LET‘S BE DREAMERS

Author: Viktorija Bikulčiūtė

On the first day of 1968, in the newspaper named „Tiesa“, the article of dreamer, visionary, even oracle Laimutis Telskys showed up. In the article young scholar was predicting our future after 50 years. The author of an article can be called the genius of lithuanian information technologies. He created the first lithuanian counting machine and the first in Europe automatic machine reading the written signs. Being an active member of academic community let him share the knowledge and raise the new generation of scholars and enrich the lithuanian academic potential. Visions may look crazy, unrealistic, cause laughter but in the end of the day the only thing that matters is showing the world that dream is the thing that makes this world go round.

In the article that was named „Informer instead of watch“ the author shares with reader his own predictions of the future. First of all, the young scholar said that in 50 years the power of huge counting machines would fit in such small device as watches. With the help of these devices we would be able to reach all the textual, visual or video information the world can offer us from books to breaking news, because the world would be connected in one network. What is more, the device would monitor our health indicators and if something failed it would report not only us but also, when the situation is critical, to the ambulance. Scholar is working on this project to turn this vision into reality. He looks even further – after couple of decades nanodevices will be inplanted under our skin to monitor our health indicators or even prevent serious illnesses. It can be truth, because today, we can say that Laimutis Telksnys predicted the the rise of internet and smart devices after that, also he foresaw the possibilities that were given for us by global online search engines. In 1968 these predictions sounded like paragraphs from very good science fiction novel but today it is the reality we face everyday.

In the perspective of 1968, the predictions of Laimutis Telksnys could seem unrealistic, but the author himself always believed that one day it would be real. Scholar knew the tendencies the world was talking about, even on the other side of iron curtain. Of course, the first day of new years gave a chance to fantasize a little. At the moment, Laimutis Telksnys thinks that he was too brave saying that the informer could transmit us taste and smell. He does not say that this is impossible, but we have to ask ourselves do we really need this? Drems and visions become reality when they can make an impact to our society and planet, in general.

Endless and fast progress – this can be the definition of five last decades of our age. The perfect example could be IT sector. “There is only one aspect that stops the progress – ourselves” – says L. Telksnys. In the times when everything is possible, when we can reach visual and textual information any time we need it, the amount of internet users grows every day, we have opportunities which is opening before our eyes, but sometimes we do not want to find will, resources or need to do more, to make one more step forward.

One person had enough courage to dream and set those dreams as goals, we needed 50 years to believe. That is the thing about visionaries – they do not ask to believe them, they trust the dream they have. Dream is the strength even stronger than ignorance. L. Telksnys showed us that having a dream is the most beautiful and noble feature of person. Let’s choose to be the dreamers, to see further, to feel deeper and to believe stronger that there is nothing more real than a vision.