Even though predictions often go wrong, they are everywhere. But why is it so difficult to foresee the future,
and is there any chance to improve? Or are we hopelessly lost to the fortune of coincidences? In this lecture,
we will embark on an adventurous journey through the universe of forecasting. We will start from chaos and
venture towards determinism, always in search of signals from the future that will guide us to enlightenment.
Our exploration will reveal how easily we could be led astray by noisy data and/or our intuition. We will grasp
what constitutes a good forecast and how forecasts can translate into helpful decisions. This journey will be
less theoretically oriented and more focused on real-world problems and pragmatic solutions. The lecture aims
to provide a general understanding of different forecasting techniques in a daily forecaster's life, with a focus
on data-driven approaches including statistics, econometrics, and machine learning techniques, combined with
concepts from behavioral economics. Expect to gain practical knowledge, insights, and strategies.