Coming of Age 2040

Step into 2040 and meet four young people navigating adulthood in a world that doesn't exist yet.

Coming of Age 20/40

It is the year 2040. Four young European activists — Rowan, Nova, Cypher, and Zane — are reaching out from a world shaped by technological disruption, climate extremes, and the collapse of traditional milestones like career, marriage, and homeownership. They have something to say. This app lets you listen.

Coming of Age 20/40 is a voice-driven companion app for a speculative design experience by Futurity, part of the Futures Garden initiative. The experience centres on a collection of physical artifacts carried by the four activists — a neural interface, a multispecies communicator, an emotion-sync badge, and other objects that represent the redefined markers of adulthood in 2040. Each object is tagged with an NFC chip. Bring your iPhone close, and the object becomes a conversation starter with the character who carries it.

The app serves as an alternative interface to the Orbs — specialised voice devices used in the full exhibition installation. Where the Orbs are fixed to a physical space, this app extends the experience to classrooms, university workshops, policy labs, and community seminars. Facilitators can bring the tagged objects to any setting and let participants hold real voice conversations with the youth of 2040 using just their phone.

How it works:

• Select a character to speak with
• Hold your iPhone near a tagged object to scan it via NFC
• The app opens a live voice conversation about that object, powered by AI
• Speak naturally — the character responds in real time, in their own voice

No accounts, no data stored, no setup. Pick up an object, scan it with your phone, and start talking.

Coming of Age 20/40 is not a prediction. It is a design experiment — a way to think critically about the challenges facing the next generation and what support systems need to emerge today. Participants don't discuss theoretical scenarios. They have intimate, unscripted conversations with the people who will live them.

Part of Futures Garden - exploring how speculative design can help us navigate building better futures.