Rafael Popper (PhD) is Founder and External Director of Futures Diamond Ltd in the United Kingdom, Director of Executive Education in Foresight at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) of the University of Manchester in the UK, Adjunct Professor in Futures Studies, Foresight and Innovation Management at the Finland Futures Research Centre of the University of Turku in Finland, and Co-Founder and Director of the Łukasiewicz – Centre for Foresight and Internationalisation (CFI) at the Łukasiewicz Research Network in Poland. Dr. Popper was also Principal Scientist in Business, Innovation and Foresight at VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd (2016-2021). Dr. Popper has 20+ years of experience working as foresight and innovation policy consultant for several international organizations including the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA), European Commission, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), World Bank, and for several public and private organisations in Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, Australia and the Middle East.

Lonny J Avi Brooks is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at California State University, East Bay, in strategic communication where he piloted the integration of futures thinking into the communication curriculum for the last fifteen years. Emerging in recent years as a leading voice of Afrofuturism 2.0, Brooks contributes prolifically to journals, conferences and anthologies on the subject, and is executive producer/co-creator, with Ahmed Best, of The Afrofuturist Podcast. He is the lead co-editor for the December 2019 special issue of the Journal of Futures Studies: “When is Wakanda? Afrofuturism & Dark Speculative Futurity”. He is lead organizer in Oakland and advisory board member for the Black Speculative Arts Movement (BSAM), co-founded by Reynaldo Anderson, a national, global movement dedicated to celebrating the Black imagination. He is Creative Director for California BSAM Futures (launching soon), using gaming for imaginative, futures, action-oriented thinking. He has a passion for creating games to envision social justice futures including black and queer liberation from the recently launched game events like Afro-Rithms From The Future to United Queerdom and Futurescope. He and his co-game designer Eli Kosminsky are committed to articulating emerging new future visions for traditionally underrepresented voices.

Kerstin Cuhls(PhD) is a scientific project manager at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research (ISI) since 1992 and an Honorary Professor for Japanology, Time and Futures Sciences at the University of Heidelberg since 2020. She studied Japanology, Chinese Studies and Economics/Business Administration. She finished her Dr. phil. at the University of Hamburg in Japanology about Technology Foresight in Japan and now combines this knowledge with methods from Futures Research. From 2007 to 2009 Kerstin Cuhls was the project manager of the first cycle of the BMBF Foresight. From 2008 to 2010 she was head of the business unit "Foresight and Futures Research" in Fraunhofer ISI. In national, regional and international studies for different contracting authorities she built up a huge repertoire of methods in Foresight applied in projects and taught in seminars at the Freie Universität Berlin (Masterstudiengang Zukunftsforschung) as well as the Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik (BAKS).

Monika Popper (MSc) is Managing Director at Futures Diamond - an innovation systems company specialised in the provision of information technology (IT) and software solutions to government, business, research and education actors at local, national and international levels. In recent years she has worked in the area of future-oriented innovation assessment and management; mapping critical issues affecting sustainability of innovation and collaborating with relevant stakeholders to create growth, competitiveness and sustainability of innovations. In her role as a researcher and innovation manager, she has reviewed developments and implementation of health and safety, food security, cybersecurity, healthcare and sustainable innovation (SI) policies and platforms, amongst other research and technology development activities.

Guillermo Velasco (PhD) is Scientific Manager of Innovation and Technology Transfer of the Flagship ‘Human Brain Project’ (European Commission) and senior researcher - Task leader - at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. He is also Honorary Research Fellow at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (MIOIR) of the University of Manchester (UoM) in the UK, where he completed a doctoral thesis on the generation of sound advice with Foresight. His academic background also includes a MPhil in Economics and Innovation Management (EU-SPRI) and a BEng in Industrial Organization from the Technical University of Madrid. He has over twenty years of experience working on innovation management as Director of Innovation in different industrial companies, and ten years as researcher and consultant for different institutions like the European Commission and United Nations, in Europe and Latin America.

Łukasz Nazarko (PhD) is an Assistant Professor at Bialystok University of Technology, Poland. He conducts research in foresight, Technology Assessment, Responsible Research and Innovation, innovation policy, technology management, and smart specialization strategy. He graduated from the Warsaw School of Economics in international relations and from the European and Nordic Studies Programme at the University of Turku (Finland). He obtained his PhD degree cum laude from the University of Economics in Katowice for the thesis entitled “Role of foresight in shaping national innovation policy”. Lukasz Nazarko was a visiting scholar at the Institute of Industrial Science of the University of Tokyo in the framework of the Japan Foundation Fellowship Programme and a senior research fellow at VilniusTech (Lithuania). He has published ca. 70 scientific works and has participated in many national and international research projects related to futures studies, sustainable regional development, innovation, and entrepreneurial discovery. He has rich experience in the design and facilitation of the participatory foresight processes in private and public sector as well as in executive education. He serves as a deputy editor-in-chief of the Engineering Management in Production and Services (EMPAS) journal. He is a board member of the Polish Society for Technology Assessment, and board member of the IEEE Technology Management Society Poland Chapter.