FromNOWYour classroom
To2045Cần Thơ, Vietnam
- Engine
- Tide
- Roles
- 5
- Subjects
- Science, Math, Civics, Geography
- Portal
- PT-01
- Coordinates
- 10.03°N 105.78°E
Platform
Visit the future. Solve it. Ship the fix.
5 products, one loop: students visit a future inside a Portal, solve what they find there, and the best answers ship to real streets through the Problems Bank.
01Portals
Visit a future world. Take a job in it.
AI-generated, science-grounded future worlds. Students take roles, AI citizens react to every decision, and our simulation engine, Tide, plays out the consequences years ahead. Each Portal maps to the curriculum teachers already have to teach.
- 01
Roles with real trade-offs: engineer, farmer, mayor, nurse, reporter
- 02
AI citizens who remember what you promised them
- 03
Tide simulates flooding, heat, budgets, and public trust over decades
- 04
Mapped to math, science, civics, ethics, and language
Current destinations
2045
PT-01Cần Thơ, Vietnam
Mekong Delta 2045
High tides now reach the floating market twice a week, saltwater has crept forty kilometres up the river, and the rice harvest is half what it was. The city has one budget and three plans on the table. Students decide what gets built, what gets moved, and who gets a say — then Tide shows them the delta twenty years on.
- Coordinates
- 10.03°N 105.78°E
- Year
- 2045
- You play
- Hydraulic engineer · Rice and shrimp farmer · Mayor · Ward health officer · Local reporter
- Subjects
- Science
- Math
- Civics
- Geography
2050
PT-02North Jakarta, Indonesia
Jakarta Floats
The northern coast sinks a few centimetres every year and the sea wall is due for its next raise. Students run a coastal neighborhood that must choose between building higher walls, lifting homes onto floating platforms, or moving inland — and keep the fishing economy, the schools, and the mosque together through the choice.
- Coordinates
- 6.12°S 106.88°E
- Year
- 2050
- You play
- Coastal planner · Fishing cooperative leader · District head · Groundwater scientist · Youth organizer
- Subjects
- Science
- Math
- Civics
- Ethics
2040
PT-03Manila, Philippines
Manila Heat 2040
Heat-index days above 45°C now close schools for weeks at a time and the power grid buckles every afternoon. Students redesign a dense barangay for the heat: shade, water, cooling centers, work hours, and school calendars — with a city budget that cannot pay for everything and residents who disagree about what matters most.
- Coordinates
- 14.60°N 120.98°E
- Year
- 2040
- You play
- Urban designer · Barangay captain · Public-health nurse · Grid operator · Jeepney driver
- Subjects
- Science
- Math
- Civics
- Language
2038
PT-04Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
The Hospital Run by AI
A district hospital has handed triage, scheduling, and diagnosis support to an AI system. Waiting times have collapsed — and so has trust, after one decision nobody can explain. Students sit on the hospital’s ethics board and decide what the AI may decide alone, what a human must sign, and how patients get to appeal.
- Coordinates
- 10.78°N 106.70°E
- Year
- 2038
- You play
- Emergency doctor · Patient advocate · AI engineer · Hospital director · Ethics board member
- Subjects
- Ethics
- Science
- Math
- Language
2058
PT-05Shackleton Crater rim, the Moon
First School on the Moon
Twelve families have moved to a research base at the lunar south pole, and their children need a school. Students design it from nothing: what to teach when Earth is three days away, how to ration water and power between classrooms and labs, and which traditions from home are worth the cargo weight.
- Coordinates
- 89.67°S 129.78°E
- Year
- 2058
- You play
- School principal · Life-support engineer · Teacher · Base commander · Student representative
- Subjects
- Science
- Math
- Ethics
- Language
02Future Self
Meet yourself at 30.
A guided conversation with a projection of yourself at 30, shaped by the choices you made inside Portals. Built for motivation and career exploration, with strict child-safety guardrails on every turn.
- 01
Grounded in the student’s own Portal choices, not a horoscope
- 02
Career paths explained in plain language, with the trade-offs left in
- 03
Conversation scope limited and reviewed by our Trust & Safety team
- 04
Teachers and parents see summaries, never private transcripts
03Future Passport
Proof of what you can actually do.
A verifiable record of the skills a student earns across Portals: systems thinking, collaboration, data reasoning, and ethics. Universities and employers read it through the Passport API, only with the student’s consent.
