Mary Kenny: The prediction game
Forecasting no longer involves gazing into a crystal ball

Now here’s an interesting career choice for any young graduate searching for something unusual: ‘superforecaster’.
Superforecasters are people employed by big corporations, think tanks, political organisations and sometimes intelligence agencies to forecast future trends in politics, economics and social development. Prediction is today a valued art.
Michael W. Story, one such superforecaster, started out as a student volunteer invited to try forecasting the outcome of an African crisis. It was a complicated situation in the Congo, but Michael predicted exactly how it would pan out – and so he got offered the job. He is now the managing director, on this side of the Atlantic, of the US geopolitical forecasting organisation Good Judgement Inc., founded in 2011.
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