Liftoff! 🚀

The Philadelphia chapter of the Design Futures Initiative formed in mid-2022, and we had our first meeting on August 3 via Zoom.

Future meetings are planned to be quarterly in person on the campus of Drexel University. We’re considering having additional online gatherings at the midpoint between these in-person meetups. Find us on Meetup and stay tuned.

At our first meeting, we:

• Had an ice breaker activity where participants imagined themselves 10 years from now, an example of episodic future thinking.
• Heard a lecture by Tim Gorichanaz introducing participants to speculative design and future thinking
• Practiced future scanning by searching Google News for “future of” various topics that participants were interested in
• Had a brainstorming session identifying ideas for future gatherings

In the brainstorming activity, we learned that participants were most interested in:

1. finding ways to connect with other community members on shared aspirations for the future of Philadelphia
2. hearing talks by local designers and experts in relevant fields
3. practicing the skills of futures thinking

Our first meeting was a small gathering of 7 people, and we expect to grow as time goes on. We hope you’ll join us! Find us on Meetup and stay tuned.

Can’t wait for our next meeting to dig into futures thinking? Here are two book recommendations that came up in our kickoff meeting:

• Imaginable, by Jane McGonigal — A guide for training your mind to explore possible futures and build practical optimism for the present
• Speculative Everything, by Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby — A classic book on speculative design, lush with examples and inspiration