The Vision Thing: From Black Mirror to Foresight Planning

This panel will explore how different organisations and society perceive and plan for the future, especially in relation to the evolution of new digital technologies. This visioning is especially important where the technologies being considered have potential societal harms, such as those associated with enhanced surveillance and/or privacy infringements. Foresight mechanisms can include trend monitoring and analysis, scenario planning, technology road mapping, and foresight workshops and innovation labs. They are designed to help organisations plan for the future. In this panel we will explore the processes of foresight planning from distinctly different perspectives, including from commercial, service, regulatory and literary perspectives. The speakers will contrast how the future is perceived in science fiction, by futurists, and by those who promote, use and regulate such technologies.

Speakers:

Professor William Webster, CRISP, Stirling Management School, University of Stirling

Professor Greg Singh, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Stirling

Patricia Lustig, Managing Director, LASA Insight Ltd and Emeritus Director of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF)

Antonia Mochan, Deputy Head of the European Commission Policy Lab, Joint Research Centre, European Commission

Dr Rosamunde van Brakel, Researcher, VUB Brussels, Belgium

For more information see: Computers Privacy and Data Protection Conference 2025