The idea was intriguing. Create a lab where faculty and graduate students of the Strategic Foresight & Innovation (SFI) graduate program at OCAD University could practice foresight and innovation professionally on real-life projects. However, the beginnings of the Strategic Innovations Lab (sLab) were very modest: No dedicated staff but rather two faculty, who are teaching in the SFI and undergraduate programs, plus a few external professionals who were interested enough to invest time and effort on a volunteer basis. Most of the people involved were also participating in getting the SFI program up and running in record time while managing the challenges posed by the novelty of its concepts and design.
Fast forward two years. The SFI program’s success is widely acknowledged inside and outside the institution. In September 2011 the program will be taking in its third cohort. Meanwhile, the sLab has moved from small projects to a few major ones: the Media Futures 2020, a collaboration of multiple organizations led by sLab is about to be wrapped up; an sLab team has been contracted to provide inputs to the strategic planning process of OCADU for 2012-2017; members of sLab are participating in the team leading the “Take Ontario Mobile” (TOM), a collaborative project developing a vision for enabling Ontarians to access services from any device anywhere; and sLab has just started an important foresight project on Economic Futures Ontario (EFO).
Among the characteristic buzz and apparent chaos of project deadlines and the completion by the 2009 cohort of their Major Research Projects for graduation an interesting and promising capacity in the field of foresight is emerging. sLab specific methodologies are solidifying and one can almost touch the experience gained through intense engagements with real projects.
We are proud to have been involved since the beginnings in these interesting activities and look forward to continue to contribute to this unique space that sLab is carving for itself.
