Connecting the Dots (Back to the Futures #11)
November has been about connection, connecting ideas, connecting people, connecting tools, and, in many ways, connecting back to the purpose of why we teach and practice foresight in the first place.
From London to Dubai, the month has been filled with moments where the human side of futures work became impossible to ignore: teaching foresight and creativity to students at University of Arts London College of Communication, hosting first-timers at Dubai Future Forum to help them feel grounded and welcome, and facilitating sessions where AI and humans were not opposed, but in conversation.
It’s made me reflect again on what it means to work with the futures in a time where so much of our attention is pulled toward automation. Can you prompt your way through foresight? You can try, but you shouldn’t. Machines excel at speed, pattern recognition, and (mostly) error-free computation. Humans excel at intuition, empathy, creativity, responsibility. Foresight works well when we connect the two, but especially when we make it human enough to move people and stretch their thinking.
That tension — between humanization and automatization — was present throughout Dubai Future Forum this year. Conversations on the futures of consciousness, imagination, purpose, and agency all pointed to the same question: What does it mean to stay human in the age of artificially intelligent systems? And how do we prepare for futures where our tools are powerful, but our responsibilities even more so?
Another through-line this month has been the next generation and the public. Teaching futures in universities, running open sessions, and bringing people into their first foresight experience all reminded me why futures literacy matters, and why it can’t just be a capability for the few. If we believe anticipation is a civic capacity, then we share a responsibility: to teach it, open it, and make it feel accessible enough for more people to see themselves in the work.
So here are some of the questions I’m carrying right now:
→ What do we gain when we connect human intuition with machine intelligence, instead of choosing one over the other?
→ How do we make foresight more human, not less, as our tools become more capable?
→ And what does it look like when more people (not just experts) can truly connect with the futures?
Let’s dive in.
LOOKING BACK
📍 Dubai Future Forum 2025
A full week of sessions, conversations, and collisions in Dubai — exploring what it means to stay human in an age of increasingly capable machines. From the big plenaries to the small side exchanges, this year’s DFF revealed a deep tension between humanisation and automatization, and the quiet ways imagination, agency, and responsibility still anchor our futures work. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7399062871239737344
📍 The Futures Within (Dubai Future Forum).
Together with Darwin Sy Antipolo (pxd labs), we hosted The Futures Within, a playful, immersive journey into personal foresight using LEGO® Serious Play®, zine-making, and rapid prototyping. Participants tested elements of our new Personal Futures Readiness tool — showing how futures mindset becomes more powerful when it turns inward before outward. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7394084177479876608
First-Timers Meet-up
📍 First-Timers Gathering at DFF.
Before the forum kicked off, Amy Daroukakis, Chloé de Ruffray and Mathias Behn Bjørnhof hosted the very first “First-Timers Meetup”, a space designed to reduce overwhelm, create belonging, and help people enter the global futures community with curiosity rather than hesitation. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7391406608083337216
📍 ConsilioNexus — Two Megatrends Circles.
We hosted several ConsilioNexus Danmark circles for Danish leaders, exploring the ANTICIPATE Megatrends and how senior leaders are using long-term lenses to navigate AI, geopolitics, sustainability, and workplace transformation. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7399473266567839744
📍 UAL (London College of Communication) — Teaching Futures.
At UAL, Mathias taught methods, mindset, and creativity to a new generation of designers and researchers. The session explored how foresight and imagination meet — and why both matter for creative responsibility. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7394392525580517376
📍 London & Dubai — Connecting People
Throughout November, conversations centred less on tools and more on people: connecting practitioners with each other, connecting students with their own creative agency, and connecting first-timers with a global community that can otherwise feel intimidating. This human dimension has been the strongest thread.
📍 Find Your Futures Voice — New mentees.
New futures practitioners joined the FYFV journey this month, making November one of the strongest mentoring cycles yet. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7399366773663334400
LOOKING AHEAD
📍 Masterclass — Augmenting Foresight (AI x Foresight).
In December we dive into how AI stretches scanning, supports analysis, challenges biases, and accelerates sensemaking, without replacing the human intuition that gives foresight meaning.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7393921429005676544
Sign-up: https://lnkd.in/dedE6cjY
📍 Launching soon: ACT — Anticipating Futures (Self-paced online course).
Our first online course is nearing completion. It covers scanning, PRISM, scenarios, AI in foresight, facilitation, strategy alignment, and how to actually land foresight inside organisations. Designed to be accessible and practice-driven. Waitlist: https://tally.so/r/wkBNjr
📍 Belgium — Foresight meets Public Innovation.
In early December, Mathias will be in Belgium for talks, workshops, and collaborator meetings, building bridges between futures practice, public innovation, and long-term capability development. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7400093399753760768
📍 Megatrends Week (Denmark).
Six presentations and workshops across six cities in eight days. From Rotary to HK to Folkeuniversitetet and two ConsilioCircles, a full week dedicated to sharing the Megatrends to the public. More reflections soon.
📍 2026 Collaborations with Chloé de Ruffray.
We’ve begun shaping a collaboration pipeline with Chloé for 2026, including new masterclasses and company trainings. https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7399745555452559360
📍 A special December edition.
Next month’s newsletter will be a year-in-review, gathering the threads of 2025 into one narrative, the projects, patterns, and people that shaped ANTICIPATE this year.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.” — Voltaire
It’s easy to forget how uncomfortable uncertainty feels, and how quickly that discomfort can push us toward rigid opinions or overconfident predictions. But Voltaire’s reminder matters in futures work: claiming absolute certainty is not only intellectually unreasonable, it’s often dangerous.
Uncertainty invites curiosity. Certainty closes the door.
Futures thinking lives in the space between, where we stay open, ask better questions, and resist the temptation to oversimplify what we don’t fully understand. True clarity often comes from questioning what we think we know.
EVENTS WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO
📍 World of Beautiful Business Forum — 10-Year Anniversary (Berlin)
A milestone gathering of one of the most inspiring communities around human-centred, regenerative, creative business futures. https://www.anticipate.dk/futures-foresight-events/world-beautiful-business-forum
📍 Anticipation Conference 2026 (Not hosted by us — but we are very excited!)
One of the most important global forums for futures research and anticipatory systems — shaping how academia and practice meet. https://www.anticipate.dk/futures-foresight-events/anticipation-conference-2026
📍 Futures Days 2026 — Coming to Copenhagen
Just announced: next year’s Futures Days will take place here in Copenhagen. A rare moment for the Danish/Scandinavian futures community to connect with the world. https://www.anticipate.dk/futures-foresight-events/futures-days-26
SPOTLIGHT
Futurist-as-a-Service — ongoing strategic sparring for your organisation
We already have a few larger foresight projects in the pipeline for next year, but we’re always happy to be brought in on a Futurist-as-a-Service level, whether you need a spark, a sounding board, or extra hands on an internal futures initiative.
With experience from more than 50+ projects, a broad international network, and a practice of facilitating futures work for hundreds of people across sectors, we support organisations who want to deepen their capability, sensemaking, and long-term readiness.
Read more: https://www.anticipate.dk/futurist-as-a-service
If you’d like to explore what this could look like for your team or leadership group, we’d love to hear from you at hi@anticipate.dk.
Back to the Futures is your monthly glimpse into what we’re doing at ANTICIPATE. If you’d like to collaborate, bring foresight into your work, or just stay more plugged into the futures space, we’d love to hear from you at hi@anticipate.dk.
Until next time, stay curious.
— The ANTICIPATE Team
