The goal of this initiative is to alert the government to new scientific knowledge and technology and understand the opportunities and risks that they present for New Zealand. The ambition is to find things that are new or unusual that may act as signposts to important changes on the horizon. Another aim is to think about the impacts of new science and technology in a way that include a range of perspectives in particular perspectives from outside the world of science and technology. This is intended to improve the Government's ability to anticipate and respond to new science and technologies from a context of broad reflection on New Zealand's future.