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July 19-21, 2013
Hilton Chicago Hotel
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.

Preconference Courses: July 18-19, 2013
Professional Members’ Forum: July 22, 2013

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WorldFuture 2013 Futuring Sessions

Maximize the National and International Impact of Foresight Work

Since its creation in 1994, the Foresight Programme has helped the UK government to think systematically about the future and has advised the government on how to ensure today’s decisions are robust in light of future uncertainties.

Sandy Thomas is the head of Foresight in the Government Office for Science, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills; former director, Nuffield Council on Bioethics, London, United Kingdom

Natural Foresight: Four Steps to a Futures Culture

As more and more companies begin to recognize the importance of foresight and futures thinking in their increasingly complex organizations, there has been a strong call for tools and methods that can seamlessly integrate into their current processes and corporate cultures.

Yvette Montero Salvatico (@ymslavatico) and has over 15 years of corporate experience with large, multinational firms such as Kimberly-Clark and the Walt Disney Company. Before becoming a partner at Kedge, she led the effort to establish Future Workforce Insights at the Walt Disney Company, identifying future workforce trends and leveraging foresight models and techniques to assess potential threats, impacts, emerging ideas, and opportunities for the organization. Kissimmee, Florida, USA

Frank Spencer (@frankspencer) is founder of Kedge. For five years, he has been a leadership coach and developer with entrepreneurs, social communities, networking initiatives, and SMEs, helping them in areas such as development, innovation, and networking. He is a member of the Association of Professional Futurists and the World Futures Studies Federation, Savannah, Georgia, USA

Starting Integral:Visioning and a New STEEP

This session is about using an Integral perspective as the starting point for foresight work. The panel will speak to visioning at the beginning of the process and also that the visioning activity should include an enquiry of what wants to emerge from the “evolutionary integral future.”

Terry Collins is a futures consultant and a lecturer at the University of Houston who has appeared on Great Day Houston talking about foresight and technology. She is co-author of The Evolution of Integral Futures, World Future Review, Houston, Texas, USA

James Breaux is graduate student of futures studies at the University of Houston, a registered professional engineer, and a student member of the Association of Professional Futurists, World Future Society, and World Futures Studies Federation, Baytown, Texas,

Vulnerability 2030

What is the future of social and economic vulnerability in the United States? The last century has seen wide swings in social and economic vulnerability, albeit with a general and persistent rise in conditions that support social and economic security. By 2030, how high will structural unemployment be? Will urban agriculture and home food production (e.g., aeroponics) be significant?

Clem Bezold is chairman and senior futurist, Institute for Alternative Futures, and recipient of the World Future Society's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011, Alexandria, Virginia, USA.

Best of Houston Futures

This session highlights the best student products from the award-winning graduate program in futures studies at the University of Houston.
The session will include the best essays, forecasts, scenarios, and plans from the next generation of professional futurists. [Presenters and projects to be announced.]

Peter C. Bishop is an associate professor of Strategic Foresight and director of the graduate program in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. He is co-author of Thinking about the Future: Guidelines for Strategic Foresight (2007), and Teaching about the Future: The Basics of Foresight Education (2012), Houston, Texas, USA

Futuring in 2100

It was futurists who turned futuring into a verb. In doing so, futurists took our most basic and ancient human capacities—to remember, to anticipate, to imagine, to dream, and to plan—and turned them into a vocation.

Glen Hiemstra is the founder of Futurist.com. An internationally acclaimed expert on long-range trends and creating the preferred future, Glen has advised professional, business, and governmental organizations for two decades and served as a technical advisor for futuristic television programs. He is the author of Turning the Future into Revenue: What Businesses and Individuals Need to Know to Shape Their Future and co-author of Strategic Leadership: Achieving your Preferred Future, Kirkland, Washington, USA

Speed Futuring

Speed Futuring is a participant-driven discussion and networking session. Roundtables are organized around the conference's six principal tracks: Commerce, Earth, Futuring, Governance, Humanity, and Sci/Tech. Each "track team" is encouraged to explore the key trends affecting their subject area and offer speculations on how these trends will play out ("fearless forecasts").

Cynthia G. Wagner (@WorldFutureSoc) is editor of The Futurist magazine and has been with the World Future Society since 1981. Among her credits are a variety of articles and book reviews and editorship of the e-mail newsletter Futurist Update and of several editions of the annual conference volume. Bethesda, Maryland, USA

Erica Orange (@ErOrange)is a vice president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. (WEB), one of the world’s leading futurist consulting firms. WEB identifies social, economic, political and technological trends, and evaluates the implications of those trends for many of the world’s largest companies, government agencies and trade associations, New York, New York, USA

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