As The Futures Lab enters its 19th year of operation, I am pleased to report that 2014 was both a very successful and transformative year.
On the foresight consulting front we undertook some exciting projects both directly and through our sister company in London (Your Future (London) and our satellite offices. These included foresight work for Kelloggs, AKZO-Nobel, Phillips, the BBC, Intercontinental Hotels and Whitbread amongst others.
Then there was the expansion and consolidation of our Future Entertainment and Events Lab (FEEL)(previously Plutopia Productions) www.thesenseevent.com, where we created, curated and produced STEAM³ – The Future of Education,a conference and interactive playground, which was held in March at the University of Texas’s Commons Learning Center. www.steam3.com. We will be holding a similar event together with Georgia State University in September 2015.
We also added a non-profit arm LIFE (Learning Innovations in Future of Education) www.http://livinglearning.co/, which besides being very involved with the STEAM³ event, undertook to create a fully self-contained mobile learning course on The Future of Mobile Learning for the University of Adger in Norway, with our President, Derek Woodgate as the class instructor and Maggie Duval, the Chair of LIFE providing all the back end design and set up. Derek Woodgate has since been made an Adjunct Professor at the University of Adger and will be teaching a Future of Media course in Spring 2015. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Georgia State University, where he teaches The Future of Entertainment and Learning through The Futures Lab’s foresight process. Also in 2014, Maggie Duval, taught at the Skybridge Academy in Austin.
TFL’s focus over the past decade has been firmly placed on the future of entertainment and media, education, culture and new communities. Consequently, Derek Woodgate has continued to be in wide demand to speak on these subjects and 2014 was no exception with a keynote role at the MMC and numerous engagements at conferences and universities.
2015 has already set off at a whirl and we are anticipating another exciting, successful year and wish you all the same.
Derek Woodgate
President
