Introduction to tackling wicked personal futures. Shadow works.

Unveil deep insights integrally to build conscious futures.

Personal Futures are as varied as drops are in the ocean. But, how to build “good” and conscious personal futures? “Mental health (a happy and positive state of mind) facilitates ethical consciousness and behavior, and mental misery and disorder provokes unethical behavior” (Lombardo, 2016). At this point, then we should work on mental health to tackle possible/plausible wicked personal futures. Several mental disorders, predominating Anxiety and Depression, are affecting most age groups (OMS, 2018). A key issue to work on an improvement of mental health is the shadow work. What does the shadow mean? “The shadow is a psychological term for everything we cannot see in ourselves. It is the “dark side” of our personality because it consists chiefly of primitive, negative human emotions and impulses like rage, envy, greed, selfishness, desire, and the striving for power” (Jeffrey, 2018). Working with our shadow, among other elements, will lead to radical transformations in the persons’ self. While building futures, every person is, somehow, developing a Futures-self. A most positive development of a Futures-self pursues personal growth and personal development. This is a virtual mini-workshop to do some shadow work exercises. This way of working has been applied to people that had approach to work on their Personal Futures, with significant results.

Bio

Psychofuturartist. Pioneer of Teatro del Devenir as a Futures technique www.teatrodeldevenir.com Generator of the Psychoprospective theory along with Psychofuturartist Martha Jaramillo (Colombia). Teach the future México Director and Teach the Future Executive Board member Personal Futures Adviser. Former Director of the World Future Society Mexican Chapter, A.C. ® WFSF, APF member and of Futurists Board in Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation. Co-founder of the Permanent seminary of Prospective Studies FCPyS, UNAM, Mexico City Counselor of the “Design of the tomorrow” Specialty at Centro de diseño, cine y televisión (CDMX). WFSF President’s Outstanding Young Woman Futurist 2016 winner. National and International Professor, lecturer and workshop cordinator. Has written several articles in English and Spanish. Co-translator of It’s Your Future…Make It a Good One and A Personal Futures Workshop(Verne Wheelwright).

Contact: alethia.montero.baena@gmail.com

Sense and Sensibility. Key points to ecological thinking of the Change markers

I would like to present Ecómetro project. Doing so I will Share our 9 years the experience of the ecómetro team changing the System. Throughout this time, using a trial-and-error approach, we have learned some notions on how to articulate change in environments which remain insensitive to ecological and sustainable thinking. Ecómetro is a non-profit association that develops open-source software tools to design, measure and asses the impact of construction on the environment. Its objective is to introduce the sustainability dimension of the construction sector. Buildings are one of the largest energy-consuming sectors in the world, representing almost 30% of the world’s final energy consumption and reaching 40% in the European Union. It is also has a high impact on natural resources, both in origin (production) and end (waste). When we began our journey with our idea of a free, open and accessible software tool for everyone; both groups, the scientific community, and the private sector were reluctant. Today, we have the support of the national research centre (CSIC) and we have already certified several projects. The lessons learned from our experience in this particular radical transformation can be summarized in three main key points into which we will dive during the presentation: Stakeholders involved, long-short envisioning and relevant message.

Bio

Ana is a strategic and services designer who has also trained at the h2i institute in design thinking and agile methodologies (planning with Scrum and Kanban), also Futures design with Jorge Camacho. The ability to find a solution to almost any problem is the result of having the ability to see things from a different perspective. She feels fascinated by new technologies and their ability to transform the common ground. Innovative, inclusive and socially diverse projects are her focus. From 2010 to 2017 she worked as an architect for the development of sustainable and ecological projects, mainly private, small-scale and focused on health, high energy efficiency and design. Her interest in the ecological and social perspective made it part of the creation of the Ecómetro. In 2017 she takes the leap to the strategic design by the hand of Rrebrand, a triple balance company, where she works currently.

Keywords: Environmental

Email: hola@ecometro.org

Project website: http://www.ecometro.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ecometro_org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ecometro.org/

Humanizing The Budget Process- The Participatory Budgeting Experiment

Humanizing The Budget Process- The Participatory Budgeting Experiment presentation will allow the audience to get a glimpse of how the City of Durham was able to introduce and successfully implement Participatory Budgeting (PB) in Durham. In many cases, organizational budgets can be perceived as complicated and not as in engaging which results in a lack of participation especially individuals from underserved communities. When budgets are developed and adopted in many levels of governments, they tend to leave out the true needs and wants from marginalized communities. Furthermore, this may not be on purpose. This could be due to a poorly developed outreach and engagement strategy that does not reach individuals who are not traditionally engaged in the budget process. In 2018, the City of Durham allowed the city of Durham residents 13 years and older to decide how to spend $2.4 million dollars of the city’s budget to improve their communities. Moreover, the goal was to ensure that underserved communities had a front-row seat throughout the PB process when projects were identified, developed, and voting on for implementation in an equity lens. Most importantly, the ultimate goal of PB is to have marginalized communities more engaged not only in the budget process but in other governmental processes. In addition, this is the Participatory Budgeting experiment.

Bio

Andrew Holland currently serves as the Budget Engagement Manager with the City of Durham Budget & Management Services Department. Andrew oversees the Participatory Budgeting Durham initiative for the City of Durham. Prior to joining the City of Durham, Andrew was the Assistant to the County Manager for Mecklenburg County, NC in which he coordinated the county’s Enterprise Risk Management program and worked on special projects. He also spent time with the City of Fayetteville, NC as the Assistant to the City Manager and was the Business Analyst for the City of Durham, Fleet Management Department. Andrew received his Master’s of Public Administration from North Carolina Central University and Bachelor of Science in Urban & Regional Planning from East Carolina University.

Keywords: Thriving communities

Email: Andrew.Holland@durhamnc.gov

Project website: https://www.pbdurham.org/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/pbdurhamnc?lang=en

Envisioning Our Demise, to Prevent Our Extinction

Everything around us is changing at an unprecedented pace. For multi-century-old industries like freight and transportation, fears of impending futures can be crippling. Those who founded entire nations are having difficulty knowing what to work on next—buying time against workforce displacement, technology startups, and more. How can we cut through the hype of scary bedtime stories and align competitors into partners? How can we design democratic, preferable futures to build toward—to inform today’s product roadmaps, moonshots, and regulatory changes—to manifest new reality from sci-fi storytelling? I’ll share how my futurism and innovation team at GE Transportation operationalizes foresight, to paint vivid polytopian dreamscapes, define multi-partner opportunities, and leap past preservation into world-creation. In this talk, Anthony will give the audience a renewed understanding of the importance of design context and a fresh look at how a healthy culture of the apocalypse can sharpen your design strategies, rally your stakeholders and decision-makers, and drive bigger picture innovation that trickles actionable guidance down to day-to-day projects. Attendees will walk away with tangible activities for integrating speculative design fiction into their individual decisions and co-creative conversations.

