Everyone wants a better future. Few know how to create one.

In this opening keynote, Frederik G. Pferdt invites you into a simple but powerful shift:
your future doesn’t begin somewhere ahead. It begins within you.

Drawing on his work at Google, Stanford, and with leaders around the world, Frederik introduces a future-ready mindstate that reshapes how you see uncertainty, decide, and act.

Instead of waiting for clarity, you’ll learn to move with it.
Instead of following trends, you’ll begin creating what’s next.

This is not about predicting the future.
It’s about practicing how to shape it—through small, intentional choices that bring your better tomorrow to life.

Followed by a Future Visions discussion, featuring Frederik Pferdt and Christina von Messling (Foresight Factory London). Moderated by Felix Zeltner (Award winning journalist and Founder at Remote Daily)

Doors open at 8:15 AM

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Biographies

Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt believes the future doesn’t start tomorrow — its tarts from within. As Google’s first Chief Innovation Evangelist, he helped shape one of the world’s most iconic innovation cultures, empowering one in three employees to imagine boldly, experiment fearlessly, and stay radically optimistic in uncertain times.

Today, he works with hundreds of leaders — from NASA and the United Nations to Faber-Castell, the German Football Association (DFB), the NBA, and many fast-growing startups — helping them turn uncertainty into opportunity through optimism, creativity, and courageous experimentation.

A former Adjunct Professor at Stanford’s d.school, Frederik taught futures thinking and creative leadership for more than a decade, guiding thousands to create better futures instead of waiting for them.

His award-winning bestseller What’s Next Is Now (HarperCollins, 2024) —translated into nine languages and published in Germany as Radikal Besser —is an Amazon bestseller, inspiring readers worldwide to stop predicting the future and start shaping it.

Recognized by the media as “Dr. Innovation,” “The Pope of Creativity” (FOCUS), and one of the world’s top creativity trainers (Commonwealth Club), he now serves as Executive-in-Residence at NYU Stern’s Initiative on Purpose& Flourishing, exploring how cultivating a future-ready mindstate can ignite both personal and organizational flourishing.

Frederik lives off the grid with his family in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where nature, rituals, and play infuse the way he lives what he teaches.

Christina von Messling is a strategic foresight advisor with over two decades of experience across US and European markets. As a German who built her career in the United States before returning to Europe, she brings bilateral fluency to questions at the heart of the transatlantic relationship: how different cultures approach technology, innovation, and economic competitiveness. Currently a Foresight Partner at Foresight Factory and most recently Head of Europe at Future Today Strategy Group, she has advised senior leadership across corporate, policy, and institutional contexts. She holds a Masters in Law from the Freie Universität Berlin and is based in London.

Felix Zeltner is a journalist and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Remote Daily, a media company specialized in building live talk shows for organizations around the world (e.g. Airbnb, Atlas Copco, Citi, Lonely Planet, Nestlé, Frankfurt Book Fair, Dubai Future Foundation). He hosts Wunderbar Together, the leading German-American podcast, and is the co-author of “Stadtnomaden” (2019), “Hype” (2024) and several travel guides. Zeltner holds a double-degree in journalism from Munich University LMU and German Journalism School and has received awards for his reporting (Arte, ARD, Der Spiegel). He lives in New York City with his family.