Dreams and Disruptions

Shermon O. Cruz is a professional futurist, workshop instructor/facilitator, and risk management and certified business continuity management expert. He is the founder and executive director of the Center for Engaged Foresight, a futures innovation and strategic foresight hub established in 2012.  He is a co-founder and chair of the Millennium Project Philippines Node  and Vice-President of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society. A co-founder of the Asia Pacific Futures Network, he is a member futurists of the Australian Government Science and Technology foresight arm CSIRO Data 61 Asia Pacific Foresight Group, the Association of Professional Futurists, the World Futures Federation and the UNESCO Global Anticipatory Thinking and Futures Literacy Network.

Shiela R. Castillo is a Futures Learning Advisor at the Center for Engaged Foresight since 2018. She has facilitated futures workshops for UNICEF Philippines, UN Cambodia, and the East-West Center Hawaii. She is also one of the co-founders of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society (PhilFutures).  Ms. Castillo participated in a 21-day intensive course Urban Action School (2018) organized by ActionAid India, and also attended Transforming Philippine Cities: An Integrative Foresight Course for Women City Leaders (2015) and Resilient Cities, Brighter Futures: A Forum-Workshop on Anticipatory Thinking & Strategic Foresight for Sustainable Cities (2014), both organized by UNESCO. She took e-learning courses on The Future of Work and Humanitarian Foresight. She became a member of the Association of Professional Futurists this year and has been a Fellow of the Circle for Engaged Foresight since 2012.

Dr Marcus Bussey is Deputy Head, School of Social Sciences at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. He is a founding member of The Sustainability Research Centre. As a cultural theorist, historian and futurist he works on cultural processes that energise social transformation. He uses futures thinking and embodied workshops to challenge the dominant beliefs and assumptions that constrain human responses to rapid cultural, social, environmental and technological change. He is currently focused on the role of anticipatory aesthetics as a process-oriented approach to understanding and accessing human transformative potential.

Marcus has co-authored with Professor Richard Slaughter Futures Thinking for Social Foresight (2005). He has also co-edited two books with Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojević – Neohumanist Educational Futures (2006) and Alternative Educational Futures (2008). In addition, he has edited Tantric Women Tell their Stories (2007) and Dynamics of Dissent: Theorising Movements for Inclusive Futures (Palgrave forthcoming) with Meera Chakravorty and John Clammer. Marcus has held fellowships at Nanyang Technical University, Singapore and Tamkang University, Taiwan. He is currently Program Leader in Futures Studies at his university. Marcus is on the editorial boards for the Journal of Futures Studies, Foresight, and On the Horizons. His new book of poetry (as social theory) The Next Big Thing! (Studera Press) is being released in early March.

For more information on Marcus: http://www.usc.edu.au/explore/structure/faculty-of-arts-business-and-law/staff/dr-marcus-bussey