Scott Smith is the founder and managing partner of Changeist, where he leads strategy, research and design activities. His mission is to help organisations imagine futures better, and navigate complexity. His work is built on over 20 years’ experience tracking social, cultural, technological and economic trends, and combines grounded research with narrative design to explore the unanticipated.
Scott has mapped possible futures for public- and private-sector strategy, design and innovation teams worldwide, with some of the largest brands in tech, media, mobility, health and travel, including some of the world’s largest financial, retail, food and transport brands. He has also worked with leading NGOs such as The International Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent, UNICEF, international bodies such as the European Commission, and supported scenario development for the Museum of the Future in Dubai. Scott has been deeply involved in futures education, designing and launching programs at Duke University TIP, and as founding programme coordinator and lecturer in futures and innovation at IED Barcelona. He now leads a new education partnership between Changeist and the Dubai Future Academy, focused on experiential future design for government.
Scott is a commentary writer for Quartz and a contributor to The Atlantic, How We Get to Next, WIRED UK and HOLO. He has been a returning speaker at LIFT, FutureEverything, and Media Future Week, and has spoken at SxSW, Sibos, Finland’s Flow Festival, Australia’s Open State, FutureFest, and The Next Web.
As speculative design, design fiction and other approaches to materialising speculation have become more widespread practices, questions about ethics and trust are growing. What practices are necessary to build trust internally and externally to successfully use material futures as a tool for managing change?
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