Carl Rohde keynote speaker

During the last decade prof. dr. Carl Rohde has given ‘Future Forecasting & Innovation’ presentations and masterclasses at over one hundred companies and universities, on four continents, departing from his professorships in Shanghai, the Netherlands and Barcelona. (Shanghai Institute of Technology, Academy for Creative Industries, Fontys Universities, the Netherlands and EUHT, Barcelona).

Rohde’s mission is to construct validated trends for a plethora of industries. Validated trend construction can only be realized by collaboration. The wisdom of the crowd has more intelligence than anyone of us isolated. As a consequence, Rohde has developed the Cool hunting methodology to derive at validated trends. Under his guidance, groups of Cool hunters are going to hunt for signs and seeds of new developments that are Cool: attractive and inspiring with future growth potential. Within a certain industry or lifestyle realm. Cool hunting broadens the imagination and the creativity of its participants. Also, the constructed trends have more solidity and power when they come as the results of methodologically sane collaboration.

Recent areas Rohde and his teams are focusing on: AI, Digital Marketing, International Business, Fitness, Food, Fashion, Hospitality (emotional intelligence), Luxury, Automotive (robotization). Of course, there is overlap between the trends in each of these industries and realms. This enhances the validated caliber of what Rohde brings to his audiences and clients.

Cool hunters often belong to the younger generations, including upcoming Generation Z. Rohde had worked with thousands of them, still continuing. As a consequence, he knows what moves the younger generations. He can illustrate this with many (international) examples of what they consider attractive and inspiring with future growth potential (“cool”).

On the subjects mentioned above Rohde presents highly visualized future trend overviews. Rohde always build bridges from these trends towards innovation. Just trend presentations can be fun to watch. But they lose power when they don’t lead to proper innovations. Reverse: companies that innovate but don’t have a solid vision on the validated trends to come, innovate in the half dark.