What if the future of design wasn’t ahead of us, but buried beneath our feet? In this talk, Rui takes us from childhood memories to geological timelines, questioning the role of design in a world that might need less of us — and more of everything else.

Short bio: Rui Quinta is the co-founder of With Company, a transformative design firm that works globally to help organisations better everything — from strategy to systems, culture to communication. He is also a founding board member of Transformative Times, a research platform where non-competitive organisations explore new economic models and shared futures through systemic and transition thinking.

In parallel, Rui is deeply engaged with academia. He lectures on Strategic Design, Creativity, and Innovation at ISEG - Lisbon, and Porto Business School, where he also serves as Program Director of the executive program Systemic Thinking for Innovation. Internationally, he collaborates with Fachhochschule Salzburg, where he teaches Experiment & Strategy in the Master Program in Communication Design and Multimedia Art.

He is committed to using design to open space for more honest futures — built through large-scale co-creation, grounded in curiosity, care, and critical imagination.

Sheng-Hung Lee is a designer, Ph.D. researcher at MIT AgeLab, and Board Director at IDSA. He draws inspiration from diverse knowledge domains and thrives on creating value in multidisciplinary teams, with experience at IDEO and Continuum. Trained in industrial design and electrical engineering, his problem-solving approach integrates design and technology's impact on society. Lee has served as a jury member for international design competitions, including IDEA and the Golden Pin Design Award. He holds a dual Master's degree (Hon.) from MIT in Integrated Design & Management and Mechanical Engineering. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Human Behavior and Service Design at MIT and co-lectures an MIT graduate course while also serving as Adjunct Associate Professor at Shih Chien University.

Payal is a Professor of Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University and founder of Inclusive AI Lab, a debiasing data initiative with the Global South. She is also an award-winning author of “The Next Billion Users” and “From Pessimism to Promise, lessons from Global South on Inclusive Tech”.

Trained in architecture with 18 years teaching and research experience specialising in the spatialising of futures, Gem is an award winning educator, renowned author and senior academic currently leading the speculative spatial design unit superFUTURES at the Royal College of Art. She is resident futures advisor at Perkins&Will, London, and offers consultation services through her thinktank Office for Speculative Spatial Design.

In a time ruled by swipes, hyper-individualism, and growing distrust towards one another, Monika explores loneliness as a personal, shared, and societal issue. She is all about softness—and that’s what I’ll be offering as a way to reconnect to ourselves, each other, and the world.

Sohail Inayatullah, a political scientist and futurist, is the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at the Sejahtera Centre for Sustainability and Humanity, IIUM, Malaysia. He is also Professor at Tamkang University, Taiwan and Associate, Melbourne Business School, the University of Melbourne. He teaches from www.metafutureschool.org where his courses include Become a Futurist and Personal Futures: the CLA of the Self. He is listed in the top two percent of the world's scientists as measured by the highest impact of citations. His most recent books include CLA 3.0, The End of the Cow and other Emerging Issues, Asia 2038, and with the Asia Development Bank, Futures Thinking in the Asia-Pacific Region: Why foresight matters for policymakers.

Lex Fefegha is a London-based creative coder interested in experimentation, play, and popular culture.

He uses emerging technologies to create interactive storytelling experiences—whether through playful chatbots, experimental games, digital toys or art installations—all designed to spark curiosity, engage audiences, and tell compelling human stories.

Lex is currently an artist-in-residence at Google Arts & Culture Lab exploring the application of generative AI to aid cultural learning and discovery through play.

He is also the founder of The Office of Art and Technology, a creative studio & member of art collective Future Inventions Lab with friends Yaa Addae & Uzoma Orji.

As a Forbes 30Under30 leader and founder of Studio Ayer, Inês had the privilege of leading over 80 projects across 12 countries, focusing on design’s potential to drive societal change. Her work, from contributing to social initiatives like Próxima Geração and the Global Shapers Community, to her current role as Senior Designer at Pentagram, has always been about creating impact through interdisciplinary collaboration. At FD25, she is eager to apply her humanist, design-led approach to co-create innovative solutions alongside systemic thinkers, engaging in conversations about climate change, democracy, and social equity, all while exploring how design can catalyze real-world change for a more inclusive future.

Simon is the Systems Change Lead at Dark Matter Labs, where he works across just transition processes, public innovation, and digital transformation. With a rich background in sociology, political science, economics, and philosophy—anchored in Systems Theory—he brings a deeply interdisciplinary lens to the complex work of reshaping our shared future.

