EXPLORATION AND FUTURE SENSING

About

“Shifting from what we know, to what could be, in the future.”

Founded and lead by Eshanthi Ranasinghe, the Exploration and Future Sensing Lab within Omidyar Network used foresight techniques and diverse networks to anticipate change, identify blind spots, and experiment in emergent areas of impact.

My Role

• Scoped, designed and launched the Community Infrastructure Fund for Mutual Aid, a fund supporting organizations led by BIPOC and marginalized groups, to invest in mutual aid infrastructure and catalyze mutualist systems. Through this, investigated novel funding structures to support diverse entrepreneurs, community leaders, and activists.

• Designed and facilitated in person and online foresight workshops with across the organization (Including Strategy, Executive and Responsible Technology teams).

• Oversaw the creation of the Intersection, a speculative film which reimagines the future of our relationship with hyperconnected technology. The film imagines how characters from different walks of life respond to rapid adoption of ambient technology and the social fragmentation that results, to ultimately work toward building a more pluralistic future.

• Supported the creation, user testing, development, and launch of the Futures Centre, an open source, participatory platform to crowdsource signals and trends, provide in-depth analysis, and enable virtual collaboration to address global challenges, by Forum for the Future.

• Collaborated in the creation of Portals to Beautiful Futures, a 2021 trends to watch report, made in collaboration with the Guild of Future Architects which convened 1,000 people in small groups throughout 2020 to imagine the hopeful futures arising out of today’s crises.

• Co-facilitated foresight workshops across The Omidyar Group

More on Exploration and Future Sensing

• https://medium.com/omidyar-network/exploration-and-future-sensing-ac4ef4ae302e