Vox Sentences - Introducing the Future Perfect 50

November 21, 2024

Good morning! Today, we're teaming up with Vox's Future Perfect newsletter to give Today, Explained readers a look at the new, 2024 Future Perfect 50, which presents the 50 thinkers, scientists, activists, and scholars who are working to build a more positive future. Read on for more about this very special project. And to stay on top of the people and policies tackling the world's biggest problems with innovative solutions, be sure to sign up for the Future Perfect newsletter here.

—Lavanya Ramanathan, editor, Today, Explained

Izzie Ramirez is a deputy editor for Future Perfect. You can read more of her work here and follow her on X.

Hey readers,

When you scroll through the news these days, it's easy to feel overwhelmed by crisis after crisis. But behind those headlines, incredible people are quietly working to solve our biggest challenges. That's exactly what we focus on at Vox’s Future Perfect: We don’t just highlight tomorrow's most important and neglected problems, but spotlight the people solving them today, too.

And this is why we’re so excited to bring you the 2024 Future Perfect 50, our third annual roundup of the thinkers, innovators, activists, and artists who are building a more perfect future. This year's list is our most eclectic yet, featuring everyone from AI safety experts to public health pioneers, climate innovators to animal welfare champions — and even a couple of Oscar and Grammy winners.

We switched things up this year. While we've always loved celebrating the researchers and activists tackling humanity's biggest challenges, we realized that positive change takes many other forms.

So sure, some of our honorees are in labs developing breakthrough technologies or collecting crucial scientific data. But others are sparking important conversations through completely different channels. Like Christopher Nolan, whose Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer was just the latest in a long body of work that reckons with humanity’s ability to destroy itself. Or the bestselling author John Green, who has used his massive platform to raise awareness about the deadly but overlooked disease of tuberculosis.

But this year’s Future Perfect 50 list hasn’t lost sight of its core goal: singing the praises of the kind of quiet, paradigm-shifting work that may not be glamorous but is absolutely crucial.

Gathering bacteriophage samples in remote locations, as scientist Lillian Musila does, may not sound like a big deal at first, but these bacteria-eating viruses could be the key to saving countless lives. That’s the sort of work Future Perfect loves to highlight — solutions that might not grab headlines today but could change everything tomorrow.

The hard work of getting to 50

You know what they say: the third time’s the charm. We knew from the lessons of the 2022 and 2023 lists that we wanted to get more voices in the room.

So for the first time ever, we opened nominations widely to our audience. And we didn't just ask for names — we wanted to hear stories. What was it about these people that inspired you? How were they making their mark? Those responses showed us sides of these changemakers we might have missed just looking at their résumés or LinkedIn profiles.

And, man, did y’all give us nominations! Before we knew it, we had hundreds of names to sift through. The challenge of approaching a list with that community mindset is that it quickly becomes difficult to narrow down such a large, impressive list to just 50. It’s a process we take a lot of pride in, but we’re not afraid to make a few tweaks to improve the nature of the list.

The editors of the Future Perfect team also had some serious conversations about the scope of the list: Should we be more imaginative? Open to celebrities, even if we hadn’t included them in the past? What about politicians?

We decided that we would be more creative when it came to determining impact. That meant more candidates whose effect can be measured on the discourse, whether on animal welfare (musician Billie Eilish) or the future of humanity (Three-Body Problem author Liu Cixin).

However, if you’ve been a dedicated Future Perfect (or Vox!) reader, you might notice that this collection of stories looks more ambitious than anything we’ve ever done before. We wanted to ensure that readers could immerse themselves in the world of Future Perfect, and play along. You can find out which Future Perfect 50 honoree you’re most like with this quiz, or you can randomly be taken to an honoree’s page. Or you can check it out the old-fashioned way, by category. Each path gives you a different glimpse into the remarkable work happening right now to build a better future.

We know that the world is tough out there, from devastating climate disasters to growing threats to democracy. But for every major challenge we face, there are brilliant, dedicated people working on solutions.

From researchers like Daniel Kokotajlo ensuring AI benefits humanity to scientists like David Keith researching extreme solutions to climate change, from mind-bending thinkers like Alison Gopnik to globe-trotting humanitarians like José Andrés — these are the people turning hope into action, and action into progress. We think the Future Perfect 50 will help shine a light to a path for a better future.

—Izzie Ramirez, deputy editor

📲 Questions? Comments? Tell us what you think! If there is a topic you want us to explain or a story you’re curious to learn more about, fill out this form or email us at futureperfect@vox.com.

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