Skills stamped from evidence, not self-reported
Systems thinking, collaboration, data reasoning, ethics
Student-owned and consent-based: nothing is shared by default
Passport API for universities and employers
04Problems Bank
Real problems in. Real pilots out.
Cities, NGOs, and companies post problems they have not solved. We turn each one into a Portal, thousands of students work on it, and the top solutions get funded pilots in the real world.
- Step 01
Partners post a problem, a budget, and a pilot site
- Step 02
WTF builds the Portal and runs it across partner schools
- Step 03
Students pitch; a joint panel picks what gets piloted
- Step 04
Results are measured and published, including the failures
05Portal Studio
Build the future you want to visit.
Students and teachers build and publish their own future worlds with the same tools our world-builders use: maps, roles, AI citizens, and Tide rules.
Portal Studio · Beta 2026
- 01
Templates for cities, coastlines, hospitals, and schools
- 02
Science-check review before a world is published
- 03
Classroom-only, school-wide, or public publishing
06Safety principles
Safety is the floor, not the feature.
Every Portal, AI citizen, and Future Self conversation runs under the same rules. The 9 students on our Council of 2045 can veto any feature that touches minors’ data.
- Rule 01
Minors’ data is the Council’s call
Any feature that touches minors’ data needs a yes from the Council of 2045. Their veto is binding.
- Rule 02
Collect less
We collect only what a Portal needs to run and a teacher needs to teach. We never sell student data and never use it for advertising.
- Rule 03
Humans review the AI
Every AI citizen and every Future Self conversation runs inside reviewed guardrails, with red-teaming before release and monitoring after.
- Rule 04
Hard topics, handled with care
Portals can be dark — floods, heat, illness — but they are age-banded, never graphic, and always end with something a student can do.
- Rule 05
Escalate to a person
Signs of distress in a conversation route to a trained human and the student’s school, not to another model.
FAQ
Questions we get asked
Still curious? Write to partners@wherethefuture.org.
What is WhereTheFuture?
WhereTheFuture lets students visit the future before they live in it — then ship real fixes back to the present. Students enter Portals — science-grounded simulations of real places in the future — take on real roles, and see the consequences of their decisions. The best student solutions become funded pilots in real cities through our Problems Bank.
Who is it for?
Portals are built for students aged 11 to 18, in lower- and upper-secondary school. Content is age-banded: younger students get shorter sessions and gentler themes, and Future Self conversations are only available from age 13 with school and parent consent.
Is it safe for children?
Safety is the floor, not the feature. Every AI citizen and Future Self conversation runs inside reviewed guardrails, signs of distress are escalated to a trained person and the student’s school, and any feature that touches minors’ data needs approval from the 9 students on our Council of 2045, who hold a binding veto.
What happens to student data?
We collect only what a Portal needs to run and a teacher needs to teach. We never sell student data or use it for advertising. Future Passport records belong to the student, and universities or employers can read them only with the student’s consent.
How much does it cost?
Schools and education departments pay an annual per-student license. Families can subscribe to the Explorer home plan. Partner Portals are sponsored by cities, NGOs, and companies, and universities and employers pay to read verified skills through the Passport API. Students never pay to have their solution piloted.
How does a student solution become a real pilot?
A partner posts a real problem to the Problems Bank. We build a Portal around it and run it across partner schools. Students pitch their solutions to a joint panel of the partner, teachers, and our team; the strongest get a pilot budget and a real site. We measure the result and publish it — 37 student solutions have been piloted so far.
Where is WhereTheFuture available?
We work with 140 partner schools in 14 provinces and cities across Vietnam, with pilots in Indonesia and the Philippines.
How can my school, city, or organization partner with you?
Schools can start with a free Portal day for one class. Cities, NGOs, and companies can bring a problem to the Problems Bank. Write to partners@wherethefuture.org or use the form on our partner page, and we will reply within two working days.
Why is it called WTF?
In October 2022, after floods closed her school in Cần Thơ, a 13-year-old student typed “where the future?” into the class chat. She meant: where is our future if the city keeps flooding? Students started calling the project WTF, and we kept the typo. Grammar mistakes are allowed; giving up on the future is not.
Is a Portal a game?
It plays like one, on purpose. But every Portal is reviewed by scientists and teachers, mapped to the curriculum, and assessed on reasoning rather than points. There is no single winning ending — every future is plural.
Book a Portal
Take one class to the future.
Schools start with a free Portal day for one class. Cities and NGOs start with a problem.