Currently, Simon supports the European Commission's NetZeroCities Mission, helping 100 cities transition toward climate neutrality. His work spans global collaborations with organizations such as the UNDP, World Economic Forum, African Centre for Cities, Stiftung Mercator GmbH, Mozilla Foundation, CityLAB Berlin, and many more.

He is also a visiting lecturer at the Faculty of Social Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, where he helps nurture the next generation of systems thinkers.

CIFS, with over 50 years of global expertise, is an independent think tank focused on future studies and strategic foresight. They specialize in helping societies and organizations navigate change and create better futures.

An experiment in art and science for policy making. European Commission Policy Lab will explore the rights and needs of nature, and how we represent them in our decision-making processes. By imagining natural ecosystems with legal standing, we will explore how policies could shift if decision-makers listened to non-human stakeholders. We’ll explore speculative encounters that challenge our relationship with nature and consider the impact these encounters could have on future generations.

This hands-on Lab will explore how foresight, experimental design, and emerging technologies can shape more adaptive and resilient justice systems. Experiment with new justice models, explore long-term scenarios & disruptions and prototype solutions for justice transformation.

Kira Xonorika is an artist, author, and futurist based in Tovaangar (Los Angeles), working across AI, film, robotics, fashion, sculpture, and performance. Her work explores the connections between technoscience, interspecies and planetary intelligence, worldbuilding, Indigenous sovereignty, and ecology. She has received awards, residencies, and fellowships from Akademie der Künste, Dreaming Beyond AI, Momus and Eyebeam, Hyundai Artlab, and Ars Electronica. Her work has been widely exhibited across the Americas, Asia, and Europe, at institutions such as the Ford Foundation Gallery, Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater, Honor Fraser Gallery, Vellum LA, MASS MoCA, arebyte London, and the Mercosur Biennial. Publishing credits include e-flux, Momus, C Magazine, and ArtReview (forthcoming). In 2024, she spearheaded Future Memory Lab, South America's first GenAI art residency, with support from the Swiss Arts Council. Collaborations with notable artists include Jeffrey Gibson and Cai Guo-Qiang.

Moderated by Kaave Pour, former co-founder of SPACE10, the think tank that collaborated with the Swedish furniture giant for a decade, this lab centers on Continent of Play—a blueprint for transforming public spaces and strengthening social connections through design.

After its successful launch in Barcelona, 21st Europe–a think tank uniting some of Europe’s brightest minds–comes to Future Days to explore how design can empower public imagination, influence policy, and redefine Europe’s future.

Participants will actively contribute to Blueprint 02: Continent of Play. This is an opportunity to co-create and rethink how Europe moves forward—not just politically or economically, but through a unifying, design-driven approach.

We’re excited to announce FD25 Lab by UN Futures Lab: Shaping Urban Futures for Equitable and Sustainable Societies

Moderated by Chris Earney, this interactive workshop explores how we can design cities that are just, inclusive, and sustainable for all. In a world shaped by rapid urbanization, climate change, and shifting social dynamics, participants will map key trends and drivers that influence urban life—spanning social equity, environmental sustainability, and systemic resilience.

What to expect:

– Explore trends shaping urban life

– Discuss models for equitable, sustainable cities

– Map out drivers of systemic urban resilience

Co-creation at its core. While Talks allow us to explore Futures, Labs give us the tools to shape them. Facilitated by renowned organizations, these interactive sessions bring together diverse perspectives to create meaningful action.

Danish Design Center and ANTICIPATE will host one of our four (Un) Conferences—open to FD attendees and the public, expanding access to futures thinking.

Danish Design Center (DDC): They are renowned for strengthening organizations through design, from products to systems, with a focus on circular and sustainable practices.

ANTICIPATE: A foresight agency helping organizations navigate uncertainty and turn futures thinking into action.

ATÖLYE: A strategic design and innovation consultancy, ATÖLYE amplifies the impact of purpose-driven leaders by transforming people, places, and experiences through the power of communities. As a certified B Corporation and a member of the kyu Collective, we believe in using creativity and collaboration to shape a thriving future for people and the planet.

This session will explore:

• How organizations can foster engaged, adaptive communities that drive transformation from within

• What co-created innovation looks like when diverse stakeholders and ecosystems collaborate

• How a community-driven approach strengthens trust, recognition, and long-term engagement

• The shift from sustaining to regenerating the environments and societies we operate in

On May 2nd, Dark Matter Labs will host one of our four (Un)conferences—open to FD attendees and the public, expanding access to futures thinking through an interactive podcast format. This session is supported by Curiosity That Matters, adding depth through expert-led conversations, and will be hosted by Nadim Choucair.

