Graduate Studies
Strategic Foresight and Innovation (MDes)
Meet the Designer
Alexis
Tennent
Social Innovation/Photography
“A recent survey revealed that most people do not think about the far future. Most respondents rarely or never thought 30 years into the future, and about 27% rarely or never think even five years ahead (Institute for the Future, 2017). This has major impacts for society, especially with regards to long-term issues such as climate change. This project explores the barriers to thinking about the future with the aim of investigating how more people might be enabled to participate in future-thinking activities in ways that are both empowering and appropriate to them. Furthermore, an autoethnography-guided literature review explores how people might foster stronger relationships with their future selves such that they (and society) can better act in the present towards beneficial long-term goals.The project work culminates in the proposal of five recommendations for those interested in future thinking. The hope is that these will inspire both those who are beginning a personal future thinking practice and foresight practitioners attempting to understand the challenges people face when they are asked to think about the far future.”
Alexis’s academic background includes biology, psychology, kinesiology, sustainable community development, and strategic foresight and innovation. She is a whole-hearted generalist and creative problem solver with ten years of experience working in conservation, energy management, and economic development. Six of those years were spent as the operations lead for a first-ever province-wide retrofit program for low-income households. In her recent masters at the Ontario College of Art and Design University, she investigated why future-oriented mental time travel is so difficult, and how neurological, psychological, and sociocultural factors might be leveraged to enable more people to think more deeply about their far futures.She is currently a Social Innovation Fellow at the Center for Changemaking and Social Innovation at Georgian College.
Simon Fraser University
Sustainable Community Development
Major Completed, 2010
Simon Fraser University
General Studies (Applied Sciences)
Major Completed, 2004
Strategic Foresight Social Innovation