Bio

Anthony D Paul is the product strategy, foresight, and design lead within an applied innovation team at GE Transportation, a Wabtec company, serving global railroad, seafaring vessels, trucking, ports, and other shipping partners in finding new opportunities for humans to interface with artificial intelligence and industrial automation. Their field research and greenfield projects help guide competitors into aligned partnerships to create mutually beneficial operating futures that give new value and roles to our human workforce. In previous roles, Anthony built decision-making platforms for defense agencies to track terrorism and global bot traffic, research interfaces for illuminating undiscovered trends in deep datasets, and audience segmentation tools to inform user-centered decisions at every designer’s desk. On the side, he organizes, sponsors, and speaks at global and local meetups and conferences on the topics of operationalizing futures studies, remote team management, usability testing, accessibility, innovation ethics, and participatory design research.

Keywords: Sense of Place

Email address: me@anthonydpaul.com

Organization website: https://designawards.core77.com/speculative-design/86781/Future-of-Freight-Vision-Timeline

Twitter: @anthonydpaul

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonydpaul/

Presentation: Exploring Cultures with Empathy – A Journey across Cultures

The WHY: Envisage a future where human interaction is left for a complete coincidence, no structured outlet where people from all walks of life come together (more ignorance, loneliness, isolation, lost intelligence). Migration and travelling enhanced the diversity of places however the busyness of life often absorbs people causing more social and cultural issues. The PURPOSE: Zaha explores “Individual Culture” which is the norms that reside within each one of us that influence the way we manage our experiences, relate to ourselves and others. Zaha is built on 3 core values, Empathy, Inclusion and Curiosity to create more Cultural Intelligence (suspension of judgement, acceptance of cultural confusion, and eagerness to learn about others) THE HOW: Zaha XP leverages the physical cultural expressions (food, art, music, herbs etc) to reveal the emotional and human aspects behind them. People either self-express through the physical elements(Individual Culture) or co-create (allowing people to experience a meaningful application of a knowledge seemed strange).The documented content from the experiences is shared online to enhance sustainability. Stakeholders. Zaha builds relationship with art and creativity hubs to identify experience leaders. It executes on the agenda of culture-sharing (UNESCO, Ministry of Culture) and community integration guardians

Bio

I like to believe that I have the courage needed to explore all the ways to figure out the ‘be’ in what I was ‘born to be’. I have been going back and forth between understanding my pain and leveraging my passion to create something meaningful beyond myself, for the world. And I have finally woman-ed up to start building Zaha in January 2018. Zaha is a journey of a cultural movement that enables humans to re-examine the usefulness of their assumptions about themselves and others, through exploring the human and emotional aspects of cultures. Being judged at the age of 7 when my parents moved between countries because of war, I have been always intrigued by the otherness of others, tapping into their knowledge reservoir, and evolve. And Zaha has emerged from all of that. Leaving behind a 10-year of management consultancy experience and glamorous career with the Big 4 across MENA; a decision that has never been regretted. Living in a complete alignment with the essence of who I am feels just right.

Contact: asma@zahaExperience.com

Participatory Futures for Better Governance

From Black Mirror to Brexit, societies across the globe are facing increasing distrust of institutions, socio-economic polarization, and the dominance of dystopian imagery. Our images of the present and the future are leading us towards decay. This status quo cannot stand.

To counter this, Nesta, the innovation foundation, commissioned the Action Foresight’s Global Swarm to explore how participatory futures might offer alternative and emerging methodologies to bring people together to envision alternatives and desirable futures.

We look at participatory futures as a medium for people to think (and feel) differently, openly, and critically about the future together – to create constructive, participatory, and radical changes.

To date, we have developed multiple typologies to help us better understand participatory futures – specifically around how, when, and what kind to use. Looking at over 300 case studies from Bangladesh to Mexico, we explored why and how such approaches are put into practice as well as what they can and might produce, including both preferred and unexpected outcomes.

The FutureFestival will be our first-time showcasing our work. Here, we hope to continue the conversation and explore participatory futures with FuturesFestival attendees and discuss its capacity for radical transformations.

Bio

Daniel Riveong is an award-winning futurist and recovering digital strategist. He has worked with a full range of foresight projects in the UK to Malaysia, covering areas innovation toolkits to informing long-term strategic planning. Daniel’s research focus includes future of food, Global South futures, post-capitalism, and futures literacy. He previously led a digital consultancy in Malaysia and co-piloted a data science school in Jakarta.

Keywords: Sense of place; Thriving communities; Transparency, New models, New alternative systems

Email address: daniel@pluralfutures.com

Project website: https://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/toward-more-participatory-futures/

Twitter: @riveong

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/riveong/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniel.riveong

Gender and Queer Futures (Panel Discussion)

• What is your preferred future for gender & LGBTQ?
• From your perspective what is the most important thing that needs to change to envision your preferred future?

Panellists

Victoria Rodríguez-Roldán – Victoria is the Director of both the Trans/GNC and the Disability Justice Projects at the National LGBTQ Task Force. Particular areas of expertise and focus are the intersections of issues affecting transgender people with disabilities and mental illness, anti- trans workplace discrimination and gun violence prevention from a social justice lens. She has been in trans advocacy the entirety of her adult life, including advocacy in Puerto Rico and in Maine. She is the author of “Valuing Transgender Applicants and Employees”, a gold-standard best practices guide for employers, and frequently speaks on discrimination issues impacting the trans community. She was named the Autistic Self Advocacy Network’s 2016 Ally of the Year Award and one of Pacific Standard Magazine’s 30 Thinkers under 30 of 2017. She has been profiled in NBC News and Latina Magazine, among other outlets. Prior to joining the Task Force, she worked as an Equal Opportunity Specialist for the U.S. Department of Labor’s Civil Rights Center. Victoria holds a B.A. in Psychology with honors from the University of Puerto Rico, and a J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law.

