Kevin Bethune
Principal Futurist
dreams • design + life,
Kevin Bethune is the Founder & Chief Creative Officer of dreams • design + life, a think tank that delivers design & innovation services using a human-centered approach. His background spans engineering, business and design in equal proportion over 25+ years of in-depth product experiences, positioning him to help brands deliver meaningful innovations to enrich people’s lives.
His first book, Reimagining Design: Unlocking Strategic Innovation (The MIT Press) was released with notable acclaim under the Simplicity: Design, Business, Technology, Life Series in March 2022.
His second book, Nonlinear: Navigating Design with Curiosity and Conviction (The MIT Press), is due February 4, 2025.
He also serves as a Board Trustee for ArtCenter College of Design and a Board Director for the Design Management Institute (DMI).
Jake Dunagan
design futurist, social inventor, teacher
Institute for the Future & University of Texas, Austin
As an originator of experiential futures, Dr. Jake Dunagan has been at the forefront of the practice and pedagogy of the field for the last 15 years. Jake brings both theoretical rigor and hands-on practical knowledge to his work. He has taught and mentored design futures students for over 10 years at leading institutions around the world such as the University of Texas' Center for Integrated Design and MA in Design in Health, California College of the Arts' Design Strategy MBA program, and CENTRO in Mexico City.
Some of his career highlights as a design futurist include ground-breaking projects including immersive scenarios for for the State of Hawaii 2050, a pandemic-based alternate reality game for the CDC, visions of future cities with the US Conference of Mayors, exhibitions for the Dubai Museum of the Future, and projects with many other civic organizations, foundations, and businesses.
Jake holds a Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii, Manoa with special focus on neuropolitics, governance design, alternative futures, and communication of foresight. He has an MA from Temple University and a BA from Auburn University, both in visual anthropology.
Why Attend?
Unlock the power of design as a strategic tool
As Kevin Bethune outlines in Reimagining Design, design isn’t just about creating visually appealing products—it’s a crucial element of problem-solving that can drive innovation and address systemic issues like diversity and inclusion. Bethune will reveal how design can be leveraged to anchor multidisciplinary teamwork and leadership that reflects today’s marketplace.
Engage in transformative conversations on futures design
Jake's time in the speculative and futures design domains, particularly at the Institute for the Future (IFTF) in Palo Alto has taught him how to think beyond the present, and develop tools and real insights on how to engage with foresight and speculative design to influence decisions today that shape tomorrow. His groundbreaking work in experiential futures offers creative professionals new ways to innovate in their fields.
Here real-world actionable insights for creating positive change
Kevin has true, on-the-ground experience in the ways design, when integrated with other disciplines, can lead to meaningful change in both individual careers and large organizations. His experiences in corporate America and at Nike highlight how we can design not just for innovation, but for inclusivity and social equity.
Prepare for the future of professional practice
This seminar will equip you with fresh approaches to tackling the challenges of the future, with Kevin and Jake showing how to integrate strategic design thinking, futures foresight, and leadership to shape your professional and creative practices.
What do I get?
Aside from a network of new professional connections within an emerging domain that leverages human insight, imagination, ingenuity, and intelligence, every attendee receives complete take-away package, including presentations, annotated audio recordings, and a post-Seminar review and analysis
What will we cover?
Innovation as a strategic practice
How to push beyond traditional frameworks to create designs that truly matter. Kevin, author of Reimagining Design, emphasizes how design offers far more than aesthetics—it’s a strategic problem-solving tool that can unlock innovation, guide multidisciplinary teamwork, and address the complex challenges faced by organizations today. Over his career he has navigated corporate America at his time at Westinghouse, Nike and as a sought-after consultant, demonstrating the transformative power of design in fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion within teams and leadership.
Futures design
Envisioning alternative futures and learning how to implement strategic foresight in your professional work. Jake has done pioneering work in experiential futures, helping creative professionals envision alternative futures and apply strategic foresight to their work, whether in organizations or individual practice. His expertise in governance design and alternative futures will help you understand how futures thinking can be a tool for creating actionable, positive change.
Human-centered approaches to design and foresight
How does a deep understanding of human needs reshape your professional and creative practices? Both Kevin and Jake emphasize the importance of using design not just for functional or aesthetic purposes, but as a means to address broader social and ecological challenges. Kevin's has real-world experience with integrating diversity and inclusion in design and understands how it can result in unexpected and remarkable outcomes. Jake has experiences he will share as to how futures work can be applied to remarkable effect in the contexts of governance, cities, and communities.
Professional practice for creative professionals
How nonlinear thinking and speculative approaches can unlock new avenues for growth and success. This Episode will give you an opportunity to gain insights into how design can act as a catalyst for innovation in complex systems. Both of your presenters are advocates for a more agile, multidisciplinary approach to teamwork and leadership, and throughout their careers have seen how design can open new pathways in professional practice by expanding beyond traditional boundaries of design.
Following each presentation, you’ll have the opportunity to engage directly with Kevin and Jake in a lively discussion that goes deep into the how, why, and what next of the ideas presented.
What's the format?
Come prepared for a meaningful, rich discussion. We believe discussion and conversation, in a world where we often find ourselves on the receiving end of a firehose of ideas, is dramatically undervalued.
SuperSeminar is not your usual online presentation platform. We've inverted the model.
No more long presentations followed by 0 minutes for deep discussion, engagement, and Q&A.
In SuperSeminar, our presenters offer a tight 15-20 minute evocation, sharing brief insights on the topic from their experience. Then, much like a graduate seminar or salon, we #discuss the topic, offering attendees a unique opportunity to engage in a dialogue with the presenters and other attendees.