Consulting & Foresight Analysis

Recent Foresight Activities

• Designed an Augmented Reality game for Arizona State University's Center for Science and the Imagination, in November, 2015.
• Did game/story design in Phoenix, AZ for the 2014 version of the World Bank'sEvoke project, October 22-24, 2014.  Evoke is a game designed to educate and empower the world's youth to improve their own lives and those of their communities.
• Hieroglyph book launch in Washington, DC, and invitation to address the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, October 2, 2014.
• I was interviewed by Nikola Danaylov for his Singularity 1on1, on May 10, 2012.  He caught me at home, where I was relaxed and slouched in an armchair, and talked about futurism, science fiction, and modern mythologies.  
• Author for Intel Corporation's Tomorrow Project, August, 2012. I was also invited down to San Francisco to discuss the future of pervasive computing with 200 journalists from around the world, on September 10, 2012.
• Facilitator and scenario designer, Economic Futures of Ontario workshops (a Government of Ontario initiative), October--November 2011.
• Facilitator and participant in Canada's Innovation Prospects 2017-2040 workshop, held in Ottawa April 26-27, 2011. This was an activity hosted by the Telfer School of Management and coordinated by the Canadian foresight network.
• I did foresight-related writing for Defense Research & Development Canada, July 2010-April 2011. I can't talk about this work yet.
• September 2010-Sept. 2011, I was a writer, facilitator, and researcher for the 2020 Media Futures project.
• Oksana Kachur and I prepared a set of health literacy scenarios for Public Health Canada (PHAC) in spring, 2011.
• Panelist and facilitator at Defense Research & Development Canada's (DRDC) Ideas Factory workshop, June 16, 2010.
• Participant in a televised round-table discussion on the future of space development on TV Ontario's popular show The Agenda.  The episode was taped at the Perimeter Institute on October 19, 2009.  You can watch it here:

• I was one of 200 invited guests at Science Foo Camp 2009, held at Google headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, July 9-12, 2009.  Other invited guests included George Dyson, Louise Leakey, Lee Smolin, Elon Musk and Peter Diamandis.  I gave a seminar on "An alternative to the technological singularity" which was well-received.
• Participant in SciBarCamp 2009, held at Hart House in Toronto on May 8 and 9, 2009.
  
• I had the privilege of being on the board of directors for SciBarCamp, a "barcamp"-style two-day conference initially held March 14-16, 2008 at Hart House in Toronto.  SciBarCamp seeks to bring scientists, technologists, innovators and artists together to creatively plan "next step" activities, research programs,  social movements and businesses.
• Scenario designer, facilitator, presenter and writer for Global Security Scan for Canadian Science Capabilities (2015-2020), held at DRDC, Shirley's Bay, Ottawa, March 21-23, 2007.  This was the second annual security foresight workshop with, again, about 60 people in attendance from across Canada.
• Scenario designer and facilitator for PACT workshop on the future of health care, March 19-20, 2007, Toronto, Ontario. 
• Scenario designer, facilitator, presenter and writer for Prospective Protective Futures workshop at DRDC, Shirley's Bay, Ottawa, March 27-29th 2006. This was a foresight exercise for security experts, attended by about 60 people. It was highly successful, and I managed to have a hand in all the critical exercises and activities.
• Contracted to write a dramatization, “Crisis in Zefra”, for DRDC (May-June 2004). This dramatization is a novella-length scenario detailing what military operations might be like in thirty years.
• Facilitator and scenario author for the 2004 NRC Foresight Symposium, March 21-22nd 2004, held at National Research Council (NRC) headquarters in Ottawa. This year's topic was the future of biotech and health care in Canada.
• Canada 2025, a two-day workshop held by the "Science and Technology Foresight Pilot Project" of the NRC, March 19 and 20, 2003, NRC headquarters, Ottawa. I was one of 80 specialists from numerous professions called upon to make predictions about where Canada will be in 2025. Our predictions were presented as a policy paper to Cabinet.
• One of four panelists in a two-day colloquium with some of 2002's Canadian Millennium Scholarship laureates, September 27-28th, 2002. The Millennium Excellence Awards National Conference, which had the title Think Again 2002 -- Exploring New Paths, took place in Ottawa, Ontario.

Invited Talks and Readings

• Invited speaker at the Future of Digital Cash workshop in Los Angeles, August 27-28, 2014.  Bitcoin and beyond--we talked about everything from the history of the receipt to currencies post-bitcoin.  Since the event was not recorded, people felt willing to say what they really thought, which made for an eye-opening series of presentations.
• Invited speaker, Cognitive Computing Forum, San Jose CA, August 21-22, 2014.  Complete videos of the talks, including mine, are available from the site for a fee.  I discussed the idea that our civilization is creating a kind of "artificial unconscious" for ourselves using information technology.
• Speaker and workshop facilitator at DRDC FIAC Workshop, March 7, 2012, Cornwall Ontario.
• Speaker at Treehouse Talk, held at Toronto Reference Library for an audience of 100, February 17, 2012. 
• Speaker and panelist at the 2011 Applied Brilliance conference and workshop, held Jackson Hole, Wyoming, October 11-14, 2011.
• Keynote speaker at Bringing Together Communities, an interdisciplinary studies conference at the University of Windsor, February 4, 2011.
• Keynote speaker at DRDC Managers' workshop, April 6-7, 2010.
• Keynote speaker at O'Reilly Publishing's Open Source Conference 2009, held in San Jose, California, July 24, 2009.  The subject:  "rewilding" the human species.
  
  
• Keynote speaker at Toronto Public Library's Reader's Services Committee annual meeting, June 18, 2009.  Subject:  the future of publishing and writing.
  
• Moderator, Green Careers panel, University of Toronto Careers Centre, January 24, 2007.
• Keynote speaker at 2004 Defense R&D Canada Science and Technology symposium, April 21-22, 2004. The theme of the symposium was "Computers Everywhere and in Everything". My keynote speech was on Imagined Worlds.
• Keynote speaker at the 2004 National Research Council Foresight symposium, March 21-22nd 2004, held at NRC headquarters in Ottawa. This year's topic was the future of biotech and health care in Canada.
• I was invited to address members of the American Library Association at their annual convention. The seminar, held on June 21, 2003 was very well attended (over a hundred in the audience). A written version of my talk subsequently appeared in The New York Review of Science Fiction under the title "Traitor to Both Sides".