Dr Amber Johnson (Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University). As a scholar/artist/activist, Dr. Johnson explores the language, exigency, sound, and aesthetics of social justice. Their art, research, and activism focus on performances of identity, protest, and social justice in digital and lived spaces. As a polymath, their mixed-media artistry involves working with metals, recycled and reclaimed goods, photography, poetry, percussion, and paint to interrogate systems of oppression. Dr. Johnson is the creator of The Justice Fleet ™, a mobile justice museum that fosters healing through art, dialogue, and play and an award winning Assistant Professor of Communication and Social Justice at Saint Louis University. Notable awards include the Golden Anniversary Monograph Award for their research on black masculinity and the performative possibilities of social media, the Lilla A. Heston award for Outstanding Scholarship in Interpretation and Performance Studies for their work on embodied pedagogies and social justice, and the Faculty Excellence Award for Diversity and Social Justice. Dr. Johnson has published articles in several journals including Qualitative Inquiry, Critical Studies in Media and Communication, Text & Performance Quarterly, Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies, and Communication Quarterly.

Dr Lonny Avi Brooks is an Associate Professor at CSU East Bay in the Strategic Communication Department. He writes on a gamut of topics in foresight from organizational long-term thinking to Afrofuturism. He wrote a chapter entitled “In Search of Afrofuturism: Where am I in this future Stewart Brand?” now published in the anthology Afrofuturism 2.0: The Rise of Astro-Blackness (2015). Lonny has also been pursuing an interactive worldbuilding game called Queer Futures which is very exciting!

Bio

Decarbonizing the Transport Sector

We are aware of Delhi’s pollution news each year, especially during the winters. The pollution through vehicles is one of the reasons. The Electric Vehicles (EV) are one such domain which promises the city of Delhi and the whole of India to leapfrog and decarbonize the transport sector. However, EV require green energy sources like solar PV to fuel its charging cycles. Imagine the proliferating EV demand without sufficient renewable sources oriented charging. It will require both state and non-state system integrators which will act as a catalyst to expand the Indian transport system to absorb the EV successfully on the streams of solar rooftop powered systems. I propose to present the plausible pathways which can bring the solar-rooftop households closer to EV drivers for developing a pool of retail-charging stations across a city. This will also explain how to engage or club the existing Indian Government schemes where local e-rickshaw and the sub-way transport company can be engaged as a last-mile connectivity solution. Three important components of the system will be: a) Software Application converging different prosumers and consumers together; b) Developing hardware and c) Developing human interface through behavioral research and interventions.

Bio

Dr Deepak Singh is the Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Resource Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He holds a PhD and M.Phil in Science Policy from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Prior to his academic work, he has also worked as an electrical engineer in the energy and power sector. His key areas of research are energy and environmental research through the lens of science, technology and policy studies.

Keywords: Sense of place; Environmental; Technological; Education; Thriving communities; Transparency; New models; New alternative systems

Email: deepaksinghconvent@gmail.com

Project website: http://www.gcr.cuhk.edu.hk/events_detail.php?id=103

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shekhar-deepak-singh-ph-d-2a559819/

The future of vengeance — An exploration from the dark side

The talk presents an overview of an experimental exercise done by foresight students from CENTRO University in Mexico City. The topic: vengeance. The purpose of the exercise was to enter a dark mindset without predefined judgments, to reflect on the ethical implications on the use of futures design methods. The assumption was that evil people are free to use foresight as well, so empathizing through this mindset could uncover strategies to avoid negative futures. Through research, detection and analysis of signals and trends, and Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) the group used the Aspirational Futures model resulting in four scenarios from the darkside: as if the group was a Think Tank offering vengeance services in economic, esoteric, social and digital categories for Mexico in 2040. How will a future where vengeance could be monetized looks like? Being able to explore their darker thoughts served as a way to reflect on the group’s present actions. The talk explains the methodology, some findings around vengeance in the Mexican culture, and the four resulting scenarios.

Bio

Gabriela is a Mexican service designer, co-founder of Service Design Mexico and Frontstage Conference. She’s currently working as Director of Design at GBM. With a Master in Business Innovation from CEDIM, she previously worked at BBVA Bancomer and the international innovation firm Idea Couture. Gabriela also teaches at the Master in Strategic Design and Innovation at IBERO, and at CENTRO, where she’s also studying a Futures Studies postgraduate speciality.

Email: hola@gabrielasalinas.com

Personal website: http://gabrielasalinas.com/

Project website: https://www.centro.edu.mx/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/gabrielasalinas

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriela–salinas/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gabrielasalinas_/

Reimagining Social Good Communications in a Hyper-Connected World. Or, how to talk about poverty without pity or silver bullets

Charitable portrayals of “helping” often conjure up victimhood and passivity in order to validate the assistance being given. There is a growing awareness that these portrayals uphold, rather than counteract, historical and politicized notions of “the other.” This leads to reinforced narrative frames and deepened ignorance. Thus storytelling in the social good sector can and must be done with careful consideration of the notions of voice, agency, and complexity. Why hasn’t been happening already? When our nonprofit communications take queues from institutions and corporations that are constantly selling, selling, selling, we do a disservice to our collective vision. We know the lasting, equity-bringing changes for which people around the world work is born of something much more vital and much more enduring. When it comes to communicating about “doing good,” what happens when we let go of convincing anyone of anything?

Bio

Jennifer Lentfer is a farm girl turned international aid worker turned writer/poet, writing coach, and communications strategist. She created the blog, how-matters.org in 2010, and was named among Foreign Policy Magazine’s “100 women to follow on Twitter” at @intldogooder in 2012. Her first book, Smart Risks: How small grants are helping to solve some of the world’s biggest problems, features the growing community of grantmakers that find and fund visionary leaders around the world. With her students at Georgetown University in 2014, she published the popular guide, “The Development Element: Guidelines for the future of communicating about the end of global poverty.” Lentfer currently teaches “Storytelling and Communicating for Change” in the University of Vermont Masters in Leadership for Sustainability program. Given that her hometown of Bruning, Nebraska, USA has less than 300 people, it’s no wonder Lentfer conceives of small, local groups as powerful forces for social change.

Contact: jenlentfer [at] gmail.com

PLANNAR: Co-Visioning with AR

In this 30 minute talk, I talk about an ongoing participatory AR project, PLANNAR, which uses mobile AR as a co-visioning approach to empower residents in various gentrifying neighborhoods in Los Angeles (Chinatown, Glendale). Through the various iterations of engagement methods (outdoor AR app, indoor tablet, art pop-up) I address my learnings for the different design approaches based on target users(i.e. low income Chinese adults vs. digitally savvy Chinese-American high schoolers), stakeholder partnerships, and geographical context. I conclude the talk by outlining further research opportunities and engagement approaches that are more inclusive and actionable for local governments.

Bio

Jessica Escobedo is an interdisciplinary designer and researcher based in Los Angeles interested in designing participatory experiences and services at the intersection of AR and urban planning.

