Abstract: In the years before and after the turn of this new century or millennium, the mathematics education community was, and continues to be, adrift in books and conferences about the future. For example, the theme of the 8th Southeast Asian Conference on Mathematics Education held in Manila in 1999 was “Mathematics for the 21st century.” In the year 2000, Universiti Brunei Darussalam held its fifth annual international conference with the theme “Science, Mathematics and Technical Education in the 20th and 21st century.” In the same years, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) in the United States published its yearbook with the title “learning Mathematics for a New Century.” I shall refer to these activities as evidence of the phenomenon called “future-oriented mathematics education” (FOME). This special issue of The Mathematics Educator is another example of FOME.