About Futures Festival
Futures Festival is a purely volunteer run annual knowledge sharing event, hosted by APF (Association of Professional Futurists). The 2021 team is made up of returning and new global volunteers. All united in valuing the festival’s principles of inclusion, plurality, and collective participation as a means to how we can move towards challenging the status quo and move towards preferable shared futures.
We are committed to creating an event that showcases global and diverse examples of inter-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary practitioners and organizations who are putting these principles to practice. In that sense, as a team we have chosen to prioritize applied examples over speculative work. We would love to know you more so please do reach out - you can find our contact info on our bio pages!
Futures Festival Team
Prateeksha Singh
Co-Chair of Futures Festival
Multidisciplinary Designer
Prateeksha Singh is a multidisciplinary designer based in Bangkok, Thailand. Working at the intersection of foresight + systems + design, she is driven to working with diverse voices and harnessing inclusive and plural images of the future. She currently serves as the Head of Experimentation with the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Asia Pacific Regional Innovation Centre. In this role she supports regional offices, and government partners in further developing their innovation based institutional capabilities by drawing on participatory design, systemic design, foresight, experimentation, as well as public policy innovation. In her personal time, she continues to seek ways to creatively apply her skills to social issues.
Her work (solo and collaborative) includes facilitated sessions, workshops, experiential installations, written articles, and can be found in a range of leading publications, conferences, radio shows, and art shows.
Prateeksha is pretty involved with the global foresight community. She holds a M.Des in Strategic Foresight & Innovation from OCAD University in Toronto, sat on the board of the Association of Professional Futurists (2018-2021), co-chairs the annual virtual APF Futures Festival (2018-2021), and is the 2019 Next Generation Foresight Practitioner global award recipient.
Graciela Guadarrama
Co-Chair of Futures Festival
Design Researcher | Strategist | Futurist
Graciela Guadarrama Baena is a globetrotter, originally from Mexico. Her experience encompasses Innovation and Design to the fullest extent. She uses methodologies from different disciplines to facilitate processes of action and transformation; these include Social Innovation, Critical Design, Participatory Futures and Systems thinking. Graciela believes in storytelling as a crucial tool for change and enjoys participatory design and co-creation. In addition, her interest and experience include Experiential Futures and Strategic Foresight, as she has a master's degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Because of her profile and curious mind, she has worked with various groups and organisations in the public, private and civil society sectors. She has also worked with international institutions such as UNESCO, WFP and the EU on various social and environmental issues. She is co-founder of Futures Space, The Digital Home for Futurists & Futures Activists, a global community of futurists and futures activists where they learn and challenge each other. Among her multiple participations in “Futures”, since 2018 she has been the co-chair of the APF Futures Festival, whose mission is to provide an inclusive platform for foresight professionals. Graciela is also an Associate of the IPD (Institute for Development Planning) a think-tank based in Mexico City which projects focus on social development, where she assists with research, strategic foresight and design.
gracielagb.com, Futures Space, Lab Sobremesa, IPD, LinkedIn, Twitter, Medium
Zan Chandler
FORESIGHT PRACTITIONER & EDUCATOR | DESIGN RESEARCHER
Zan is a foresight practitioner and educator, and a design researcher based in Toronto. Her background includes training in foresight, innovation, public policy, media production and linguistics. As a result, she brings pattern-finding, synthesis and analysis, and facilitation skills gained from this journey to bear on projects spanning multiple domains and sectors, including all levels of government, Arts, Cultural and Heritage sectors, Post-secondary education, Transportation, Retail, Military, and Non-profit. A graduate of the University of Toronto, Ryerson University and OCAD University, her working approach, grounded in empathy and justice, is underpinned by human-centred design research, futures and systems thinking.
Zan’s energy is shared across several endeavors important to her: foresight and design research for a Toronto-based design consultancy as well as teaching foresight/futures thinking and supporting student learning at OCAD University’s Masters Program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation and the Rotman MBA program at the University of Toronto.
Shreyas Prakash
User Experience Designer and Entrepreneur
Shreyas Prakash is a User Experience Designer and Entrepreneur. He is the Co-founder of dVerse Labs, a healthcare startup focused on tackling hospital-acquired infections. The startup is a recipient of the MIT COVID India Grant and is supported by the Embassy of the US to India (Nexus). Shreyas had also previously set up an educational non-profit (dHive Labs) helping children from marginalized communities to invent for social good. Through his non-profit work, he has impacted 1200+ rural children to become social changemakers across India and Nepal. Shreyas is especially involved with the design for social impact community and has extensively designed products for vulnerable populations which include deaf-blind runners, Alzheimer's patients and marginalized children. He holds an M.Sc in Integrated Product Design from Delft University of Technology (Netherlands). He has also been on the Advisory Board of hundrED Visual Arts Education (2020) and has been a recipient of several awards which include iF Design Talent Award 2020, the 3M Young Innovators Award, UNICEF Ideas for Change etc. Besides this, he also hosts a podcast (Shake Up The World) where he interviews designers and futurists in imagining a positive utopian future through thoughtful discussions. He is also a big believer in the power of side-projects and is currently on a mission to build and launch one side project every month.
Francisco Hueyatl León
Visual Design & Branding
Illustrator and Graphic Designer
Francisco Hueyatl León is an illustrator and graphic designer. He has developed design and creativity projects with international organizations such as UNICEF Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean and Play for Peace; mexican organizations such as Laetus Vitae Vida Alegre (First day centre for LGBTQ older adults) and Casa de las Muñecas Tiresias A.C. At the same time he has collaborated with brands such as Mcgraw-Hill Education, Sesame Street, Allianz, among others.
In 2014, he created the illustration project Flor de Fango, through this cartoon he seeks to share a message of inclusion since anyone can embody Flor's bones regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, skin tone or other aspects: “at the end we are all skeletons”. This project has been presented in cities such as Madrid, Milan and Caracas. Likewise, he has participated in important venues in Mexico such as the State Commission for Human Rights in Toluca, the Cultural Week of Sexual Diversity of the Vela Muxe in Juchitán, Oaxaca, as well as in the UN simulators focused on youth such as CONGRESMUND 2015 in Chamber of Deputies, General Congress of the United Mexican States and MONUUNAM 2016 at the Palacio de Minería.
Francisco is currently pursuing a master's degree in Design and Visual Communication at the Faculty of Art and Design at UNAM.
Kelly Kornet
PARTICIPATORY FUTURIST & DESIGNER
Kelly finds meaning in creating the conditions for individuals and organizations to envision hopeful futures and find the courage to transform in uncertain times. As a Design Lead, she supports our client partners in navigating their transformation journeys, encouraging active reflection, radical candour and kindness along the way.
Prior to Coeuraj, she led the Strategic Foresight practice at Kalypso. In this role, she guided private and public sector clients through their transformation journeys in Germany, Japan, USA and Canada. Kelly holds a Master’s of Design in Strategic Foresight and Innovation and is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists.
Jeremy Wilken
Website
Technology Leader & Futurist
Jeremy is well rounded technology leader and emerging futurist. He has hosted podcasts, written books, and spoken at events around the world on technical and social topics. He currently works as a technology leader at VMware. He is also a Google Developer Expert for the Google Assistant, Web Technologies, and Angular.
