IFTF Foresight Essentials
IFTF Foresight Talks
Moderated one-hour sessions filled with tips, insights, and first-hand experience, IFTF Foresight Talks spark rich dialogue among futures thinkers from leading organizations as they discuss how to navigate today’s global turbulence — and transform challenges into tomorrow’s opportunities.
IFTF Foresight Talks are free, open to all, and ideal for graduates of the IFTF Foresight Essentials training. Each session includes a period for questions from the audience, and is archived below one week after its airing. Foresight Talks occur monthly.
Upcoming IFTF Foresight Talks
How to Future: A Practical, Tactical Guide to Foresight
Wednesday, September 30th
9:00am PT / 12:00 ET
Institute for the Future will host renowned futurists and teachers Madeline Ashby and Scott Smith to discuss their new book How to Future: Leading and Sensemaking in an Age of Hyperchange. We'll get a taste of what's in the book, share reflections on how futuring feels different in a post-COVID world, and make room for your questions. Join us as Scott and Madeline share valuable lessons from their extensive careers as futures practitioners.
Madeline Ashby is a science fiction writer, futurist, speaker, teacher, and immigrant living in Toronto. She has worked with Intel Labs, the World Health Organization, the Institute for the Future, SciFutures, Nesta, Data & Society, The Atlantic Council, Changeist, and others. She has spoken at SXSW, FutureEverything, MozFest, and other events. Her essays have appeared at BoingBoing, io9, WorldChanging, The Atlantic, MISC Magazine, and FutureNow. Her fiction has appeared in Slate, MIT Technology Review, Clarkesworld, and multiple anthologies. She is a member of the XPRIZE Science Fiction Advisory Council and the AI Policy Futures Group at the ASU Center for Science and the Imagination. She is the author of the Machine Dynasty novels. Her novel Company Town was a Canada Reads finalist.
Scott Smith is founder and managing partner of Changeist, a futures research and consulting partnership established in 2007 in the United States, now based in the Netherlands. Having worked for more than 15 years in futures, Scott has consulted to a range of global institutions, including SWIFT, UNICEF, The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, The Royal Society, Nesta, and the Dubai Future Foundation. He has also led engagements with some of the largest and most respected global financial, retail, telecoms, technology and media brands, such as the BBC, The New York Times, ASOS, VF, and Comcast. He has designed and delivered futures projects, talks and workshops in over a dozen countries and facilitated projects and workshops multiple languages. Scott helped create and lead the Strategic Foresight program for Dubai Future Academy, and lectures in the Innovation & Future Thinking program at IED Barcelona, a course he designed. He was also recently named to the Executive Board of the Center for Futures Studies at the University of Dubai.
From the Archives of Foresight Talks
IFTF Foresight Talk with Ann Pendleton-Julian & John Seely Brown: Steering Change in a Whitewater World—Working with Wicked Problems: PART 2
We are now living in a whitewater world: hyperconnected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent. On Thursday, Sept 3, 2020, IFTF hosted a talk with Ann Pendleton-Jullian and John Seely Brown, whose book, Design Unbound, argues the need for a new approach to address the complex and entangled challenges increasingly found in this dynamic world. Pendleton-Jullian and Brown describe a new mindset based on understanding complex systems from an ecological perspective and introduce tools to respond to these challenges.The authors call for harnessing the power of a pragmatic imagination that engages a full range of mental activities to discover radically new solutions. They describe the practice of "world building," which can guide the development of transformational solutions to seemingly intractable—"wicked"—problems. Part Two went into more depth on the pragmatic imagination - how to scaffold and instrumentalize it - and presented a case study that pulls all of this together. You do not need to have seen Part 1 of the webinar, but we recommend watching it for a deeper understanding.
IFTF Foresight Talk with Ann Pendleton-Julian & John Seely Brown: Steering Change in a Whitewater World—Working with Wicked Problems: PART 1
We are now living in a whitewater world: hyperconnected, rapidly changing, and radically contingent. On Thursday, Aug 20, 2020, IFTF hosted a talk with Ann Pendleton-Julian and John Seely Brown, whose book, Design Unbound, argues the need for a new approach to address the complex and entangled challenges increasingly found in this dynamic world.Pendleton-Julian and Brown describe a new mindset based on understanding complex systems from an ecological perspective and introduce tools to respond to these challenges.The authors call for harnessing the power of a pragmatic imagination that engages a full range of mental activities to discover radically new solutions. They describe the practice of "world building," which can guide the development of transformational solutions to seemingly intractable—"wicked"—problems.
IFTF Foresight Talk: How to Build Brave New Worlds
On July 16, 2020, IFTF's Director of Game Research and Development Jane McGonigal hosted a free, public-facing webinar with guest Leah Zaidi, master storyteller and founder of the strategic foresight consultancy Multiverse Design to hear some of Leah Zaidi's most surprising recent forecasts on the future of love technology and the future of work, as she unpacked the process of how she created them. Leah gave an up-to-date look at how the possible long-term consequences of our global COVID-19 response are changing and playing out differently in different parts of the world. Jane and Leah also explored the connections between game design and the seven foundations of worldbuilding, inspired by how science fiction writers imagine and communicate new possibilities.
