What We Do
Jake Dunagan
Research Director
As a research director at IFTF, Jake’s focus is the examination of social invention and the redesign of systems in light of current and emerging tools and knowledge. He has conducted research, written, and lectured on a wide range of topics, including strategic foresight, governance design, comprehensive cognitive design, intellectual property, judicial foresight, kids’ technologies, Internet law and politics, mobility, and the future of learning and work.
Jake joined IFTF in 2008 and brought with him the alternative futures methodology developed at the Manoa School of Futures Studies. He continues to explore new futures methodologies and also design artifacts, games, immersive experiences of future worlds, and guerilla public engagement projects that inject the future into the mental ecology of the present.
Jake holds a BA in visual anthropology from Auburn University, an MA in visual anthropology from Temple University, and a PhD from the Manoa School of Futures Studies at the University of Hawaii with an emphasis in neuropolitics, governance design, alternative futures, and communication of foresight. He is currently an adjunct professor in the MBA in Design Strategy program at the California College of the Arts, where he teaches strategic foresight, tactical media, and social invention.
Making the Future
“As the world hurtles toward self-destruction, in large part due to mass aversion to forward thinking and an institutional lack of foresight capacity, futures practices must take on more urgency and must get better. Connected minds from across the planet are potentially the greatest source of imagination and problem solving ever invented. Connected minds generate more alternative futures, and some of these visions could lead the way to better outcomes for humans and the planet.”