Zuzanna Skalska's lecture Year 2040 - prototyping tomorrow was delivered on July 5 at the Beskid Library in Bielsko-Biała. Admission was free. People were invited to discuss our future!
YEAR 2040 – PROTOTYPING TOMORROW
Every day the news changes the context of the reality in which we trust. No wonder that right now everyone faces real challenges to the ability to survive and think outside standard norms. We are at the beginning of huge geopolitical changes. No one knows what the consequences of these may be, but everyone will be affected by them. One thing is for sure - cities need to change the way they think. The pandemic, the war in Ukraine and its consequences, and the development of artificial intelligence will most likely become the catalyst for enormous transformation.
The city of Bielsko-Biała wishes to bid for the title of European Capital of Culture 2029. In order to develop proposals adequate for the new reality, one needs to be able to start a dialogue about the possible paths to take in the future. What role will culture play? Creative industries did not exist in the terminology of cities until 2010. The phenomenon of the importance of ecology has changed drastically. Tourism is no longer what it was before the rise of low-cost airlines. Many European cities, among them Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, are doing everything they can to discourage tourists. How will the CULTURE that Bielsko-Biała wants to propose for 2029 be defined? The lecture was inspiring, motivating, and went beyond our comfort zone.
Zuzanna Skalska
Zuzanna's career began in 1998 at Philips Design where she worked for many years in the Strategic Design team being responsible for Trend Analysis in visionary projects of the future. After that, for almost fifteen years, she led Design Management & Trends, a leading design studio in the Netherlands. In 2014 she founded 360Inspiration which operates on the global market with international clients from various industries. These include many global giants and market leaders. She works closely with presidents of companies, board members, heads of R&D and city authorities, advising them on the strategic development of their organisations. Her tools and work techniques help to prototype innovations in all manner of future scenarios and to develop less obvious development opportunities. In addition, she lectures at many universities around the world, is heavily involved in projects promoting design and creative industries and speaks at opinion-forming events dedicated to innovation and economy. She is co-creator of the School of Form (SWPS) and since 2019 has been a managing partner at FutureS Thinking Group. Her speciality is in Up-Front Innovation, Signals of Change© and Futures Thinking, i.e. strategic thinking about the future. She has lived in the Netherlands for thirty years.
