When I Retire Competition - We Have A Winner!

 

Stop press! We're delighted to announce that the winner of this year's When I Retire Competition is Tornar Yang from Warwick Business School!

 

After careful deliberation, our star judges selected Tornar's vision of a "healthier but complex" future.

 

The Chinese national, who is studying in the UK, predicts a world where complete genome sequencing buys him cheaper health insurance, but inhabitable land is depleting at a rapid rate. Oh, and they still haven't found a cure for baldness.

 

The When I Retire Competition ran throughout March, and over 170 of you submitted answers to the challenging questions: "What will the world be like when you retire?"

 

The judging panel included CEO of NOW:Pensions Morten Nilsson, Yale SOM Associate Dean David Bach, Graduate Management Admission Council VP David Moldavsky and BBC Chief Economics Editor Hugh Pym. 

 

Thank you so much to everyone who participated. All your answers were fascinating - we've published a selection here and you can view the full "When I Retire" survey report here.

 

Big congratulations to Tornar, who has won $1,000 in cash and a mentoring session with a partner at prestigious consulting firm, Bain & Company! Here's Torna's vision of retirement:

 

Walking down the bank of Volta river near my farmhouse in Kpong, the world class Hi-Tech hub in Ghana, I am trying out my new PlusMove exoskeleton power suit.

 

To the far side of the horizon, the Kpong Dam stands proudly in the dusk, reminiscing its past glory. Because of cheap energy from fusion plants, most hydroelectric plants such as Kpong are either converted to museums or reservoirs.  

 

The flicking wristband keeps track of my BP, HR and other vital readings and sends them to a data center on the other side of the globe. They have even got my complete genome sequence: all for cheaper medical insurance. But they can’t do much about my hairline which recedes in the same direction as the shoreline every year!

 

Inhabitable land retracted by 2.2% last year and the speed is accelerating. The good news is that Diaoyu, Dokdo, Paracel and many of those disputed islands have submerged into the Pacific.

 

But the world is still far from a harmonious place. The United Nations disintegrated two decades back and has been replaced by regional alliances at a time when, ironically, wthe Israelis and Palestinians have finally realized they have more to gain by standing aside.

 

Free trade has fallen out of favor and protectionism is rife. No one is bothered about the ideological differences between capitalism and socialism - unemployment at home is what worries people.

 

I should go back home now. If I breach my weekly outdoor exposure quota, they will not hesitate to double my insurance premium! And I also need to go for a quantum hologram chat with my children in China.

 

I swipe my mobile for authentication and payment, and hop on the driver-less taxi. I plan to surf for a present from the virtual IKEA store on my way home.