Consulting & Foresight Analysis

Recent Technology Foresight Activities

• On board of directors for SciBarCamp, a "barcamp"-style two-day conference initially held March 14-16, 2008 at Hart House in Toronto; possibly to become a regular event.  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 future 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 the Defence R&D Canada (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 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 National Research Council, 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 has the title Think Again 2002 -- Exploring New Paths, took place in Ottawa, Ontario.

Invited Talks and Readings

• 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".