Yes, I was crazy enough to take on the challenge to introduce uncertainty, speculative design and wicked problems to an audience of engineers. 🤘🏻 My presentation on methodologies focussed on navigating futures at the European 6G World Conference, as part of a panel with Derek O'Halloran (WEF), Matthew Bloxham (Bloomberg) & Matti Latva-aho (University of Oulu).

1. Catherine Van Holder
the complex & the wicked
pathways into the future tense
@cvanholder

2. future
1. Longer-term evolution of communications
and digitalisation beyond 5G
2. Business, social and government context
they will arise in
Smart Europe in line with
EU aspirations & Sustainable
Development Goals
how to get there from today?
aka “the roadmap”

3. futures
Smart Europe in line with
EU aspirations & Sustainable
Development Goals
a multitude of possible DESTEP
(demographic, economic, social,
technological, ecological,
governmental) futures
society and it’s subsystems
complex “interdependent” and “non-linear” systems
most sustainable development
goals are wicked problems
2
1
3

4. mindset
exploring and envisioning futures entails
embracing complexity and to substitute
the idea of precise, linear roadmaps by
transition experiments and fuzzy, always
learning and readjusting approaches.
no one has the full and
fi
nal truth about where
we are going - or even
where we should go
Alvin To
fl
er

5. futures
exploration
a tale of multiple futures
Images Copyright: 4 Scripts For Ghent 2040

6. implications
a variety of leverage points,
relevant actors, challenges &
opportunities, test-tunneling
of strategy,….

7. Aldous Huxley
We mustn’t be caught by surprise
by our own advancing
technologies. This has happend
again and again in history.
Suddenly people have found
themselves in a situation which
they didn’t foresee and doing all
sorts of things that they didn’t
really want to do.
//
Images Copyright: Black Mirror

8. envisioning
a smart europe
envisioning better futures
encompassing a diversity of
pressures and perspectives

9. Project title Client

10. Bill Sharpe - 3 horizons

11. wicked problems
social or cultural problems which
lack clarity in both their aims and
solutions and are dif
fi
cult or
impossible to solve — because of
its complex and interconnected
nature

12. fuzzy
experiments
transition experiments
aimed at exploring radically
new ways to meet societal
needs, such as the need for
energy, mobility and health
care
Copyright Image: Bill Sharpe - 3 horizons

13. leverage points
coupling smart tech with leverage
points for innovation in order to
achieve SDGs

14. Alex McDowell
We are moving into a
landscape where art and
science, design and
engineering are inseparable.
At their intersection lies the
new creative laboratory for the
future of our narrative
practices.
//
Copyright:
Neri
Oxman,
JoDS
(2016),
MIT
media
lab