her as one of the top 35 innovators changing the world through technology.
6. Russ Roberts, management consultant and professor, Northwestern University — A strategy and organization effectiveness consultant and professor at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.
7. Philip Rosedale, Linden Lab / Second Life — Founder and chairman of Linden Lab, creator of the acclaimed 3D virtual world Second Life. In 2007, he was listed among Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world.

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Top-10 reasons why NewsFutures is the ideal partner to harness the wisdom of your crowd

1.) Integrated Solutions

We offer complete solutions, not just great software. This approach delivers a much higher success rate and enables the client organization to fully consider Prediction Markets as a key decision-support tool.

From experience, we know that a successful prediction market project requires a lot more than great software or a cool website. Above all:

- Featuring strategic and well-defined questions;
- Securing a high participation rate;
- Integrating the market into the management and decision-making processes.
- Our project management checklist covers 30+ task components of market design, market implementation, and market administration. To ensure success, NewsFutures offers hands-on management and best-practice advice at every stage, in close contact with the client-side team. And if the client is willing to handle some of those tasks itself, we make sure to transfer the relevant knowledge and skills.

2.) A suite of powerful tools

Our platform offers a full suite of knowledge aggregation tools that are optimized for various forecasting needs and business contexts: prediction markets, and more, much more.

As an early pioneer in the field of enterprise prediction markets, NewsFutures has been among the first to recognize not only the power of this tool, but also its various practical limits in certain situations. We are experienced enough to recognize when other knowledge aggregation mechanisms may offer more practical or productive solutions.

That’s why, in close collaboration with some of our clients (in particular InterContinental Hotels, Eli Lilly, Arcelor Mittal, and Pfizer), we have developed a suite of innovative software tools that enable us to optimally aggregate predictions in a variety of business contexts. All of these tools are currently fielded with various clients.

Our software platform currently includes:

Prediction Markets. A continuous double auction trading engine (with optional market maker) is particularly appropriate for measuring risks and opportunities as event probabilities. It can also be used to forecast continuous variables.

Competitive Forecasting. Designed for collective forecasting of specific business variables, such as quarterly sales, especially under several conditional scenarios, or with a small pool of participants.

Idea Pageant. Ideal for rapid harvesting and filtering of a large number of new ideas that require evaluation and prioritization.

Impact Matrix. Used to collect and gauge the likelihood and business impact of various events in the very long term.

This versatile set of tools enables us to propose and implement the most effective solution in every case.

3.) World-Class Expertise

NewsFutures has the longest record of implementing enterprise prediction markets, the most extensive enterprise client list, and the widest geographical reach.

Our team has been immersed in every aspect of delivering successful enterprise prediction markets since 2002. We have implemented internal markets and external markets of all shapes, durations and sizes, around the world: U.S.A., Brasil, France, U.K., Germany, Holland, Japan, Hong Kong, and as far as New Zealand. We have built the longest-running continuous client relationship in the industry (servicing Eli Lilly since 2003).

Our methodology and technological solutions have been shaped by this rich history of confrontation with reality. We know that implementing a successful enterprise prediction market requires clear goals, significant resources, constant care and monitoring, and we know what it takes to deliver success. No other team is more seasoned.

«NewsFutures has done some of the most innovative work in the area for longer than most. They were in there making it happen for real while others were clueless on the fringes.»
- Ajit Kambil – Gobal Director, Deloitte Research

Notably, we have also built our eponymous public prediction exchange into one of the best known play-money exchanges. The experience of running this market non-stop since the year 2000 gave us deep insights into what it takes to successfully manage a market for the long run.

4.) Creative leadership

NewsFutures is a thought leader and a creative driving force within the industry.

NewsFutures started implementing prediction markets in 2000, years before the buzz words “wisdom of crowds” and “web 2.0″ even surfaced in the brains of James Surowiecki and Tim O’Reilly – and we’ve been at the forefront of innovation ever since: Over the years, we’ve fielded several innovative tools for harvesting the wisdom of crowds in various enterprise contexts, and we even applied for a pending patent on a multi-outcome continuous double auction (CDA) trading engine.

