Join us to welcome futurists Scott Smith and Susan Cox-Smith who are the inaugural SA Water Visiting Research Fellows in residence at MOD. for the month of November. Scott Smith is the founder and managing partner of Changeist, a futures research and consulting partnership established in the US in 2007. Susan Cox-Smith is also a partner at Changeist, and has over twenty years of experience as a writer, designer, creative director, interactive producer, and researcher who seeks to enrich public engagement with possible futures. Their new book Future Cultures: How to Build a Future-Ready Organization through Leadership is available from 3 October 2023, accompanying their previous publication How to Future: Leading and Sense-making in an Age of Hyperchange.

The Foresight Community of Practice drinks at MOD. is co-hosted with the Strategic Foresight Unit in the Department of Premier and Cabinet and is a chance to connect with others working or interested in foresight in South Australia. The galleries will be open from 5 pm where you can view our current exhibition FLEX. Entry is free with drinks, pizza and chips available for purchase. Short speeches and activities from 5:45pm with Scott Smith and Susan Cox-Smith, the Director of Strategic Foresight at the Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Dr Ariella Helfgott and the Director of MOD., Dr Kristin Alford.

More about Susan and Scott

Susan has worked across multiple engagements for Changeist, on futures projects for ADCB, AXA, BBC R&D, Comcast, International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, National Lottery Fund UK, Nesta, and several Silicon Valley tech companies. She has contributed to trend research and scenario development looking at the futures of personal transport, health and wellness, entertainment, arts and culture, and emergency response practices. Recently, she led the design and delivery of a public workshop platform exploring feminist futures in a post-Covid world for the International Women’s Development Agency. Susan also oversees the design of and co-leads Changeist’s capacity-building workshops, and the development of related instructional materials, developing futuring skills in leaders from organisations ranging from Microsoft to Netflix to Wells Fargo to NASA JPL.

Scott has more than 15 years of experience in futures, consulting 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, AXA, VF, and Comcast. He has designed and delivered futures projects, talks and workshops in over a dozen countries and facilitated projects and workshops in 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.

If you have any questions please contact Brooke Ferguson, Futures Officer at MOD. brooke.ferguson@unisa.edu.au

We look forward to hosting you at MOD.

Image: DALL-E "happy futurists talking about an existential risk event”