Exponential Minds Podcast with Chief Futurist Nikolas Badminton

Karl Schroeder talks about the importance of narratives and long-form fiction in foresight Karl Schroeder is the author of eleven science fiction novels including the award-winners Permanence and Lockstep. His latest book is Stealing Worlds, a near-future thriller about augmented-reality live-action role playing, murder, and talking groceries, among other things. Aside from writing, Karl also consults as a futurist, having attained a Masters in Strategic Foresight and Innovation in 2011. He...

Jake is Director of the Center for Futures Intelligence and Director of Operations/Engagement for National Intelligence University's Intel, Research, Education, and Solutions (IRES) Laboratory. He is also a member of the research faculty. He is an international speaker on global futures and intelligence and founded the US Air Force's Strategic Foresight and Futures Team. Jake's work spans the nexus of disruptive tech, geopolitical risk, and futures intelligence. He leads a team that helps...

Dr. Schultz is an academically trained futurist with over forty years of global foresight practice. She has designed futures research projects for NGOs, government agencies, and businesses, and recently completed with her colleagues at SAMI Consulting four global scenarios and multiple regional scenarios on the futures of research and innovation in a post-COVID world. Wendy specializes in participatory futures workshops – most recently online for the ILO and the International Institute of...

Madeline Ashby is a science fiction writer, futurist, speaker, teacher, and immigrant living in Toronto. She is represented by Cooke McDermid, and UTA. Her fiction has appeared in Nature, Tesseracts, Escape Pod, FLURB, the Shine Anthology, and elsewhere. Her essays have appeared at BoingBoing, io9, WorldChanging, and The Atlantic. Her fiction has appeared in Slate, MIT Technology Review, Clarkesworld, and multiple anthologies. Madeline has worked with Intel Labs, the World Health...

Joseph is a Scanner, Analyst, Researcher, Educator, Facilitator, Consultant. He has been a professional futurist for over two decades, he holds a PhD in theoretical physics and in his early career he spent several years in internet-related companies, including a stint at the legendary Netscape in Silicon Valley, California, in the late-1990s. Joseph has a strong belief in the need for both rigorous intellectual discipline as well as practical pragmatic utility in ‘real world’ contexts, and...

Brett is an innovation educator, adviser and investor. He has worked with leading global brands to develop innovative new products, brands and communications resulting in over 200 awards and patents. He is a behavioural economist by training with deep experience leading digitization. His recently completed research at INSEAD, the leading global business school, applied a systems psychodynamic perspective to innovation leadership. This distinguished research illuminates the inner world of...

TRACEY FOLLOWS is a professional futurist identifying the future trends that will shape our world. Her clients have included Telefonica, Google, Sky, Farfetch, Conde Nast and Virgin. She has spoken at UN HQ in New York, delivered her TedX at the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office and closed at events such as Think With Google. She writes her own contributor column in Forbes and her opinions are regularly sought by national media. Tracey is also a member of the Association of Professional...

Richard Yonck is a futurist with Intelligent Future Consulting in Seattle, where he is an advisor to businesses and organizations about emerging trends and future developments. He explores developing trends in emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, healthcare, biotechnology and genetics, transportation, robotics, and more. He’s the author of the 2020 book Future Minds explores the nature of intelligence and how our world is rapidly becoming more and differently...

Oksana Andreiuk is a biotechnology scientist, biohacker, and futurist. She founded Canadian Biohacker with a mission of bringing health optimization and anti-aging science to the mainstream. She is also a Strategist at Klick Health, one of the top marketing and commercialization agency partners to global life sciences organizations. Oksana has a long-standing interest in the applications of biotechnology to optimizing health and performance and holds an Hons BSc in genetics and...

Liza is a Retail Strategist and Industry Leader with over 21 years of experience. In her career, Liza has worked with familiar brands including Ralph Lauren Europe and Canada, Club Monaco, Nike, Walmart, and many others. Her experience encompasses brick and mortar, e-commerce and omni-channel in the areas of product creation, merchandising and product development. In shifting to consulting, she played an integral role in Accenture's Retail Strategy group, where she was responsible for...