In 2003, NewsFutures led the first field study comparing real-money and play-money markets, publishing the results in a landmark article co-authored with some of the field’s leading academic researchers: Prediction Markets: Does Money Matter? – Electronic Markets, 14 (3), September 2004. This research significantly enhanced the credibility of play-money markets and, as a result, boosted their adoption within enterprise contexts.

In 2007, NewsFutures started experimenting with an innovative business model for real-money public prediction markets: Bet2Give.

NewsFutures work has been covered on television by CBS News (here) and CNBC (here), and in print by prestigious publications in the United States and Europe, including James Surowiecki’s international best-seller The Wisdom of Crowds.

Our CEO, Emile Servan-Schreiber, has lectured on the topic all over the world, including at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and at the Wharton Business School.
In recognition of NewsFutures’ practical and throught leadership, Emile was chosen to chair the new Prediction Market Industry Association. He is also an associate editor of the Journal of Prediction Markets.

5.) Customized solutions

Our software platform is customization-friendly, enabling us to tailor our solutions to a client’s special needs.

When dealing with high-end demanding customers, one size cannot fit all. The NewsFutures philosophy is to tailor a market solution to the problem at hand, rather than force-fit the problem to a pre-existing market template. That usually means, in addition to choosing the most appropriate tool and market design, customizing the user interface to optimize the integration with the client’s IT infrastructure and the navigation among various markets.

It also means being responsive to customer requests for additional features that extend the platform’s capabilities, and sometimes even developing completely new tools. (Indeed, this is how we came to develop and integrate into the platform a whole suite of original tools in addition to prediction markets.)

In contrast to the one-size-fits-all market and navigation templates provided by others, the NewsFutures software platform offers the flexibility needed to address the unique needs of demanding customers.

6.) Industrial-strength software

NewsFutures software satisfies the highest professional standards and demanding environments.

Internet giant Yahoo!, who knows a thing or two about quality software, chose to acquire the source code of our prediction market engine to power its own Yahoo! Tech Buzz Game.

Our platform is so reliable that it has been used to operate high-stakes real-money political markets for Holland’s leading daily de Volkskrant (see this report), and we currently use it to operate our own real-money prediction exchange Bet2Give.

7.) Military-grade security and confidentiality

We offer a range of access, backup, encryption, integration and hosting options that satisfies the most demanding customers.

NewsFutures has been vetted by customers who put a premium on data security and confidentiality, such as the U.S. Military, pharmaceutical clients, and others in the super-competitive IT industry.

While most clients are satisfied to host their applications on our servers, located in a high-security facility, others have had us ship fully configured hardware that they can install behind their own firewall, or had us install the prediction market application directly on one of their own servers within their existing IT infrastructure.

8.) Multilingual applications

In a global world, English is not enough.

Our software platform is designed to operate in multi-language mode, with a user interface that can offer several languages simultaneously. English, French, Dutch and German versions are already implemented. Other languages can easily be added on request. This feature is important for multinational companies that want to tap the collective intelligence of a linguistically diverse population.

9.) Round-the-clock support

Present on two continents, NewsFutures offers rapid response across many time-zones.

The NewsFutures enterprise team operates the world over from New Jersey, USA, and Paris, France. This enables rapid response in many different time zones and continuous availability from 08:00 to 01:00 GMT. We are currently servicing clients in the United States (from coast to coast), France, Holland, and as far as New Zealand. Our multi-cultural team is well suited to operate in a global world while being attuned to the importance of local differences.

10.) Team players

Although NewsFutures is equiped to deliver integrated solutions, we also have significant experience in partnering with consultancies to service their clients.

We find such partnerships rewarding and productive, and we are very comfortable with them, especially because they help implant the solutions deeper into the host organization. Over the years, we have teamed up with consultancies large and small. Among the largest are SAIC (on a U.S. Military project), Accenture (on a MIT Technology Review project), and the RAND Corporation (on a Texas DOT project).

If you are a consultancy and you would like to deliver wisdom of crowds solutions to your clients, please contact us for details of our partnership program.

Check that CFM page for updates. And contact me so I can make additions to the list. (I’ll then re-publish that updated list on Midas Oracle.)

