At the Accelerating Change conference in September, I met Linda Groff and we had a wonderful conversation about the relationship between the coming singularity and spiritual intelligence. It was just a short conversation between talks, but clearly we had some common ground. One of the topics in that brief conversation was my participation in the Spirituality Track of the 2005 American Creativity Associations international conference in Austin.

About a month ago, Linda called to ask if I would like to participate on a panel at the upcoming World Future Society in Toronto.

Here is the draft of the description of the panel so far:

World Future Society Conference Proposal-July 2006–Toronto
Panel Theme: Cutting-Edge Issues in Evolution: Creativity and Innovation

There are many issues that will effect the future evolution of humanity. One important issue is the development of human, social, cultural, scientific, technological, and artistic potential via creativity and innovation in all these areas–the focus of this panel. The world is currently in a period characterized by terrorism and natural disasters, which all engender fear and lead some to seek oversimplified black and white absolute worldviews that choke off dialogue between different worldviews in the deeper search for truth and understanding, which is necessary for creative breakthroughs to occur in any field. This panel will look at a number of different perspectives on creativity and innovation–including key approaches to this in different cultures and time periods, and including the debate on evolution vs. “intelligent design” today–and why this topic is so crucial to future human evolution, noting that humanity has always progressed when great creative breakthroughs have occurred and stagnated when people lived in fear and dogmatism.

Who should attend: Futurists in any area of life–academy, business, government, and community-who are concerned about fostering greater creativity and innovation, rather than fear of change, so that humanity can continue to evolve.

What you’ll learn: Why is creativity and innovation so important to the evolution of humanity and society, what are the challenges to creativity and innovation today, and how might greater creativity and innovation be fostered.

How this knowledge can be applied: Panel will look at how to encourage creativity and innovation-including in a climate where fear of change exists. The many benefits of creativity and innovation to civilization will be noted.

Chair and Panelist:
Linda Groff, Professor, California State University, Dominguez Hills, and Director, Global Options Consulting, USA

Other Panelists:
* David L. Swedlow, Synergy for Practical Conceptual Innovation, Austin, Texas
* Jan Amkreutz, Digital Crossroads Consulting, Montana; Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Agent Technology and Knowledge Management, University of Maastricht, The Netherlands.

Other Possible Panelists:
* Johnson, Charles, Psychiatrist, author of books on creativity and a CD on the Evolution of Music.
* Lindstrom, Hal, Editor of Technological Forecasting Journal, on Technological Innovation.
* Cordeiro, Jose. Venezuelan Representative for WFS, Millenium Project, and Club of Rome; and Convenor, recent TransVision Conference, Caracas, 2005. Attending recent Brazilian Innovation Conference.