Dr John A. Sweeney

Dr John A. Sweeney is an award-winning author, designer, and futurist. In 2021, John joined SOIF as the Transformative Foresight Lead and is also the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies for Anticipatory Governance and Sustainable Policymaking at Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. As a practitioner, consultant, and educator, John has organized, managed, and facilitated workshops and seminars, multi-stakeholder projects, and foresight gaming systems in person within 45 countries on five continents and online with participants from around the world. He also serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of World Futures Review: A Journal of Strategic Foresight and faculty within the University of Houston’s Masters of Strategic Foresight. 

John has worked with numerous universities, international development and humanitarian aid agencies, nonprofit foundations, Fortune 500 companies, and educational and cultural organizations, such as Asia Development Bank, Humanity United, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, GIZ, INTERPOL, NESTA, Oxfam International, the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, the World Health Organization, and numerous UN agencies. Additionally, he has experience working with public sector and civil service foresight and innovation units, such as Singapore’s Centre for Strategic Futures, Georgia’s Public Service Development Agency, and Dubai’s Mohammed Bin Rashid Centre for Government Innovation. John is a member of the World Futures Studies Federation and the Association of Professional Futurists. His work has been published in Futures, Futures & Foresight Science, The Journal of Futures Studies, World Futures Review, and other academic and media outlets.