Dark Matter Labs: Building options for the next economies, DML decodes the structural, physical, and psychological challenges shaping our world, reimagining governance, finance, and infrastructure for regenerative futures.

Curiosity That Matters: A series of conversations with experts, authors, and thought leaders at the intersection of design, policy, innovation, and impact—where ideas that matter take shape.

Step into a live, participatory podcast experience where dialogue meets action. Engage with systemic designers, policymakers, and visionaries tackling:

Regenerative governance models & planetary stewardship, the redesign of public infrastructure for the next economies and collective agency & the future of shared ownership

As part of Future Days' Garden Gallery, we are excited to present Nature’s Depot, a work-in-progress exhibition by superFUTURES—a research-led Masters unit at the Royal College of Art.

superFUTURES explores the intersection of worldbuilding, filmmaking, and speculative spatial design to envision the future of trade, nature, and space. Nature’s Depot showcases ‘future artefacts’ created by the 2024-25 student cohort, offering a glimpse into evolving supply chains and their planetary impact.

This year’s research, developed in collaboration with the UK Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), investigates how shifting global relationships with nature are reshaping spatial and behavioral landscapes.

“Data Tree Metamorphosis” by le_Brimet + GENCORK, sound design by Marcus Amadeus - Tailored Music

🌱 As part of Garden Gallery, "Data Tree Metamorphosis" is a site-specific AI installation by le_Brimet that explores the power of artificial intelligence in generating digital video images and physical surfaces.

Trained on photographs of plant species found in the Estufa Fria, the AI model generates new outputs that question potential evolutions of plant species over time. The installation grows as a data tree, branching across two metaphysical portals: the digital through animated video, and the physical through a regenerative cork pattern developed in partnership with GENCORK. These portals guide the visitor through a non-binary journey, where Marcus Amadeus' soundscape design creates a dynamic, heterogeneous atmosphere in constant flux. This immersive soundscape fills the in-between space, reinforcing a spatio-temporal metamorphosis and the interplay between physical and digital realities.

By merging artificial intelligence, sustainable materials, and collaborative processes, this instalation invites reflection on the role of the artist within today's technological context and how machines can expand our perception of nature and time.

As part of the curated route at Future Days 2025, Future Design Lab—a foresight and transformation team within PwC Consulting LLC (Japan)—will present futures Omikuji, an immersive installation inspired by traditional Japanese futures-telling rituals.

Rooted in nearly 1,000 years of cultural tradition, futures Omikuji invites participants to draw a fortune from a collection of 42 plausible futures exploring how we might live, think, work, eat, and connect in the year 2050. With each draw, you enter into a dialogue with the future:

If it inspires you, write a wish to help shape it.If it unsettles you, tie it to the tree and let it go.

The experience is part ritual, part foresight, and part collective dreaming—an invitation to engage with anticipation, uncertainty, and imagination in poetic, embodied ways.

“Blue Marble” by UNDP Strategic Innovation Unit & UN Futures Lab

🌿 As part of the curated journey through Garden Gallery, The Blue Marble stretches existing signals of change into imagination of what new forms of multilateral system could look like.

Rooted in the concept of generative intelligence, Blue Marble synthesizes knowledge across human and non-human species to continuously generate new responses to emerging challenges. It offers a glimpse into regenerative systems—of politics, environment, and societies of species—presenting one of many possible answers to how we might transform multilateral cooperation.

To build a different future, we must first imagine it.

Spectr[al] of Nature is a unique space where art and science come together to rethink policy-making. As part of the European Commission’s “Nature Consultation” Lab, this exhibition by art-scientist Ingrid Mayrhofer-Hufnagl explores how policy-making might change if nature had a voice. It invites us to imagine ecosystems as legal stakeholders — challenging how we relate to and represent the natural world.

Our fellowship was a six-month program funded by MediaLab Bayern and designed for three young designers / futurists who were eager to propose a speculative, future-oriented project. They received guidance and support from our team of experts at Future Days, along with our partners at the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies (CIFS), who brought valuable knowledge and educational resources to the table. Three projects exploring futures: Poorvi used speculative design and decolonial methods in participatory workshops on development; Nanditha blended literary analysis with futures thinking in an interactive, self-guided format; and Brodie reimagined land use through historical alternatives and future artifacts.