Contact: jessy.esco@gmail.com

Project: https://elusive.design/plannar

Explore and Relate – radical solutions for a revolutionary time from the FutureWe Community

How a crowdsourced framework and solutions is making a practical difference in spreading futures thinking into Education and beyond

We are all living through a time of radical transformation. It’s been called many things – the 4th Industrial Revolution, the Anthropocene, The Great Displacement, the fully digital era. What all agree on is that it’s marked by tech that can now replace human mental abilities en mass for the first time. The challenge of what skills help us succeed no matter what change comes is what the FutureWe community founded in Australia 2016 has been working on – and now we have an amazing story of crowd-sourced mapping tools and collaborative solutions to share in a huge update from our Education Futures session from the 2018 Futures Festival. Participants will get to play with examples of just where automation is up to in late 2019, and see how this links to what the FutureWe community has come together to create. Spoiler – we are focusing on the radically transforming idea that exploring ideas without set outcomes, and relating to each other – if done first – mean all our futures will be brighter!

Bio

Over 20 years in Edu, I’ve seen how Learning, digital tools (STEAM, AR/VR, mobile) & futures thinking (futurewe.org/framework) transform lives. Now, as a globally awarded innovator, Digital Coach at St Peters Lutheran College, Advance Queensland Digital Champion, HundrEd Advsior, ShapingEdu Ambassador, & iWorld STEAM Ambassador, I actively help leaders & learners shift thinking to embrace the coming fully digital, AI era.

Email address: contact@futurewe.org

Project website: https://futurewe.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jnxyz

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/futurewe-community

Facebook: https://facebook.com/futurewecommunity

Instagram: https://instagram.com/futurewe_community

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/jnxyz

Return of the Radical: Manifestos in the Digital Age

Manifestos can bring about change by presenting alternative possible futures, outlining concrete actions, and making it clear that the status quo is intolerable. They are the first stop for visionaries: scanning horizons, critiquing the present, and pushing forward new futures are the manifesto’s primary tasks. At the same time, if provocation is its principal mode, and utopian dreams are its content, failure is the manifesto’s most inevitable outcome. The failure rate of manifestos is higher than average. The last century is littered with manifestos full of broken promises and faded dreams. The return of the manifesto is double-edged – often violent, it is driven by emotion and immune to facts. Manifestos hold great potential for change, but they also reflect the dangers that come with extremism. The return of a form that was so ubiquitous in periods of crisis is symptomatic of our present upheaval. On balance, however, the manifesto is more cure than cause. Manifestos help us to think radically outside of incremental evolutionary models, safe predictability and narrow paths. They ask: Can we not do better? In this talk I will argue that the manifesto is an indispensible tool for working towards better futures in challenging and uncertain times. I will also describe a visionary card game, MANIFESTO!, that was developed to help people write their futures into being.

Bio

Julian Hanna is Assistant Professor at the Interactive Technologies Institute in Portugal. He was born in Vancouver, Canada and taught at the University of British Columbia and the University of Lisbon before moving to the island of Madeira. His diverse research interests include modernism and the avant-garde; movements, networks, and activism; and critical intersections between fact and fiction, culture, politics and technology. He has co-authored the critical futures blog Crap Futures with designer James Auger since 2015. In 2017, they won (with Laura Watts) the CCCB Cultural Innovation International Prize for The Newton Machine, a speculative energy project, and in 2019 they published a catalogue of their work, Reconstrained Design. He is currently part of SpeculativeEdu, a project on speculative design education in Europe. He also co-leads the Words in Freedom Project (2016-), which recently launched a card game called MANIFESTO! His next book, The Manifesto Handbook (Zero), will be published in January 2020.

Email: julian.hanna@m-iti.org

Website: https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/authors/julian-hanna

Project site: https://www.wordsinfreedomproject.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/julianisland

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julianisland/

Tumblr: https://crapfutures.tumblr.com

Can design education focussed on impact uplift rural children?

Children are highly creative and have natural problem solving abilities, however, their voice is often neglected in their communities owing to (a) Lack of inclusivity of children who are not academically inclined but have great creative potential (b) Lack of connection to the real world thereby not being exposed to the practical challenges (c) Lack of ownership in school and development In order to solve this, we present our impact based educational system for children from marginalised/low income communities, discussing aspects of how it has led to an improvement in the self esteem of the children, also improving other 21st century skills through an ‘impact based portfolio’ Through this approach, we have seen examples of rural children getting scholarships, women self help groups setting up enterprises based on student innovations, participation of girls in STEM related activities and so on. The stakeholders/communities involved are : children aged 10 to 14, local youth members responsible for managing innovation labs (18 to 22), women self-help groups etc The process which we have followed is a human-centered design curriculum which involves what we unconditioning, critical thinking and design thinking stages with an emphasis given to co-creation as a powerful tool to make the innovations more contextualised, leading to more such grassroot innovations.

Bio

I am a social impact designer working in the intersection of frugal innovation, contextualization and design education. I am the founder of Lead by Design Foundation, an award-winning non-profit organization in India that enables children from low-income communities to solve community challenges through design and innovation.

Keywords: Innovative education, quality education

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/krishnathiruvengadam-rajagopal/

Personal website: https://krishnathiruvengadam.com/

Website: http://dhivefoundation.org/

Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/dhivelabs/

Instagram @krishnarajagopal2011

Roundtable: Futures of Food – We are – and will become – what we eat

Food is one of our most fundamental experiences, touching almost every aspect of human endeavor. How we approach feeding ourselves — as individuals, as a culture and as a planet — will be one of the defining challenges of our shared future. Here in Toronto there is a remarkable array of individuals exploring novel approaches to food, and their stories and successes are setting the stage for the Futures of Food. For Futures Festival ’19 we are inviting 5 local food innovators to share what they have learned from the past, what they are doing in the present and how they envision the future. Across topics from food policy, justice and sovereignty, to the future of bars, restaurants and home-cooked meals, we will explore a diverse range of perspectives on what and how we will be eating in years to come. This session will include 5 short presentations + Q&A and be followed by a family-style dinner party hosted at The Depanneur where speakers and guests will share a meal inspired by their vision of the future. How can what and how we eat shape and transform the future we share?

Bio

Len Senater is the owner of The Depanneur, a culinary venue in Toronto that hosts thousands of pop-up food events. As an extension of this unique business model, he co-founded Newcomer Kitchen, a non-profit pilot that created social and economic opportunities for Syrian refugee women through food-based projects. Previously Len was a partner in Hypenotic, a strategic design & branding agency.

