The Foresight Lab Updates - August 2026

Hello everyone!

First, on behalf of The Foresight Lab, thank you for subscribing to our publication. Your engagement with our content means the world to us, and we hope to continue to inspire you to think about the future.

We realized we’ve never given a formal introduction to who we are. A longer version will come soon, but for now, we’re a group of undergraduate student researchers at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio who study the future. In fact, we are one of the few undergraduate programs in the nation practicing strategic foresight at the depth and scale that we do.

We began our foresight practice in 2022, but after four years of working behind the scenes, we officially launched the Lab in February of this year. Our team is a multidisciplinary group of Gen Z researchers, bringing together future engineers, doctors, artists, designers, scientists, economists, philosophers, and many others.

We believe that our range of backgrounds shapes how we think about what’s next and allows us to explore the future from many perspectives. After all, there isn’t just one future, but many!

Now onto the updates:

The Foresight Lab has entered a submission to present at SXSW 2027 in Austin, Texas.

Exploring the Futures Gen Z Researchers See Coming - Most trend reports reduce Gen Z to a consumer demographic. The Foresight Lab at UC flips the script, training Gen Z researchers to identify and translate early signals of change into future drivers with widespread implications. As one of the only undergraduate strategic foresight labs in the U.S., our work pairs rigorous foresight research with Gen Z’s lived experience of close proximity to emerging shifts that others are still trying to decode. Join us for a research-backed look at key drivers of change and the scenarios, products, and businesses Gen Z sees coming in the future.

This talk will be presented by Aaron Bradley, Founding Director, and Max Kemats, Research Fellow.

But - we need your help to get there! SXSW proposals are shaped by community voting, and we'd be incredibly grateful for your support. If our proposal resonates with you, we'd love for you to take a moment to vote for it.

Vote here for the The Foresight Lab!

Our annual report, Horizon Shift, a year’s worth of research, insights, and futures exploration distilled into one report, is currently in the final stages of production.

This year’s report focuses on four domains:

• The New American Dream - The traditional American Dream, based on homeownership, stable careers and upward mobility, now feels increasingly out of reach for many. In its place, a new version of the concept is emerging, shaped by financial pressure, cultural change and shifting expectations.

• The Techno-Social Tug of War - As technology becomes more deeply knit into everyday life, society is being pulled between embracing it wholeheartedly and pushing back.

• The Non-invasive Age - Fast-moving advances in wearable tech are opening new ways to monitor, enhance and even protect people without the need for traditional medical visits.

• Lifemaxxing - Culture, wealth and social norms are reshaping the definition of living well and charting a new path toward one’s ideal existence.

Each of these domains is packed with research-backed drivers, artifacts from the future, and unique Gen Z perspectives on how these domains are shaping what comes next. In the meantime, be sure to check out previous Horizon Shift reports!

While our team has been prioritizing resetting and preparing for the academic year ahead, we’ve also been developing some new forms of content. Coming soon to The Foresight Lab Substack will be longer-form articles (alongside our weekly Signals of the Future) examining drivers, H3 ideas, emerging trends, and the forces shaping the future.