She is a Futures Literacy (FL) Expert, she designs, develops and facilitates so-called Futures Literacy Labs: collective intelligence knowledge creation processes across the globe that challenge and raise fundamental questions on leadership, migration, climate change and technology. In 2018 Loes and her team at Hanze University of Applied Sciences Groningen (Hanzehogeschool Groningen) got rewarded with a UNESCO Chair on Futures Literacy for their work on researching the impact of FL and the...

Ian Burbidge is the Head of Innovation and Change at The RSA. Ian’s role is to develop programmes of research and analysis focused on policy and practice across the public services and communities sector. Ian has a background in public policy and partnership working and joins the RSA from local government. Here his work focused on engaging communities in place-shaping and problem-solving with the statutory sector. Ian is particularly interested in how to cultivate innovation within public...

Carol Anne Hilton, MBA is the CEO and Founder of The Indigenomics Institute and the Global Center of Indigenomics. Carol Anne is a dynamic national Indigenous business leader and senior adviser with an international Masters Degree in Business Management (MBA) from the University of Hertfordshire, England. Carol Anne is of Nuu chah nulth descent from the Hesquiaht Nation on Vancouver Island. Carol Anne served on the BC Emerging Economy the BC Indigenous Business and Investment Council and...

Denny Unger is the CEO and Creative Director at Cloudhead Games. Since 2012 they’ve shipped 4 VR titles (Call of the Starseed, Heart of the Emberstone, Valve Aperture Hand Labs, and the blockbusting PistolWhip) Cloudhead Games’ pioneering approach to VR gave rise to two broadly adopted standards; VR Comfort Mode/Snap Turns and Blink Teleportation. Working closely with VR hardware leaders in the space, including Valve, Oculus, HTC, Sony, Cloudhead Games continues to innovate, inform, and...

Pia Puolakka has been working for the Criminal Sanctions Agency in Finland since 2012 and started as a prison psychologist and then moved into Central Administration where she worked as a senior specialist responsible for rehabilitative services including programme work, family work, and psychological and spiritual services in prisons. In 2018 she was appointed as the project manager of the Smart Prison Project. Her current post includes developing digital services for rehabilitative...

Rotem has a Bsc in psychology from the University of Toronto and a MA in social psychology from York University. He is currently a PhD student in York's clinical psychology program. His main research interest is affect regulation, and the way it interacts with sustained attention, mind wandering, and creativity. Rotem co-founded the Psychedelic Studies Research Program at the University of Toronto and the Canadian Centre for Psychedelic Science, and is a pioneer in the study of microdosing...

Chris Dancy is touted as “the Most Connected Man on Earth,” and the world is watching those connections carefully. For 25 years, Chris has served in leadership within the technology and healthcare industries, specializing in the intersection of the two. Chris entered the public dialog concerning digital health as the media started to focus on wearable technology. He earned his moniker by utilizing up to 700 sensors, devices, applications, and services to track, analyze, and optimize his...

Peter Nowak is a former staff reporter and editor at The Globe and Mail, National Post, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and New Zealand Herald and has won journalism awards in two countries. His work has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, New Scientist, Boston Globe, Toronto Star and many others. His first book, Sex, Bombs and Burgers, was a Macleans bestseller and his second book, Humans 3.0., was published in five countries. In his third non-fiction book - The Rise of Real-Life...

Natalie Nixon, PhD, changes lives through ideas. She is a creativity strategist who happily integrates wonder and rigor into her life and work. And, in her work she emboldens leaders and organizations to apply creativity & foresight for transformative business results. This year she released a new book called ‘The Creativity Leap’ - Creativity is the source of all innovation, but how can we cultivate it? Natalie Nixon defines creativity as our ability to toggle between wonder & rigor to...

Melissa is a millennial on the Internet and exclusively thinks and talks about the world wide web. She's curious about the intersection of internet culture and real life and tells stories about what people are consuming online to inspire new, relevant and authentic ways for brands to connect with people. She also works as a Cultural Strategist and has worked on projects for Adidas, Levi's, Twitter, Miller Genuine Draft and most recently, the National Film Board of Canada. Here Nikolas and...