Future Matters: Futures Known, Created and Minded

DAVID AMBROSE Born in England in 1950, David Ambrose first worked as a promoter and performer as part of the Guildford Arts Laboratory in the late 60's, before studying Drama at University of Hull and touring Britain for several years with Hull Truck Theatre Co. He later lived in a stately home in Hampshire where he worked as a farmhand, milkman, music journalist, reggae promoter and community theatre director, before moving to Wales in the 1980's to be Director of St Donats Arts Centre for nearly twenty years. During much of that time he has been involved in encouraging the revival of performance storytelling in Wales, presenting storytelling events in and around St Donats Castle on the South Wales coast, and in 1993 founded the Beyond The Border Wales International Storytelling Festival, which he continues to co-direct with the storyteller Ben Haggarty.

WENDELL BELL is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, Yale University, where he served as Chair of the Department, helped to found African American Studies, and directed the Comparative Sociology Training Program. During WWII, he was a naval aviator, serving in the Philippines. He received his Ph.D. degree from UCLA and did research on American cities. Later, he studied sociopolitical change in the Caribbean. He has been a futurist for four decades and served on the Commission on Connecticut's Future. He is the author or co-author of more than 200 articles and nine books, including the two-volume Foundations of Futures Studies.

Paper Title: The Future of Human Society

GILLIAN CLARKE has published 8 collections of poetry, writes plays and short stories, and translates poetry and fiction from Welsh. She is president of Ty Newydd, the Writers' Centre in Gwynedd, North Wales, which she co-founded in 1990, and is part time tutor in doctoral studies in Creative Writing, University of Glamorgan, and the Capital Poet for Cardiff during the centenary year 2005-6. Recent books include Collected Poems, and Making the Beds for the Dead, published by Carcanet. She lives in Ceredigion.

JOSEPHINE GREEN was appointed Senior Director of Trends and Strategy at Philips Design in 1997. She promotes new thinking and new knowledge in the fields of Foresight and Society, Cultures and People Research, and its application to strategic thinking, sustainable innovation and new value creation. She pioneered the Strategic Futures Program that helps companies and organizations think about and implement a human focused approach to innovation and growth. Regarding socio-cultural research, a subject on which she speaks regularly and is a widely-recognized authority, she says; "While technology has undoubtedly improved peoples lives, it also has the potential to complicate and diminish them. That is why we're building up our knowledge and insights on society and cultures and our engagement with users and stakeholders in order to better ensure that our solutions are relevant and meaningful to the individual, the culture and society as a whole." She has worked both in international sales and marketing in the health and beauty sector and for a leading institute on social cultural research and change for strategic innovation and marketing. She has consistently helped customers introduce new thinking and sustainable development into their culture and processes. Josephine has given many international presentations, and lectures at a number of universities' masters and executive courses. Josephine Green was born in the United Kingdom and has studied History and Politics at Warwick University in England. She has lived in England, Italy and the Netherlands.

Paper Title: Interfacing with the Future

WOLFGANG SACHS is Head of the Cross-cutting Project "Globalization and Sustainability" and PhD Collegium "Environment and Fairness in the World Trade Regime" at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Wuppertal, Germany. He is a regular lecturer at Kassel University and lectured at Schumacher College in the UK from 1993-2001. He is Chair of the Board of Greenpeace in Germany, and a member of the Club of Rome.

Paper Title: The Fairness Of The Future And The Future Of Fairness