Contact: info@thedepanneur.ca

Press article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2016/dec/12/newcomer-kitchen-syrian-refugees-toronto-restaurant-video

The Future is Resiliency: Intercultural Communications

Education, Unconscious Bias, Action and Allyship

As resiliency is the ability to adapt successfully in the face of stress and adversity, learning how to be resilient is a survival skill of the future. The purpose of this presentation is to help people understand that success is based on one’s mindset, skillset and action. Understanding unconscious bias and how it impacts our lens and decisions is critical to understanding what is required of ourselves and others in an ever changing world where cultural dynamics influence how we communicate or miscommunicate with one another. Participants will be engaged in a minds-on, three part lesson that begins with conceptualizing what success looks like and connecting how unconscious bias impacts the way people engage with one another, followed by a strategic tool to improve intercultural communications and finally how action is the key factor to move visualization into actualization. Participants open to the presentation’s concept will leave with greater insight, inspiration and a critical thinking tool that can be applied to every communication activity and increase successful engagement. As a teacher and former museum educator over the past 20 years, I have seen the positive impact on students as they build their confidence and find their voice to advocate for themselves and others. Many of these students are now influencers in their peer group and agents of change.

Bio

Li Koo is an educator, city builder, and advocate for a better tomorrow. Her diversity of experience includes educating the next generation of leaders, building a vibrant arts and culture centre and advocating for increased access to justice for vulnerable and newcomer communities. Li is a global citizen, having worked across many sectors around the world. These include the not for profit, government (political offices and agency), corporate and educational sectors. Grounded in community she has always worked hard to make a difference on a personal, local and global level. She is currently a college professor and working in real estate in Toronto.

Contact: hello@likoo.ca

Foresight Personal Financial Wellbeing

The different signals of the future that have an impact on the household economy are several: from the evolution of the work that has been redefining, who, how or where people works; to social security systems, to the dynamics of population ageing, are some examples of variables that can create risks for societies. People may find themselves in need to continue working at advanced ages, or they will be at risk of living in conditions of marginalization greater than the current ones. I have worked on a prospective model that integrates three levels of household economy analysis. In the first one, the macro scenarios provide us with the context of socio-economic systems which create public social welfare policies. The second one, micro-scenarios use variables of working status and social security services that influence the quality of life of families. In the third level, a model is introduced to create personal scenarios applied to the household economy, and which also integrates coaching elements to facilitate users to explore the possibilities of the future in different personal topics. Finally, economic resources are only a vehicle to materialize those images of their future.

Bio

Lourdes Serrano is a personal financial coach, strategist and futurist. Being from Mexico City has given her a street wise sense of bottom of the pyramid reality, needs and resilient spirit. Her purpose is to serve the self-transformation and support the personal journey of each person, from hope to fullness in order to unleash the best of themselves. Lourdes designed a Foresight Personal Financial Wellbeing Model and has been working as workshop facilitator in public and private organizations in Mexico. She loves participatory and experiential sessions where participants can open their minds, hearts and will to new possibilities and create their future scenarios. With a Master’s in leadership and Innovation in Complex Systems by the Aarhus University and Copenhagen Business School, and a Business Management bachelor’s degree. Lourdes has other endeavors as business mentor, conscious investor and finance’s professor at Centro de diseño, cine y televisión.

Contact

Practical frameworks for ethical design

It may come as a surprise to some that services designed to improve our quality of life often end up creating unintended suffering for users. While service design is intentional by nature, there can be unintended consequences that have negative impacts on users. Using systems thinking, we can apply an ethical rigour that moves beyond measuring the immediate impact of a system. Systemic design tools such as implication wheels, or Nancy Bocken’s value mapping wheel, can help us not only consider the second or third order impact of an innovation, but also allow us to see how value created for one group can destroy value for another. The talk intends to provide exercises that practitioners can easily integrate into their various workplace processes to enable teams to imagine and be aware of the impact of their unintended design intentions.

Bio

With a background in Architecture and Semiotics, Majid has parlayed his passion for user-centric design into his roles as a User Experience Director over the past ten years. An award-winning designer and creative problem-solver, he has led and collaborated with high-performing teams in companies ranging from startups to multinationals and agencies — most recently at Klick Health, where his team creates digital experiences that improve the lives of patients and healthcare professionals.

Project: https://medium.com/klickux/futures-wheel-practical-frameworks-for-ethical-design-e40e323b838a

Email: majid.behboudi@gmail.com

MAD* for futures (*Media, Art and Design)

Based on a recent article in the special issue of the Journal of Futures Studies on Futures and Design, this talk examines how the collaboration between futures and media, art and design (MAD) can activate multiple perspectives in actual conversations about local and global futures. Ultimately, the aim is to make these conversations matter, in other words, to boost the social capacity for foresight and bring it to bear on the present. This would represent a radical transformation to nurture many other. The talk presents lessons learned from a sample of three projects (A Temporary Futures Institute at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp, the three year development education project MAONO in the DR Congo and Reel Molenbeek Futures a project with the inhabitants of one of Brussels’s most disadvantaged communities). It suggests do’s and don’ts that futurists can keep in mind for making the most of collaborations at the intersection between futures and design so as to produce occasions for diverse groups to create, work and play with images of the futures. This way we may infect our cultures and societies with the freedom, intentionality, imagination and procedural scaffoldings of the theory and practice of our fields;

About the Speaker

Maya Van Leemput is Senior Researcher of ‘Open Time | Applied Futures Research’ at the Management, Media and Society department of the Erasmus University College Brussel where she also teaches Strategic Futures Orientation. Her background is in media studies with a Ph.D. from the University of Westminster for her research on “Visions of the Future on Television.” Her critical forward-looking work on media, culture, arts, (cross-cultural) communication, development, science and technology in society and urban environments, uses experimental, creative and participatory approaches. She partners with photographer Bram Goots on Agence Future (AF), a long-term independent project for exploring images of the future. The interdisciplinary experimental collaboration combines conversation based approaches and visual ethnography with multi-media co-creation. Maya is is a fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation and the Centre of Postnormal Policy and Futures Studies, a member the Association of Professional Futurists and the interdisciplinary visual arts collective OST.

Contact: maya@reelfutures.net

Project: http://www.agencefuture.org

Practical frameworks for ethical design

It may come as a surprise to some that services designed to improve our quality of life often end up creating unintended suffering for users. While service design is intentional by nature, there can be unintended consequences that have negative impacts on users. Using systems thinking, we can apply an ethical rigour that moves beyond measuring the immediate impact of a system. Systemic design tools such as implication wheels, or Nancy Bocken’s value mapping wheel, can help us not only consider the second or third order impact of an innovation, but also allow us to see how value created for one group can destroy value for another. The talk intends to provide exercises that practitioners can easily integrate into their various workplace processes to enable teams to imagine and be aware of the impact of their unintended design intentions.