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• Michael Abramowicz – Michael B. Abramowicz – (Law School, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Bernd H. Ankenbrand – Bernd Ankenbrand – (Lecturer, Witten/Herdecke University, Germany, E.U.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• James Annan – (Global Environment Modelling Research Program, Frontier Research Center for Global Change, Japan)
• Werner Antweiler – (UBC Election Stock Market, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada)
• Kenneth J. Arrow – Kenneth Arrow – (Economics Department, Stanford University, California, U.S.A.)
• Tom W. Bell – Tom Bell – (Law School, Chapman University, California, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Joyce E. Berg – Joyce Berg – Profile – (Iowa Electronic Markets, Accounting, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A.)
• Richard Borghesi – (Finance, Texas State University at San Marcos, Texas, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Kay-Yut Chen – (Information Services & Process Innovation Lab, HP Labs, HP, California, U.S.A.)
• Yiling Chen – (Micro-Economic and Social Systems, Yahoo! Research Labs, New York, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Eric Crampton – (Department of Economics, University of Canterbury, New Zealand) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Ely Dahan – (Marketing, Anderson School, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.)
• Anita Elberse – (Marketing, Harvard Business School, Harvard University, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)
• Leslie R. Fine – Leslie Fine – (Information Dynamics Lab, HP Labs, California, U.S.A.)
• Gary William Flake – Gary W. Flake – Gary Flake – (MicroSoft, U.S.A.)
• Robert Forsythe – (Dean, College of Business Administration, University of South Florida, Florida, U.S.A.) — Previously: (Economics, Iowa Electronic Markets, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A.)
• Lance Fortnow – Lance J. Fortnow – (Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, Illinois, U.S.A.)
• Keith Jacks Gamble – Keith Gamble – (Economics (University of California at Berkeley) – California, U.S.A. — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Michael Gorham – (IIT Center for Financial Markets, Stuart School of Business, Illinois Institute of Technology, Illinois, U.S.A.) — Previously: (CFTC)
• Thomas S. Gruca – Thomas Gruca – Profile – (Iowa Electronic Markets, Marketing, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A.)
• Refet Gurkaynak – (Department of Economics, Bilkent University, Turkey)
• Friedrich August Von Hayek — R.I.P. — The market as an information aggregation tool: The Use of Knowledge in Society —
• Robert W. Hahn – Robert Hahn – (Executive Director, Reg-Markets Center, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• James D. Hamilton – James Hamilton – (Department of Economics, University of California at San Diego – California, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Robin Hanson – Robin D. Hanson – (Economics, James M. Buchanan Center, George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• M. Todd Henderson – (Law School, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.)
• Chris Hibbert – (Software Architect, Zocalo Project Manager, California, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Charles Holt – Charles A. Holt – (Department of Economics, University of Virginia, Virginia, U.S.A.)
• Bernardo A. Huberman – Bernardo Huberman – (Social Computing Lab, HP Labs, California, U.S.A.)
• Frédéric Koessler – (Economics, Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, France, E.U.)
• Anthony M. Kwasnica – Anthony Kwasnica – (Business Economics, Department of Insurance and Real Estate, Smeal College of Business Administration, Penn State University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)
• Nicolas Lambert – (Department of Computer Science, Stanford University, California, U.S.A.)
• John O. Ledyard – John Ledyard – (Economics and and Social Sciences, Division of Humanity and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, California, U.S.A.)
• Andrew Leigh – (Economics, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, Australia)
• Steven Levitt – Steve Levitt – Steven D. Levitt – (Economics, Director of the Becker Center on Chicago Price Theory, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.)
• Saul Levmore – (Law School, University of Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.)
• Robert E. Litan – Robert Litan – (Vice President for Research and Policy, Kauffman Foundation, Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.A.)
• Thomas W. Malone – Thomas Malone – Tom Malone – (MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)
• Charles F. Manski – Charles Manski – (College of Arts and Sciences, Norwestern University, Illinois, U.S.A.)
• Adam Meirowitz – (Department of Politics, Princeton University, New Jersey, U.S.A.)
