SHN Virtual Colloquium
Navigating a New Era of
Disruption and Resilience
Friday, January 30, 2026
Member Colleges
© Copyright 2026 by Strategic Horizon Network
Agenda
| 10:30 - 11:45 a.m. | Navigating Chaos: A sense-making guide to a BANI world that doesn't make sense Jamais Cascio & Bob Johansen, Institute For the Future |
|---|---|
| Noon - 1 p.m. | Break / Lunch |
| 1:00 - 2:15 p.m. | The Future of Work Is Fragmented. How Do We Stay Whole? Matt Sigelman, Burning Glass Institute Emma Seppälä, Yale University |
Keynote - Navigating Chaos: A sense-making guide to a BANI world that doesn't make sense
Hear from the authors and futurists who will help us reframe BANI (Brittle, Anxious, Nonlinear, and Incomprehensible) with "positive BANI" and sense-making strategies in a chaotic world.
Jamais Cascio
Selected by Foreign Policy magazine as one of their Top 100 Global Thinkers, Jamais Cascio has explored the intersection of environment, technology, and culture for over 25 years, specializing in the creation of plausible future scenarios. In 2018, he created the "BANI" framework for understanding a chaotic world; this model is now in use by businesses, academics, and governments around the world. His 2025 book Navigating the Age of Chaos: A Sense-Making Guide to a BANI World That Doesn't Make Sense explores the meaning and uses of the BANI framework. Cascio's work appears across media, from popular press to academic journals to documentaries. He speaks globally about future possibilities to audiences including the World Bank, TED, and the U.S. National Academies of Science. In 2010, he was named a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future. In 2017, the University of Advancing Technology awarded him an Honorary Doctorate in recognition of his ongoing work.
Bob Johansen
Bob Johansen is a distinguished futurist, author, and longtime leader at the Institute for the Future, where he has spent decades helping organizations prepare for uncertainty and complexity. He is widely recognized for translating foresight into practical leadership guidance, including concepts such as future-ready skills, dilemma thinking, and clarity in chaos. Bob's work emphasizes the human side of leadership – how courage, empathy, and intentionality become essential when traditional planning no longer works. Across multiple books and global engagements, he has helped leaders reframe uncertainty not as a threat, but as a space for innovation and purposeful action.
Panel - The Future of Work Is Fragmented. How Do We Stay Whole?
Explore the forces reshaping the modern workplace and how human-centered strategies can restore resilience in the face of accelerating disruption.
Emma Seppälä
Dr. Emma Seppälä is a psychologist, researcher, and author whose work bridges the science of well-being with the demands of modern life. A faculty member at Yale University and the bestselling author of Sovereign: Reclaim Your Freedom, Energy, and Power, she brings deep expertise on emotional resilience, workplace flourishing, and the neuroscience of stress and connection. In the face of accelerating disruption, her research offers a powerful reminder: human performance is rooted not in exhaustion, but in sovereignty – the ability to stay centered, purposeful, and whole in chaotic times. Emma's insights are both grounding and galvanizing for anyone leading or living through change.
Matt Sigelman
Matt Sigelman is President of the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit data laboratory working at the intersection of the future of work and the future of learning to advance economic mobility, shared prosperity, and improved outcomes for workers and learners. Named by Forbes to its Future of Work 50, Matt has dedicated his career to bridging the gap between talent and opportunity.
Previously Chairman and CEO of Lightcast, Matt pioneered the field of real-time labor market analytics, a breakthrough innovation that transformed the way employers, education institutions, policy makers, and workers understand, plan for, and connect with the world of work.
He serves as Senior Advisor at the Harvard Project on the Workforce and a Futures Fellow at the Stanford Center on Longevity. He writes widely on the job market, has testified before Congress, and is consulted frequently by public officials and the global media. He is also Founder of the Main Line Classical Academy, an elementary school bringing the classical liberal arts curriculum and rigorous study in math and science to the kindergarten level on up and dedicated to the idea that children are never too young to learn great things.
Matt holds an AB from Princeton University, an MBA from Harvard, and is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Reading and Video Resources
Reading Resources
- 2026 SHN Virtual Colloquium Background and Overview
- Navigating the Age of Chaos
- How the Internet Rewired Work – and What That Tells Us About AI's Likely Impact
- The Heart of Change
- Getting to It!
- Human Resilience in the AI Era
- Preparing for The Future of Learning
- The Leadership Literacies