Bio

Mazi is a CX strategist at RBC Ventures, a systemic designer, and a media researcher, dedicated to untangling complexities, and improving human experiences. He is interested in the paradigm shifts in technology and their systemic behavioural, cultural, organizational, and societal effects. He holds a master of design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation from OCAD University, where he mapped the Canadian journalism ecosystem as part of his thesis. Before OCAD, he was the design director of Berlin, a communications agency in Edmonton. He has designed user experiences for video games such as Jurassic Park and taught UX design as an adjunct professor at MacEwan University. His interest in cybernetics and post-structural philosophy has also led him to Concordia University’s Hexagram, where he worked as a researcher on responsive architecture and phenomenological studies of memory.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/javidiani/

Reproductive Justice

My Body My Policy

This project is about reproductive health justice. Adhering to the right to access to information, this project will give access to adolescent girls and young women the access to SRHR information and services. There has been a lot of cases of Rape, femicide and defilement of young boys and girls. With SRHR information with them, they are able to act accordingly so that the perpetrators get what they deserve. This year alone, 70 women have been killed( Counting Dead Women Kenya) by their intimate partner and all of killers walk freely. Making the men accountable for the deaths will lower the cases of femicide. Following up with policymakers to make death penalties to those who have raped, defiled or killed a woman, Having grassroots feminist convenings/community dialogues to unpack violence, femicide and understand rights as defensive mechanism.

Bio

Melvine Obola is a young feminist in Kenya zealous about adolescent girls and young women’s access to SRHR information, services and rights. She voluntary works with Young Women’s Leadership Institute (YWLI) as Social Media strategist, amplifying feminists’ work on social media spaces. She envisions for a violence free society where there is respect for human rights and dignity regardless of one’s origin, race, sexuality or culture.

Facebook: Melvine Obollah Akinyi

Twitter: @melvineobollah

Email: melvineobollah@gmail.com

You’re only as resilient as your weakest link

How might hotter, wetter and more unpredictable weather in Ontario in the future disrupt property values and challenge the well being and resilience of its citizens and communities?

Insights to the question were undertaken in a research study by a group of Toronto-based innovation and strategic foresight practitioners led by Chris Chopik, a real estate professional who has been exploring the intersection of climate change and real estate for many years.

The intent of the research was to identify information gaps in the commercial real estate sector as well as strategies for implementing emergency preparedness and developing resilience frameworks to protect property value and financial systems from the impacts of catastrophic weather events.

A 2018 report on Canada’s climate change risk identified physical infrastructure as a top risk for impending climate-related disruption. Catastrophic weather damages homes, commercial buildings, and critical infrastructure which may be irreparable as well as generates power outages and grid failures, devastating economic activity and social wellbeing.

The study identified that stakeholders in commercial real sector are not yet adequately informed and engaged as is necessary to address the pending systemic impact of catastrophic climate change events on infrastructure, business activity, public safety and community well-being.

Keywords: Environmental

Email address: michi.komor@gmail.com

Project website: https://sbcanada.org/

Utopia is not a dirty word

How to dream finer dreams?

The current dominant images of the future seem bleak. There seems to be a boom for dystopias and visions of apocalypse. We seem to suffer from an inability to envisage new possibilities. We cannot see alternative futures as better and are stuck in the extended present. To get rid of apathy and the inability to envisage new possibilities, we need to be allowed to have faith in the future; we need to imagine several different futures and we need to have new language and images to make better futures understandable. In the words of Fred Polak, we need to dream finer dreams. In this presentation, I will explore the role of utopias as a method for imagining radically better futures and the capabilities needed for creating societal change towards better futures. How can we use utopias as ways to broaden the range of imaginable futures and also broaden the range of people included in discussion of preferred futures? And what are the capabilities needed for imagining, discussing and creating radically better futures?

Bio

Mikko Dufva is Sitra’s leading foresight specialist. In his work, he examines future trends, the tensions between these trends and mental images connected with the future. In addition, he seeks to identify signals that may be weak now but are nevertheless significant from the point of view of the future. Mikko has extensive experience in foresight studies and a doctorate in Science (Technology) on creation of futures knowledge and systemic foresight.

Email: mikko.dufva@sitra.fi

Website: https://www.sitra.fi/en/blogs/what-do-better-futures-look-like/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mdufva

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dufva/

Instagram: https://instagram.com/mdufva/

Tapping into endless curiosity – the making of an infinite learner

We’re stuck in an archaic mode of learning. Our learning institutions & mindsets are outdated. Programs complementary to formal education (opportunities often reaped in liminal periods and career transitions) are ad-hoc & timebound, failing to support learning that sticks & spreads through our systems. Our unique capability as humans is to be endlessly curious – how might we become infinite learners? To tackle the complex socio-political problems of today & the future, we need to be multidisciplinary & work across sectors. While many groups encourage this mode of collaboration (eg. Open Government Partnership, Nesta’s States of Change) the cognitive glue to foster agile, ongoing, intergenerational learning continues to be missing at scale. At The Residency, we are building a global learning collective for Change Designers through a participatory design process. We’re testing 4 hypotheses based on learning theories & empirical evidence of learning models: 1)learning sticks when it is layered (peer-to-peer, explicit, participatory, & self-directed) 2)learning spreads when it is regenerative through intentional collective practice 3)seamless multidisciplinarity requires close attention to intersections of generalist/specialist (e.g process/subject-matter knowledge) 4) mindsets (dispositions, reasoning, emotions,& implicit rules) are barriers to impactful learning.

Bio

Nicole is the co-founder of The Residency, an emergent practical learning collective for Change Designers – civil servants, civil society and social designers -and part-time faculty in the Transdisciplinary Design MFA program at the Parsons School of Design, The New School in New York. She is a political economist with a specialized practice in participatory design and mixed-methods research and runs a consultancy, Collectivist, focused on governance and systems change. Nicole has extensive experience in research, program implementation, and community facilitation in South Asia, Latin America and West Africa. Previously, Nicole directed the strategy and learning of international civil society organizations while contributing as a leader in the open government movement.

Project: https://medium.com/@theresidency.design

Email: nicole.anand@gmail.com

Returning to the Land

The presentation will elaborate on some of the key ideas mentioned in my bio. – learned values of a small town vs a large city – how they have hindered and/or helped me thrive – why I chose winemaking and grape growing as a conduit to embody my values – how this change has shifted my mindset and improved my well-being – how is this new environment creating a shift in the status quo – why I believe this may be a future resonant to others

Bio

My name is Niki. I used to be a city dweller, capitalist, living in a condo in the sky. My childhood exposed me to a very different experience; spending summers in an agrarian community in Macedonia. These polar environments supported opposing values of life that challenged me. After a decade of working professionally in the city, I had to leave it behind. In 2017, I moved to the southeastern tip of Australia to pursue a rural life that was more aligned with my core values. The entirety of my life experiences culminated to my journey now. I work outdoors nurturing an ecosystem of grapevines and making wine organically. My future is a place where my actions are synonymous with my values, grounded in nature and supported by a humane local economy.

