This episode of The New Abnormal podcast features Mikko Dufva, the Leading Foresight Specialist at Sitra.

Mikko works on projects across an array of areas including those related to the futures of synthetic biology, platform economies, forestry, mining and use of renewable energy.

Sitra is a future-orientated organisation that promotes Finland’s competitiveness and the well-being of the Finnish people. They specialise in anticipating societal change, trying out new operating models and accelerating businesses aimed at creating sustainable well-being.

In the interview, we discuss Sitra’s approach to examining trends, the tensions between them, and aligning with weak signals of change alongside mental images connected with the future, in order to make futures more approachable.

We particularly focus on their ‘Megatrends 2026’ report which aims to strengthen Finns’ future-orientated thinking and their capacity for foresight in decision-making; but also discuss their newly released report the ‘Growth Atlas’ along with ‘IF magazine’ which focuses on weak signals. Finally, Mikko also illuminates a side project regarding the development of ways to explore futures through body and movement.

So, I hope you enjoy listening to him as much as I did!

This episode of the New Abnormal podcast features Ramila Khafaji Zadeh, who is a trainer and designer in Futures Literacy at Hanze University of Applied Sciences and part of the UNESCO Chair in Futures Literacy.

She leads projects with governments, industry, higher education, and NGOs, and has previously worked with the UN on futures-oriented initiatives. With expertise in social innovation and governance, her current work focuses on transitions and how being futures-oriented, as a capability, helps navigate and shape these processes.

In this episode we discuss all of the above, but do so by particularly focusing on her homeland of Iran. Thus she illuminates her views on why the freedom of imagination is so important regarding utilising plural perspectives to imagine plural futures. As she says "what happens next hasn't been written yet, and the next chapter cannot be written only by what we fear might return..."

This episode of The New Abnormal podcast features the renowned superforecaster Warren Hatch, CEO of Good Judgement Inc.

He joined the organisation as a volunteer forecaster in a research project sponsored by the US government / funded by the intelligence community, where they emerged as the undisputed victor re: geopolitical forecasting.

Warren then became a 'Superforecaster' and is now CEO of the commercial successor, Good Judgment Inc, a world leader in applying innovative probabilistic solutions to real-world decisions in order to forecast the future.

He's assisted governments and private companies around the world to improve their foresight and quantify uncertainty. Warren's prior career was on Wall Street where he started at Morgan Stanley, and he earned his PhD from Oxford University.

So, we discuss all of the above in what I hope you'll agree is a fascinating conversation, focusing around Warren's views on how to quantify subjective risks to deliver accurate and early foresight, thus enabling better decision making about the future.