The future has always been uncertain, but it almost seems like it’s getting even more unpredictable lately. Climate change, AI, shifting markets, new behaviours and unexpected events can quickly make yesterday’s assumptions feel outdated.
You can’t plan for every possible turn. But you can get better at noticing what is changing, questioning what you assume will stay the same, and imagining a few different ways things might play out.
That’s what this Weekend Workshop is about.
You’ll be introduced to strategic foresight and speculative design: practical ways of exploring what might happen next without trying to predict it. You’ll look for small signs of change, ask unusual “what if?” questions, and use those to build different possible futures. Some of them will be deliberately extreme, because pushing an idea beyond what feels normal can reveal assumptions you might otherwise miss. That practice is sometimes called “weirding.” The point isn’t to guess the future more accurately, but to use those possibilities to make better choices about what you do now.
What to Expect
Across the weekend, you’ll move through the full process together: from spotting signals of change, to imagining different future scenarios, to creating simple prototypes of possible responses.
You’ll work in mixed-discipline teams around a shared challenge, combining different perspectives as you go. Short introductions to the methods are followed by hands-on exercises, so you can try them out straight away rather than just hearing about them.
Expect a mix of group discussion, collective mapping, creative prototyping, reflection, and practical tools. You don’t need any previous experience with foresight or design.
By the end of the weekend, you’ll have worked through the whole process once and leave with methods, worksheets, and frameworks you can use again when you need to think through uncertain or changing situations.
What You’ll learn:
- How to notice early signs of change and think about what they could mean.
- How to imagine and compare different possible futures.
- How to use simple prototypes to explore ideas that are otherwise hard to picture.
- How to question assumptions that might be limiting the way you think about a problem.
- How to use future thinking to make better decisions in the present.
About the instructor
Bettina Schwalm is a Speculative Experience Designer, Writer, Consulting Strategist and PhD-Researcher with a long experience driving future-making as a collective practice in the service of society, culture and the environment. She is educating and coaching teams in innovation, future thinking and sustainability, always with a strong focus on behavioural studies.
She is a Centre Director at the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship and affiliated to Konstfack (University of Arts, Crafts, and Design) as well as a guest lecturer in various institutions around the world. Her interdisciplinary approach is at the intersection of science and design, developing hands-on tools and visions for organisations and the public realm.
To deepen your planning in uncertain futures, see our course Entrepreneurial Mindset and Trendspotting & Future Thinking, plus this related Research Recap on spotting early signals.
ELIGIBILITY & SELECTION
All students and alumni of SSES member universities are eligible to apply to this weekend workshop. We get many applications and unfortunately cannot accept everyone. The selection process is outlined below.
For this specific workshop, you as an attendee will be requested to present yourself and what motivates you to learn about frugal innovation by uploading a short personal video. We also ask that you share in what area you would like to identify opportunities for frugal innovation and why.
SELECTION PROCESS
- Application is reviewed
- Selection is made and a confirmation email is sent out
- Participants must confirm their seat in order to secure the spot
- If spots are not confirmed in time, the waitlist will be reviewed and new participants selected
