Nik Baerten
@pantopicon.be
📤 96
📥 204
📝 32
futures explorer, co-founder of PANTOPICON (a foresight and design studio, B)
What if GPS didn't need satellites? Last July an Australian Navy ship navigated for 144 hours, accurate to within metres, without asking any satellite where it was. It worked it out by reading the shape of Earth's gravity field. Quantum sensing on working ships. Quietly.
buff.ly/HRdWSwV
about 15 hours ago
0
0
0
🐴 The future is a Trojan horse. It sneaks past the defenses — ideas that would be blocked at the gate walk in dressed as speculation. But the conditions for that to happen don't just happen. They have to be designed. Process. Materials. Space. Facilitation. Who's in the room.
buff.ly/38T9rvi
1 day ago
0
0
0
Harvest Now, Decrypt Later. A line I keep hearing in security circles. Copy encrypted data today, freeze it, wait for quantum to read it. The interesting question isn't when the machine arrives, but what the anticipation of it is already doing to investment, sovereignty, etc.
buff.ly/3ACOgFT
8 days ago
0
0
0
🎭 How much of past, present and future power relationships can we come to know through our bodies? Spent this morning in Frederick van Amstel's Theatre of the Techno-Oppressed workshop at UHasselt. One person's utopia is another's dystopia. Bodies in a room notice it first.
buff.ly/9T2Izns
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
Most strategy work — foresight, visioning, concept development — gets bought as a project. Fixed scope, fixed cast, fixed deadline. Treat the drift it generates as scope creep and you produce a clean deliverable and a dirty result. Treat it as resilient project design instead.
buff.ly/toeWC5H
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
🌀
#PolyFutures
in Brussels asked a key question: what happens when foresight, design and behavioural insights start working as one practice, shaping how policies are prioritised, designed, reviewed? 2 days of keynotes and workshops showing: quite a lot. 🙏 to the EU Policy Lab team.
buff.ly/GRvO79R
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
A horizon scan that doesn't start with tech, but with people who'll have to live with it. Our former colleague Emiel Rijshouwer just dropped Horizonscan 2055 for STT — built on citizens deliberating online + in scenario workshops.
buff.ly/BJxTUxi
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
The interesting thing about long-duration blackouts isn't the blackout — it's what falls over in the second and third order. The supplier with its "own" diesel. The comms channel that needs a data centre that needs cooling. Day three is a different conversation.
www.linkedin.com/posts/pantop...
about 1 month ago
0
0
0
🚷 "Let's not talk about that here." Every foresight practitioner knows the sentence. A glance across the table. A quick subject change. A polite "let's keep this constructive." And every time it lands, the future just got a little smaller.
buff.ly/0pr5Vv5
about 2 months ago
0
0
0
In 2014 we put a fake startup on a real trade fair floor, selling a tiny device that quieted your phone and told the room you were in the zone. A decade later it's a whole product category. We weren't predicting it. We were making a question you could walk up to and switch on.
buff.ly/MhZNzuL
about 2 months ago
0
2
0
We built AI-generated short films set in 2040 for the ILO’s global child labour conference — narrated by people living inside five different futures. Not to predict, but to make 200 decision-makers feel what’s shifting before they could look away.
buff.ly/pJYi0aW
about 2 months ago
0
0
0
Some shocks close things down. Others open them. The cold shower, Jane Jacobs, Rosa Parks, the flood that finally moves policy. What makes the difference between a shock that destroys and one that creates?
buff.ly/ZSKMs8n
about 2 months ago
0
0
0
A client in the tech realm once told me, after a scenario exercise with people from outside his field: “Apparently not everybody thinks about it the way we do. And now I can’t unthink that.” That’s foresight. Not answers — better questions.
buff.ly/Srme8gI
loading . . .
#foresight #deeptech #foresight #strategicforesight #futures #technology #europe | Nik Baerten
🇪🇺 Europe is making moves on deep tech. The EU Inc. proposal just landed. The European Innovation Council has a fresh work programme. A Scaleup Europe Fund is taking shape. The signal is clear:...
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/nikbaerten_foresight-deeptech-foresight-activity-7442548852001480704-ztTo?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAEdJp0Bm4Zoa658LnoKo6YAU2cgHnVjctc
2 months ago
0
0
0
Virginia Tassinari and Eduardo Staszowski’s new book "(Designing) Beyond the Modern" asks whether design — born within modernity’s extractive logic — can be the thing that helps us move past it. Or do we need a rupture first? I’m biased, but this one stays with you.
www.linkedin.com/posts/nikbae...
2 months ago
0
0
0
The Overton window opens in crises. But too often we step sideways — one dominant energy logic swapped for another. The real work is cultivating imagination before the moment arrives.
www.linkedin.com/posts/nikbae...
2 months ago
0
1
0
Pokémon Go players unknowingly mapped sidewalks for delivery robots. CAPTCHAs digitised Google's books. Garbage trucks now detect potholes. Same pattern: harvesting wasted cycles. But who captures that value? What if it fed the commons instead of private companies?
