What We Do
Marina Gorbis
Executive Director
Marina Gorbis is Executive Director of the Institute for the Future (IFTF), a 50-year old non-profit research and consulting organization based in Silicon Valley. She has brought a futures perspective to hundreds of organizations in business, education, government, philanthropy, and civic society. Marina’s current research focuses on transformations in the world of work and new forms of value creation. She launched the Workable Futures Initiative at IFTF with the aim of developing a deeper understanding of new work patterns and to prototype a generation of Positive Platforms for work. She has introduced the concept of Universal Basic Assets (UBA) as a framework for thinking about different types of assets and the role they play in economic security. The UBA framework also highlights at a variety of approaches and tools we can use to achieve wider asset distribution and greater equity.
Marina's book, The Nature of the Future: Dispatches from the Socialstructed World, explores many of these themes and draws connections between the changes in our technology infrastructure and our organizational landscape, from education to governance and health. She frequently writes and speaks on future organizational, technology, and social issues.
She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master’s degree in public policy from University of California, Berkeley.
Marina on Making the Future
“To paraphrase Margaret Mead, we are all immigrants to the future; none of us is a native in that land. The very underpinnings of our society and institutions—from how we work to how we create value, govern, trade, learn, and innovate—are being profoundly reshaped. We are all migrating to a new land and should be looking at the new landscape emerging before us like immigrants: ready to learn a new language, a new way of doing things, anticipating new beginnings with a sense of excitement if also with a bit of understandable trepidation.”
Talks
"What Should We Make?" From IIT institute of Design's Latham Series (10/20/21)
Changed forever: San Francisco futurist shares predictions on life after COVID-19 (3/15/21)
In Quarantine with Steve Bodow (8/27/2020)
American Alliance of Museums, 2020 (starts 35:30)
Ethnic Media Services, 2020
Observatory of Educational Innovation, 2019
The Future of Work (IFTF, 2018)
The Future of Work (CBC Interview)
SOCAP15: A New Social Contract in the Age of Uber
The Nature of the Future
The Socialstructed World (NEXT13)
Social Technologies (CITRIS)
Marina at TEDx SoMa
Building More Equitable Enterprise: IFTF Executive Director Marina Gorbis (9/30/2021)
Urgent Futures: After the Pandemic: What's Next? (9/15/2020)
"Current housing crisis" (ABC 7 News, 7/29/2020)
"Coronavirus pandemic..." (ABC 7 News, 4/7/2020)
EDUCAUSE Annual Conference, 2018
Google re:Work 2014
Techmanity 2014: A Conversation
Skoll World Forum 2014
Intrinsic Rewards + Future Economies
Socialstructed Work (BSR 2013)
Megatrends Shaping Business (IESE)
The Future of Healthcare (The Agenda)
The Social Economy (The Agenda)