• Paul Milgrom – (Department of Economics, Stanford University, California, U.S.A.)
• Tracy Mullen – (Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State University, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.)
• Forrest Nelson – Profile – (Iowa Electronic Markets, Economics, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A.)
• George R. Neumann – George Neumann – Profile – (Iowa Electronic Markets, Economics, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A.)
• Ryan Oprea – Profile – (Director of the LEEPS laboratory, Economics, University of California at Santa Cruz, California, U.S.A.)
• Gerhard Ortner – (University of Applied Sciences, Austria, E.U.)
• Marco Ottaviani – (Management and Strategy, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Illinois, U.S.A.) – Formerly: (Economics Department, London Business School, United Kingdom, E.U.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• David Paton – (Industrial Economics, Business School, Nottingham University, United Kingdom, E.U.)
• David M. Pennock – David Pennock – (Principal Research Scientist, Micro-Economic and Social Systems, Yahoo! Research Labs, New York, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Charles R. Plott – Charles Plott – (Economics and and Social Sciences, Division of Humanity and Social Sciences, California Institute of Technology, California, U.S.A.)
• David Porter – (Economics and Finance, Chapman University, California, U.S.A.)
• Todd Proebsting – Todd A. Proebsting – (Microsoft & University of Arizona, U.S.A.)
• Russ Ray – (Finance, College of Business, University of Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.A.)
• Daniel Reeves – (Micro-Economic and Social Systems, Yahoo! Research Labs, New York, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Paul W. Rhode – Paul Rhode – (US Economic History, College of Management, The University of Arizona, Arizona, U.S.A.) – Formerly: (University of North Carolina, North Carolina, U.S.A.)
• Thomas A. Rietz – Thomas Rietz – Profile – (Iowa Electronic Markets, Finance, Henry B. Tippie College of Business, University of Iowa, Iowa, U.S.A.)
• Richard Roll – (University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.)
• Thomas W. Ross – Thomas Ross – (UBC Election Stock Market, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada)
• Rahul Sami – (School of Information, University of Michigan, Michigan, U.S.A.)
• Sam L. Savage – Sam Savage – (Consulting Professor, Stanford U., California, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Thomas C. Schelling – Thomas Schelling – (Economics, School of Public Affair, University of Maryland, Maryland, U.S.A.)
• Emile Servan-Schreiber – (NewsFutures, New York City, New York, U.S.A. & Paris, France, E.U.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Robert J. Shiller – Robert Shiller – Profile – (Economics, Yale University, Connecticut, U.S.A.)
• Bernd Skiera – (Electronic Commerce, Goethe University, Germany, E.U.)
• Vernon L. Smith – Vernon Smith – (Economics, Economic Science Institute, Chapman University, California, U.S.A.)
• Erik Snowberg – (Stanford University, California, U.S.A.) — Soon at CalTech
• Peter Norman Sorensen – (Finance, Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen, Denmark, E.U.)
• Martin Spann – (Marketing and Innovation, University of Passau, Germany, E.U.)
• Koleman Strumpf – Koleman S. Strumpf – (Economics, School of Business, University of Kansas, Kansas, U.S.A.) – Formerly: University of North Carolina, North Carolina, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Cass Sunstein – Cass R. Sunstein – (Law School, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.)
• James Surowiecki – (The Wisdom Of Crowds) – (New York, U.S.A.)
• Paul C. Tetlock – Paul Tetlock – (Finance, Business School, University of Texas at Austin, Texas, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Philip Tetlock – Philip E. Tetlock – (Leadership, University of California at Berkeley, California, U.S.A.)
• Hal R. Varian – Hal Varian – (Chief Economist, Google, California, U.S.A.) — Formerly: (Haas School of Business, Department of Economics, University of California at Berkeley, California, U.S.A.)
• Dorina Tila – (Economics, George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.A.)
• Leighton Vaughan-Williams – (Economics and Finance, Business School, Nottingham Trent University, United Kingdom, E.U.)
• Michael Wellman – Michael P. Wellman – (Computer Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, Michigan, U.S.A.)
• Justin Wolfers – Justin J. Wolfers – (Business and Public Policy, Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle
• Eric Zitzewitz – Eric W. Zitzewitz – (Economics, Dartmouth College, Massachusetts, USA) – Formerly: (Stanford University, California, U.S.A.) — Post Archives at Midas Oracle

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In passing, I say HELLO to our readers from the MIT and the Boston area.

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