2 months ago
0
1
0
2 years of ShockBox sessions across Dutch public sector organisations. A familiar pattern: when unfamiliar shocks hit, many orgs go blind fast. Not enough backup power, no fallback comms, lacking playbooks. Plans ≠ muscle memory. But the leverage points exist — if you look for them together.
3 months ago
0
0
0
Surgeons have performed the first fully robotic heart transplant in the U.S., using advanced robotic tools to avoid opening the chest.
neurosciencenews.com/robotic-hear...
11 months ago
0
1
0
New method can teach AI to admit uncertainty. In other words, it finally learns to say "I don't know"
techxplore.com/news/2025-06...
11 months ago
0
1
0
‘A timebomb’: could a French mine full of waste poison the drinking water of millions?
www.theguardian.com/environment/...
loading . . .
‘A timebomb’: could a French mine full of waste poison the drinking water of millions?
Scientists fear thousands of tonnes of chemicals dumped in mining tunnels in Alsace may seep into an aquifer with devastating consequences for people and wildlife
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/23/french-mine-stocamine-waste-drinking-water-chemicals-alsace-aquifer-aoe
11 months ago
0
1
0
Publishers facing existential threat from AI, Cloudflare CEO says
www.axios.com/2025/06/19/a...
loading . . .
https://www.axios.com/2025/06/19/ai-search-traffic-publishers
11 months ago
0
0
0
News from the
#regenerativemedicine
front ... Axolotl Discovery Brings Us Closer Than Ever to Regrowing Human Limbs
www.sciencealert.com/axolotl-disc...
loading . . .
Axolotl Discovery Brings Us Closer Than Ever to Regrowing Human Limbs
Axolotls (Ambystoma mexicanum) have the incredible ability to regenerate limbs, and even entire organs.
https://www.sciencealert.com/axolotl-discovery-brings-us-closer-than-ever-to-regrowing-human-limbs
11 months ago
0
0
0
Infrared contact lenses allow people to see in the dark, even with their eyes closed
phys.org/news/2025-05...
loading . . .
Infrared contact lenses allow people to see in the dark, even with their eyes closed
Neuroscientists and materials scientists have created contact lenses that enable infrared vision in both humans and mice by converting infrared light into visible light. Unlike infrared night vision…
https://phys.org/news/2025-05-infrared-contact-lenses-people-dark.html
about 1 year ago
0
0
0
New quantum-based navigation tech beats GPS precision by 50 times
interestingengineering.com/innovation/a...
loading . . .
New quantum-based navigation tech beats GPS precision by 50 times
Explore the advantages of Q-CTRL's quantum navigation system that operates independently of GPS and offers unparalleled accuracy.
https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/australia-firm-gps-less-navigation-system
about 1 year ago
0
2
0
👇been hammering on the language/cultural myopia of LLM’s for years. With language comes culture, worldviews, epistemologies, …
add a skeleton here at some point
about 1 year ago
0
1
0
Helps to contextualize the meaning of 'fine' ...
proton.me/blog/big-tec...
loading . . .
Big Tech earns enough in less than 3 weeks to pay all 2024 fines | Proton
Big Tech fines reached more than $8 billion in 2024. Unfortunately, not even this fine will give Big Tech pause. But progress is being made.
https://proton.me/blog/big-tech-pays-fines-under-3-weeks
over 1 year ago
0
1
0
reposted by
Nik Baerten
UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
over 1 year ago
💭How can we drive transformative change in agrifood systems? IIPP delivered a groundbreaking Applied Learning workshop to the UN
@fao.org
to equip their staff with tools and methodologies to drive transformative change. 🔗Read more here:
https://buff.ly/3VJbz1l
0
5
3
And not just in the humanities …
add a skeleton here at some point
over 1 year ago
0
2
0
reposted by
Nik Baerten
The Common Table
over 1 year ago
The Common Table is a publishing platform dedicated to food futures and systemic change. We bring diverse viewpoints and insights from around the world to the table, to enable greater constructive dialogue and exchange. We believe in better and fairer food futures for everyone.
loading . . .
The Common Table By Studio_lovell
The publishing platform for stories about food futures and systemic change
https://thecommontable.eu/
0
14
4
reposted by
Nik Baerten
Brent Toderian
over 1 year ago
NORWAY: “Despite winding back some tax benefits, EVs accounted for 94% of new car sales in October — almost 2x China’s rate — putting the country within reach of a goal to stop adding combustion engines next year.” Norway is on the cusp of an all-EV car market.
www.bloomberg.com/features/202...
loading . . .
This Is What the World’s First All-EV Car Market Looks Like
Norway is on the cusp of completing a transition away from combustion cars thanks to targeted incentives that made electrics an easy choice
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-ev-market-norway/
7
337
111
👇👇👇
add a skeleton here at some point
over 1 year ago
0
1
0
Denmark will plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
loading . . .
Denmark will plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
Danish lawmakers have agreed on a deal to plant 1 billion trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest and natural habitats in an effort to reduce fertilizer usage over the next two decades.
https://buff.ly/3YNgL4M
over 1 year ago
0
1
0
you reached the end!!
feeds!
log in