Future of Creativity + Compassion
APF x OCAD U
August 15, 16, and 17, 2025
OCAD University – Waterfront Campus
Floor 4R at 130 Queens Quay E, Toronto, ON M5A 0P6
This event would not be possible without its leadership team.
Producers
- Professor Suzanne Stein
- Suzanne Stein is a Special Advisor on Foresight and an Associate Professor at OCAD University, specializing in Strategic Foresight & Innovation and Digital Futures. As a Foresight Analyst, Mentor, and Educator, she brings extensive experience in business strategy, organizational change, and experience design. At The Futures of Creativity and Compassion conference, Suzanne will share her expertise in leveraging foresight to drive innovative solutions and transformative change. She is also the Director of the Super Ordinary Lab at OCAD University, where she leads groundbreaking research and projects in new technologies and foresight, dedicated to creative techniques and participatory methods for complex problem-solving.
- Zan Chandler
- Zan Chandler, Adjunct Professor at OCAD University, is a founder and Producer of The Futures of Creativity and Compassion conference. She is a long-time member of the Association of Professional Futurists (APF) and recently completed her term as Executive Board Member. She is a Member of the Global Foresight Advisory Council for TFSX and manages a team of foresight analysts at Policy Horizons, the Government of Canada’s centre of excellence in foresight. Zan will bring her extensive experience in foresight and cultural policy analysis to the conference, contributing to discussions on future trends and strategic innovation.
- Roberto Pires
- Roberto Pires is a Master of Design candidate in Strategic Foresight & Innovation at OCAD University, with a background in UX research and design, and over a decade of experience in the film and television industry. He has contributed to major productions including Hockey Night in Canada, several Olympic Games broadcasts, and Family Feud Canada, bringing a flexible, high-performance approach to design under pressure.
At The Futures of Creativity and Compassion conference, Roberto services as a Producer, applying his production expertise to craft a seamless and engaging event experience. He also serves as a core researcher in the Super Ordinary Lab at OCAD University, where he explores the intersections of foresight and systems thinking with technology, narrative forms and the future of communication.
- Roberto Pires is a Master of Design candidate in Strategic Foresight & Innovation at OCAD University, with a background in UX research and design, and over a decade of experience in the film and television industry. He has contributed to major productions including Hockey Night in Canada, several Olympic Games broadcasts, and Family Feud Canada, bringing a flexible, high-performance approach to design under pressure.
Super Ordinary Lab Team
- Laura Stein
- Chief Creative Officer, Bruce Mau Design (BMD)
Laura Stein is a visionary design leader whose career spans publishing, music, and fine art. Before joining Bruce Mau Design in 2005, she spent six years in New York City and toured as a musician—experiences that shaped her collaborative, conceptual, and emotionally resonant approach to design. She has led award-winning projects for global clients including Sonos, ASICS Tiger, the National Ballet of Canada, and the Zayed National Museum in Abu Dhabi, earning recognition from prestigious institutions such as D&AD and Cannes Lions.
For the Creativity and Compassion conference, she led the integration and implementation of the visual design system, editing content and ensuring every element was crisp, cohesive, and full of vitality. Her system was intentionally crafted to minimize ink usage, reflecting a thoughtful commitment to environmentally responsible design. Laura’s leadership helped shape a visual experience that not only embodied the conference’s values of creativity, compassion, and care—and to foster these principles as essential tools for building a better future.
- Chief Creative Officer, Bruce Mau Design (BMD)
- Ugochi Imoka
- Ugochi is a strategic communications professional, program designer, and certified project manager who applies a multidisciplinary lens to complex challenges. With a background in law, she has worked across public and private sectors on education program design, organisational change, and in translating complex ideas for a range of interest holders. Her current research focuses on the futures of learning, using a dialogue centered approach to explore the opportunities for deepening learning and developing expert learners within higher education.
- Danny Ghantous
- Danny Ghantous is a foresight analyst for the Super Ordinary Lab and a current graduate student in OCAD University’s Strategic Foresight & Innovation Master’s program. Aside from his work at the lab, Danny is deeply engaged in a substantial research project examining the impact of the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence on bots across the web and the current manifestation of the Dead Internet Theory. At the conference, Danny will share insights from his research, exploring the implications of AI on digital ecosystems.