IFTF Foresight Talk with Cecily Sommers
On June 9, 2020 Institute for the Future's research director Jake Dunagan hosted Cecily Sommers, Business Futurist, in a Foresight Talk. When the ball dropped on the 21st century, it collided with three technological revolutions (AI, synthetic biology, quantum computing) that are redefining humanity, and three existential threats (pandemics, climate change, nuclear war) that could wipe it out. Now, twenty years later, as we transition into a new decade, futurist Cecily Sommers will address how COVID-19 is accelerating the pendular transition into a new era, and the equal and opposite potentials it is energizing for business and society.
IFTF Foresight Talk: Laura Nissen—Building the US's First Lab to Explore the Future of Social Work
The new National Social Work Education Health Futures Lab will “create opportunities for social workers to come together and envision a world that they would like to be in, while building the skills to help get there,” says Portland State University’s Professor Dr. Laura Nissen, principal investigator of the new lab. On Tuesday, May 19th, IFTF hosted a free webinar with Dr. Laura Nissen, PSU Presidential Futures Fellow and IFTF Research Fellow, to learn how she's spearheading significant research projects “on issues related to the future such as technology use and impact, climate change, and related topics.”
IFTF Foresight Talk with Stuart Candy
On Tuesday, April 28, 2020 IFTF hosted Dr. Stuart Candy, Director of Situation Lab, Associate Professor of Design at Carnegie Mellon University, and Fellow of The Long Now Foundation, for a webinar about how designing fragments of possible futures can help create social and organizational change. Professor Candy shared some of the methods that he has devised and employed with communities, learners, and institutions around the world.
IFTF Foresight Talk with Dr. René Rohrbeck of EDHEC Business School
On Thursday, March 12th, Institute for the Future, together with EDHEC Business School's Dr. René Rohrbeck, hosted a free and public-facing webinar about how organizations can use foresight tools and methods to drive organizational transformation, strategic innovation, and desirable futures. Dr. Rohrbeck discussed methods that he and his team have developed and their learnings from 15 years of benchmarking firms on corporate foresight.
IFTF Foresight Talk with The World Bank Group's Rachel Alexandra Halsema
On Thursday, February 20th, Institute for the Future, together with The World Bank Group's Rachel Alexandra Halsema, hosted a free and public-facing webinar about how she's applying foresight and design thinking in her role at the ITS Technology & Innovation Lab and what impact it has on the organization's global work.
IFTF Foresight Talks: Designing the Future with Jake Dunagan and Jacques Barcia
On Thursday, January 16, 2020, Institute for the Future hosted a free and public-facing webinar with award-winning design futurists and the instructors of IFTF's new Design Futures Training, Dr. Jake Dunagan and Jacques Barcia, about why it's important to create full-bodied experiences of the future in order to truly immerse people in your vision.
IFTF Foresight Talks: Futures and Forests—Strategic Foresight at the U.S. Forest Service
On Wednesday, December 11th at 9:00am Pacific Time, Institute for the Future, together with the US Forest Service's David Bengston and Jason Crabtree, hosted a free and public-facing webinar about how they're developing and applying foresight methods and thinking to help forest planners, managers, and policy makers anticipate and prepare for change.
IFTF Foresight Talk with Jane McGonigal
On Thursday, November 14, Institute for the Future hosted a free webinar with Director of Games Research & Development, Dr. Jane McGonigal, about how she's pushing the futures thinking field from niche to mainstream by way of her new massively open online courses, which invite the public to game out hard-to-anticipate futures together.
IFTF Foresight Talk: Nestle's Global Consumer Insight & Market Intelligence Mgr, Dimitri Gerebtzoff
On Thursday, September 19th, Institute for the Future, together with Nestle's Global Consumer Insight and Market Intelligence Manager, Dimitri Gerebtzoff, hosted public-facing webinar about what it's like to sense early trends at one of the world's leading food companies. Join us to talk about how Dimitri manages his global network of trend sensers and how he transforms trends into business opportunities and products.
IFTF Foresight Talks with Lisa K. Solomon of the Stanford University d. School
On July 24, 2019 Institute for the Future, together with Stanford University d.school's Designer in Residence Lisa Kay Solomon, hosted a free and public-facing webinar about the intersections and applications of design and futures thinking.
IFTF Foresight Talks: Webinar with Microsoft Envisioning Team's Ming-Li Chai and Harald Becker
On March 19, 2019
Institute for the Future, together with Microsoft Envisioning Team's Ming-Li Chai and Harald Becker, hosted a free webinar for the public about what it's like to make the future in one of the world's leading tech companies
Foresight Essentials
Calendar of Upcoming Trainings
- October 14-November 13, 6 sessions, 4.5 weeks, Live-Online (SOLD OUT)
- December 1-15, 6 sessions, 2 weeks, Live-Online
- February 9-23, 6 sessions, 2 weeks, Live-Online
- April 7-May 7, 6 sessions, 5 weeks, Live-Online
Design Futures Training
- October 13-15, Live-Online
About IFTF Foresight Essentials
Institute for the Future is the world’s leading futures organization. Its training program, IFTF Foresight Essentials, is a comprehensive portfolio of strategic foresight training tools based upon 50 years of IFTF best practices. IFTF Foresight Essentials cultivates the mindset and skillsets that enable individuals and organizations to foresee future forces, identify emerging imperatives, and develop world-ready strategies. IFTF Foresight Essentials is uniquely customizable for businesses, government agencies, and social impact organizations.
Interested in learning more about our webinars and trainings?
Contact our team here:
Neela Lazkani | nlazkani@iftf.org