Keywords: Sense of place; Environmental; Thriving communities; Transparency

Email: niki.nikolovski@icloud.com

Project website: http://www.babchewines.com

Participatory Futures for Better Governance

From Black Mirror to Brexit, societies across the globe are facing increasing distrust of institutions, socio-economic polarization, and the dominance of dystopian imagery. Our images of the present and the future are leading us towards decay. This status quo cannot stand.

To counter this, Nesta, the innovation foundation, commissioned the Action Foresight’s Global Swarm to explore how participatory futures might offer alternative and emerging methodologies to bring people together to envision alternatives and desirable futures.

We look at participatory futures as a medium for people to think (and feel) differently, openly, and critically about the future together – to create constructive, participatory, and radical changes.

To date, we have developed multiple typologies to help us better understand participatory futures – specifically around how, when, and what kind to use. Looking at over 300 case studies from Bangladesh to Mexico, we explored why and how such approaches are put into practice as well as what they can and might produce, including both preferred and unexpected outcomes.

The FutureFestival will be our first-time showcasing our work. Here, we hope to continue the conversation and explore participatory futures with FuturesFestival attendees and discuss its capacity for radical transformations.

Bio

Dr Anisah graduated with a PhD (Operations Research) from Strathclyde University. She uses foresight to help organisations plan strategically and she consults the design and development of performance measurement systems for organisational improvement. She is currently obsessed with the thoughts of challenging the dominant assumptions embedded in the conceptual tools of futures studies.   Her portfolio of strategy development workshops include Dubai Police, UNDP Georgia and Innovative Service Lab Georgia, Employee Provident Fund Malaysia, Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia, National Higher Education Research Institute Malaysia and International Islamic University Malaysia.  At present she serves as a Senior Teaching Fellow at the Strathclyde Business School where she delivers three MBA courses: Operations Management, Strategic Consulting in Practice and Project/Research Methodology;  conducts Foresight Executive Education Workshops; and supports the teaching and learning development at the seven international centers.  She tweets about trends, emerging issues and all things weird at itsAnisah and in 2017, founded Futures_Sandbox ( onTwitter) as a community platform for advancing Futures Literacy.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anisah/

Twitter: @itsAnisah

Roundtable: Futures of Food – We are – and will become – what we eat

Food is one of our most fundamental experiences, touching almost every aspect of human endeavor. How we approach feeding ourselves — as individuals, as a culture and as a planet — will be one of the defining challenges of our shared future. Here in Toronto there is a remarkable array of individuals exploring novel approaches to food, and their stories and successes are setting the stage for the Futures of Food. For Futures Festival ’19 we are inviting 5 local food innovators to share what they have learned from the past, what they are doing in the present and how they envision the future. Across topics from food policy, justice and sovereignty, to the future of bars, restaurants and home-cooked meals, we will explore a diverse range of perspectives on what and how we will be eating in years to come. This session will include 5 short presentations + Q&A and be followed by a family-style dinner party hosted at The Depanneur where speakers and guests will share a meal inspired by their vision of the future. How can what and how we eat shape and transform the future we share?

Bio

Teach the Future Update: Building momentum for teaching the future

Futures studies and strategic foresight are growing slowly but sustainably in public presentations, corporate seminars and graduate programs throughout the world. Peopleare beginning to realize that the unprecedented changes we experience today require a different, more sophisticated approach to the future. However, so far, students have been left out of this discussion. Unless we introduce students to thinking about and preparing for the future while they are still in school, we will still be remediating what adults learned about the future far into this century. Most members of the APF already know that Teach the Future is a non-profit corporation whose mission is to bring futures thinking to schools around the world. After a brief introduction on that mission for those who have not heard of Teach the Future, three members of Teach the Future will update the Festival on its accomplishments since last year.

Bio

Dr. Bishop is the Founder and Executive Director of Teach the Future, an organization whose mission is to encourage and support educators who want to include futures thinking in their classes and schools at all levels. In 2013, Dr. Bishop retired as a Professor Emeritus of Strategic Foresight and Director of the graduate program in Foresight at the University of Houston.

He has published two books on Strategic Foresight: Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (2007) and Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (2012), both with co-author Andy Hines.

Keywords: Technological

Email address: peter@teachthefuture.org

Project website: http://teachthefuture.org

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkvK-dcUrDbBYm5hmaUQzoQ

Twitter: @teachfutures

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/9205820/admin/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/teachfutures?ref=hl

Collaboratively building higher education futures – Using design techniques to build collaboration into the visioning and strategy process

This talk will focus on our recent work with the University of Edinburgh in which we explore various ways to involve the University’s community (students, staff, locals) in collaboratively building visions and strategies for various initiatives. In particular, the talk will reflect on our use of design methodologies in this work, reflecting on the impact of blending a design and futures approach in these contexts. The talk will primarily focus on Near Future Teaching (nearfutureteaching.ed.ac.uk), a project exploring the future of digital education, but will also touch on related work with the Edinburgh Futures Institute (efi.ed.ac.uk). Initially, it will give a high level overview of these projects, before focussing on specific moments in the process, in order to demonstrate and discuss the added value of using design within a futures approach as a way to stimulate discussion, increase project engagement, and help to communicate findings.

Bio

Santini believes that long-term thinking in innovation can lead us to better and more sustainable decisions now. In 2016, he founded Andthen, a small design strategy consultancy based in Scotland which is investigating this belief, and exploring ways to think about the future that can positively affect the present. Through marrying design research with futures thinking, Andthen help its clients better understand the communities they are serving, and anticipate how the context they operate in, or the people they serve may change over time. Santini has worked with a broad range of clients, across sectors such as mental health, retail, finance, education, and construction, investigating the role of a blended design and futures approach in these contexts. In addition, he is a visiting lecturer at the Glasgow School of Art, teaching futures methods to students at the Innovation School.

Related video: https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/1_uzq4yael

Contact

Can design education focussed on impact uplift rural children?

