Imagine the Indian elections in 2052 taking just 5 minutes to process, rather than the 6 weeks it takes this year. The vision is of digital first, ubiquitous, secure, personal technology connections in every sector and industry, reducing friction, demolishing time scales, flattening barriers.

Ageing musicians still touring, and ageing fans still wanting to go to their concerts, might prefer an afternoon start time rather than waiting until 9pm or later for the main event. It's not just Festivals that should schedule afternoon concerts - maybe every band should do so.

The theme of this week's "jump into the future" is that we should be open to questioning what is considered "normal" in our industries, especially when doing so could open us up to new opportunities, markets and customers. What's "normal" in your industry? And what experiments could you try to see how you could change that?

All plants extract minerals and nutrients from the soil they're growing in, but some appear to be able to extract metals as well, or at least metal ions that we can in turn extract from the plants. If we can do this at scale, we can use phytomining to get the metals we need to build the batteries we use to power our lives.

Here are some links to experiments underway on phytomining, and the promise of what this might bring in the future:

• https://thebulletin.org/2024/03/the-greenest-way-to-mine-metals-for-batteries-could-be-with-plants/

• https://resoilfoundation.org/en/innovation-technology/tropical-plants-contaminated-soils/

• https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/metal-guzzling-plants-harvested-to-make-nanomaterials/2500240.article