- Golnoush Mirsalari
- Multidisciplinary artist, designer, and MFA candidate in Digital Futures at OCAD University. Her practice explores the emotional and sensory relationship between humans and machines through immersive installations grounded in psychology, phenomenology, and posthumanism theory. She is currently assisting Professor Suzanne Stein in organizing the upcoming 2025 APF x OCAD Event, where her installation, Echoes of the Unseen, will also be featured. Her work challenges boundaries between human and machine, fostering connection, empathy, and self-awareness through responsive, multisensory experiences.
- Alizeh Waseem
- Alizeh Waseem is a Master of Design candidate in Strategic Foresight & Innovation. With a background in film, marketing, and activism, she brings a multidisciplinary and justice-driven approach to futures thinking and systems work, through experience in organizing public actions, coordinating grassroots fundraising, and building community initiatives. Through her activist work, she has created immersive, multimedia art installations that respond to evolving feminist protest themes. Her academic work explores reimagining liveable cities through decolonial, feminist, and climate-resilient urban frameworks. She is particularly interested in how creativity and care can shape more inclusive futures across systems. Having lived across multiple cultures, Alizeh brings a globally informed, care-centered perspective to transformative design and foresight practice. She supported the planning of the Futures of Creativity and Compassion event as a research assistant and continues to support as a volunteer.
- Alizeh Waseem is a Master of Design candidate in Strategic Foresight & Innovation. With a background in film, marketing, and activism, she brings a multidisciplinary and justice-driven approach to futures thinking and systems work, through experience in organizing public actions, coordinating grassroots fundraising, and building community initiatives. Through her activist work, she has created immersive, multimedia art installations that respond to evolving feminist protest themes. Her academic work explores reimagining liveable cities through decolonial, feminist, and climate-resilient urban frameworks. She is particularly interested in how creativity and care can shape more inclusive futures across systems. Having lived across multiple cultures, Alizeh brings a globally informed, care-centered perspective to transformative design and foresight practice. She supported the planning of the Futures of Creativity and Compassion event as a research assistant and continues to support as a volunteer.
- Orus Mateo Castaño-Suárez
- Orus Mateo Castaño-Suárez is an award-winning academic, artist, and designer whose work builds transdisciplinary collaboration across technology, mathematics, and science. Castaño-Suárez uses the neuroscience and epistemology of the visuospatial to develop emerging and anticipatory cybernetic research methods that accelerate climate resilience and sustainability transitions. Innovation in their work is inextricably linked to anti-oppression and Indigenous futurities. Castaño-Suárez’s findings have been presented both in Canada and internationally, with notable presentations at Harvard University.
At The Futures of Creativity and Compassion conference, Orus served on the core event organizing committee across the APF and Super Ordinary Lab. Orus liaised with leaders of sustainable food and beverage (Mohawk Soda Co., Karine’s, Butter and Spice) to provide a low-carbon-footprint conference catering experience in line with conference values of creativity and compassion. Orus’s survey of arts and culture events in Toronto was chosen as the welcome guide for conference attendees visiting the city. Furthermore, Orus significantly extended the conference’s impact by adding substantial value to our partner organizations. For example, Orus carefully remade the original Mohawk Soda Co. logo using vector graphics for a corporate identity and communications design infrastructure that is clearer, scalable, and ready for the future.
As a conference exhibitor, Orus is facilitating Thank you., an immersive space to contemplate compassionate futures through gratitude practice. Orus was also nominated to the Association of Professional Futurists’s 2025 IF Award.
At OCAD University, Orus serves as the Strategic Foresight and Innovation program’s web communications design lead. In the Super Ordinary Lab, Orus is also designing corporate identity and web communications.
Further information: orusmateo.com
- Orus Mateo Castaño-Suárez is an award-winning academic, artist, and designer whose work builds transdisciplinary collaboration across technology, mathematics, and science. Castaño-Suárez uses the neuroscience and epistemology of the visuospatial to develop emerging and anticipatory cybernetic research methods that accelerate climate resilience and sustainability transitions. Innovation in their work is inextricably linked to anti-oppression and Indigenous futurities. Castaño-Suárez’s findings have been presented both in Canada and internationally, with notable presentations at Harvard University.
August 15, 16, and 17, 2025
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