Have you ever wondered why it is so hard for organizations to think about the future? Dave Roselle, a futurist and strategic designer, will give a primer on strategic foresight. He will share the practice’s rich history of aiding organizations to adopt proactive mindsets as well as promising trends for how it drives impact today. As we prepare for a post-COVID19 world, Dave believes this is needed now more than ever.

Speculative futures, foresight, scenario design, and other futures thinking methodologies seem to be set far into the future. They appear difficult to apply in business contexts that focus primarily on short- and mid-term time horizons. But at Minkowski they've used this approach with many companies for years. In this talk, Jörgen will demonstrate how he applies futures thinking for clients, offers his view on how to bridge the gap between the far future and what businesses can activate today, and will guide us through a participatory exercise.

In our next session, Trisha Williams and Joseph Unger, Co-founders of Pigeon Hole Productions, will share their approach and practical experiences world building - within entertainment and games to communities with citizens in San Diego/Tijuana and Kansas City.

Design Fiction is a discovery-based practice for testing assumptions, envisioning possible outcomes, and discerning implications of strategic decision making. It operates best in contexts of uncertainty and unknowability. Rather than predicting results, it reveals possible, probable, and cautionary outcomes to be avoided, and thus presents a broader range of considerations that many other assessment protocols tend to avoid. Design Fiction answers the question, “So..what?” in a uniquely vivid way inspiring rich reflection and sparking engaged, productive conversation by visualizing the on-the-ground implications of trends and their consequences. In this talk Julian will share a brief history of Design Fiction, an overview of the approach, case studies, and respond to questions.

Brooks will speak about Afrofuturism 2.0 and Black Speculative responses to re-envision broken systems and bring the spirit of the Black Panther Party and Wakanda/Okanda into reality and shape-shifting form. Dr. Brooks develops and promotes a wider Afrocentric perspective that champions Black storytelling and imagination, to push beyond the colonial mindset into an expanded vision of possible futures.

Explore with us as we play Afro-Rithms From The Future, a world building game where Black Futures matter! A forecasting game, Afro-Rithms From The Future suggests that by changing the traditional white, patriarchal normative gaze of racism and lens through which we normally view the world, we aim to change the game to expand alternative perceptions of the world through Black and (BIPOC) perspectives. The term Afro-Rithms is intentional to center the ubiquity of algorithms in our digital society to shift the digital lens that further reinforces and perpetuates dominant inequities to enable us to expand our range of possible and more equitable, liberating multiverses. Learn more at afrorithms.com

UPCOMING EVENT!