With more and more difficulties popping up here and there, the US National Academy of Engineering (NAE) was able to pin down three areas that were considered to be the greatest challenges being faced by humanity by convening a team of scientists, entrepreneurs, and thinkers.

Some of the prominent members were biologist Craig Venter, inventor Dean Kamen, Google co-founder Larry Page, and Harvard University professor of international development Calestous Juma.

The first challenge was the quality of life. The group focused on four areas related to this: sustainability, health, vulnerability, and joy of living. They noted in their report that, "as population grows and its needs and desires expand, the problem of sustaining civilisation's continuing advancement, while still improving the quality of life, looms more immediate."

The second was clean water. They considered this because the Earth had "seriously short supply in many regions of the world." They added that, "New technologies for desalinating sea water may be helpful, but small-scale technologies for local water purification may be even more effective for personal needs."

The last was computer intelligence. The group said that the potential of advanced computer intelligence could help enable automate diagnosis and prescriptions for treatment.

Ray Kurzweil, a renowned futurologist and a member of the NAE expert group, said that

Once non-biological intelligence matches the range and subtlety of human intelligence, it will necessarily soar past it because of the continuing acceleration of information-based technologies, as well as the ability of machines to instantly share their knowledge.