Children are highly creative and have natural problem solving abilities, however, their voice is often neglected in their communities owing to (a) Lack of inclusivity of children who are not academically inclined but have great creative potential (b) Lack of connection to the real world thereby not being exposed to the practical challenges (c) Lack of ownership in school and development In order to solve this, we present our impact based educational system for children from marginalised/low income communities, discussing aspects of how it has led to an improvement in the self esteem of the children, also improving other 21st century skills through an ‘impact based portfolio’ Through this approach, we have seen examples of rural children getting scholarships, women self help groups setting up enterprises based on student innovations, participation of girls in STEM related activities and so on. The stakeholders/communities involved are : children aged 10 to 14, local youth members responsible for managing innovation labs (18 to 22), women self-help groups etc The process which we have followed is a human-centered design curriculum which involves what we unconditioning, critical thinking and design thinking stages with an emphasis given to co-creation as a powerful tool to make the innovations more contextualised, leading to more such grassroot innovations.

Bio

I’m a social impact designer running my own non-profit organisation, Lead by Design Foundation where I work with children from low income communities, developing their leadership skills so that they could solve their own community challenges through social innovation.

Email: shreyas314159@gmail.com

Project website: http://dhivefoundation.org/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shreyasprakash/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dhivelabs/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dhivelabs/

Personal website: tiny.cc/shreyasprakash

 An analysis of visions of radically alternative “good” futures for southern Africa

In the rapidly changing and uncertain world of the Anthropocene, positive visions of the future could play a crucial role in catalysing deep social-ecological transformations to help guide humanity towards more sustainable and equitable futures. This talk presents the outcomes from a novel visioning process designed to elicit creative and inspirational future scenarios for southern Africa. The approach based scenario development on “seeds of good Anthropocenes”, i.e. existing initiatives or technologies that represent current, local-scale innovations for sustainability. A selection of seeds was used to create four distinct, positive visions in a participatory workshop process. The narratives presented here describe worlds that have undergone a more significant paradigm shift towards shared human values and stewardship of resources than is explored in most other ambient narratives for the region. These “Good Anthropocene” scenarios therefore demonstrate more radical, unimagined ways of thinking about sustainability futures on the African continent and beyond.

Bio

Tanja Hichert is an experienced professional futurist who has maintained a link with academic Futures Studies in her career as a practitioner specialising in: scenario planning, horizon scanning, risk management and facilitating strategic conversations that provide clarity and direction for organisations and institutions faced with complexity and uncertainty. She has extensive experience applying Futures Studies to ‘development issues’ in the ‘emerging world’, together with a solid track record in business strategy. Tanja teaches post-graduate students and serves on boards of Futures organisations. Her passion is expanding and building the practical application of Future Studies on the African continent. Where opportunity allows, she loves innovative and experimental approaches, and working at the intersection of complex issues. Tanja lives near Cape Town, South Africa, and works all over the world.

Email address: Tanja@hichert.co.za

Project website: http://www0.sun.ac.za/cst/news/pushing-boundaries-to-create-positive-visions-of-the-future-for-southern-africa/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/TanjaHichert

Other links: https://goodanthropocenes.net/

A radical move towards a sustainable world

Is the current 18th-century economic system an adequate form of social organization on the planet?

Despite significant improvements in the social organization (women’s suffrage, abolition of slavery, etc.), coupled with many tech advancements that came into fruition since the technological revolution, today’s world is in deep crisis. A cursory glance at the state of the world today reveals a range of problems, ranging from destabilizing economic inequality and conflict to environmental destruction, climate change and more. While many see these issues as isolated silos that can be successfully resolved without a larger systemic change, the truth of the matter is that they are consequential symptoms of an outdated social system. Therefore, a global, systemic, and structural change is required. In this presentation, I will outline the rationale for a radical move away from the incentives and structural dynamics of the market system to a socio-economic system derived and based on modern principles of scientific, sustainable earthly management. More specifically, the presentation will focus on six foundational pillars underpinning the new social system. These are: • Automation of labor • Access over poverty • Self-contained/localized city and production systems • Technological unification of Earth via ‘systems’ approach • The scientific method as the methodology for governance • Moving away from money and markets

Bio

Shortly after Tomas concluded his MSc. in Environmental Policy and Economics, he spent four years working in the field of environmental sustainability and climate change mitigation. Prior to this, Tomas spent several months with the Environmental Justice Coalition for Water in the U.S. More recently, Tomas dedicated himself to the field of science education by working for a Brussels-based NGO. Over the last 18 months, he’s been focused on anti-corruption in sustainable development. In addition to his professional pursuits in the non-governmental sector, Tomas has been an active member of the Zeitgeist Movement, a global sustainability and public health advocacy organization. Over the last ten years, he has contributed to various translations of educational materials put out by the movement. Besides being a passionate environmentalist and a proponent of scientific method for global governance, Tomas enjoys socio-economic research and historic as well as futurist literature. He is 34 years old and lives in Berlin, Germany.

Email address: rehacek.tomas@gmail.com

Project website: https://www.thezeitgeistmovement.com/

Encoded Knitting

Algorithm amplifying is a series of projects reimagining and rethinking the role of AI/ML in our lives. By presenting the project, the talk introduces a design methodology to create an iterative collaboration between A.I. and users. It also invites feedback and discussion on thinking about the future of AI/ML in the virtual gathering. We are living in a ubiquitous AI algorithm age. However, instead of benefitting its users, those algorithms are designed to aid the government and corporations to promote, control, and manage capital. We are living in a bubble that AI selected for us, our imagination is trapped. Working with AI/ML interactively is not only a new way to design but also an approach to escape from that bubble. By sharing the intention, design process, and final outcome of the project, Algorithm Jamplifying encourages not just designers but everyone to rethink their relationship with AI algorithms and start to imagine a future with AI that amplifies their desires, values, and creativity, to exert more control over their presence on the platform.

Bio

Yunying Huang is a media artist, creative technologist, and multimedia designer. By incorporating theory and techniques from emerging technology, pop culture, fashion, and social media, Huang creates innovative experiences for media platforms that address the authentic nature of everyday lives in China; challenges the Eurocentric and Orientalist perception of techno-culture. Her work, inspired by the unique aesthetic and behavior incubated by the political oppression in China, explores our contemporary relationship to emerging technology, social identities, self-expression, and aesthetics; interrogating and intervening in the circulation of dominant ideology, agency, creativity in our everyday lives, online and off. Huang holds a B.E. in Digital Media Technology and she is a recent graduate of Media Design Practices (MFA) at ArtCenter College of Design. Her work has been featured and shown at It’s Nice That, PRIMER, ArtCenter, Parsons School of Design, and the Wrong Biennale.

Email: yunyinghhh@gmail.com

Website: https://yunyingh.com/Algorithm-Jamplifying

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yunyingh/