Bartosz Frąckowiak
A strategic foresight expert and futures designer, combining rigorous systems analysis with a culturally grounded, critical approach and curatorial experience working with images, technologies, and politics. From 2023–2025 he served as a Senior Foresight Consultant at 4CF The Futures Literacy Company, designing and delivering complex foresight programs at the intersection of emerging technologies and socio-political change. Since March 2025 he has resumed leading Strategic Dreamers, developing vision- and prototype-driven engagements for business and public institutions.
He specializes in bridging practical foresight implementation with the development of methods and theoretical frameworks. At 4CF he co-led projects for ENISA (cyber-risk scenarios for commercial satellites, ThreatHunt 2030), coordinated the foresight work package in Horizon Europe project IDEALIST with 11 clusters and 150+ SMEs, and led initiation phases for two EUDA projects. He co-moderated transformational road-mapping for UNFCCC (Resilience Frontiers, Botswana), co-created agrifood scenarios (Geek4Food, Erasmus+), delivered analyses for a leading bank, co-authored a futures report on museums (British Council), and designed workshop methodology for the SRWD 2030+ regional strategy in Lower Silesia, among others.
In parallel, he develops a curatorial practice interweaving critical visual studies with foresight. As Deputy Director of Biennale Warszawa (2017–2022), he co-created a program connecting art, technology, and research. In 2022 he co-curated Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley, addressing entanglements of power and technology; in 2019 he co-curated the first edition, Let’s Organize Our Future. In 2025 he co-conceived the curatorial framework for Security / Borders at OFF-Biennále Budapest.
His current research interests treat visuality both as an early-warning surface for weak signals and as an active infrastructure of futuring. He is developing a visual horizon-scanning practice combining ethnographic and semiotic interpretation across advertising, platforms, urban signage, and scientific visualizations, and piloting Counter Visuality Futures Labs – co-creative settings where non-hegemonic, situated archetypes of the future are prototyped and stress-tested.
In teaching (SWPS University, AGH), he leads courses on technology & society and a futures design lab. As a trainer and facilitator, he runs foresight workshops for the public sector, business, and NGOs, combining scenario methods, horizon scanning, and speculative narratives with participatory practices.
Strategic foresight & consulting impact
Bridges practical implementation with method development, ensuring that foresight is not only imaginative but also institutionally actionable and embedded in decision-making routines.
Designs and delivers complex foresight programs at the intersection of emerging technologies and socio-political change, helping organisations turn abstract uncertainty into concrete strategic options (4CF The Futures Literacy Company, 2023–2025).
Leads Strategic Dreamers as a partner for vision- and prototype-driven engagements, developing scenario work and futures processes that inform real decisions in business and public institutions – including strategic foresight projects for Carlsberg Polska, ING Bank Śląski, British Council, 4CF The Futures Literacy Company, Goyki 3 Art Incubator, Koźmiński University, CK Zamek in Poznań, Climate-KIC (delivered via 4CF as a subcontractor).
Policy, EU & international projects
Co-created original cyber-risk scenarios for commercial satellites for ENISA and co-moderated the ThreatHunt 2030 update workshop, strengthening the anticipatory capacity of European cyber-security actors.
Coordinated the foresight work package in the Horizon Europe project IDEALIST, from designing horizon-scanning tools to running a process with 11 European industrial clusters and 150+ SMEs, helping innovation ecosystems align R&D with long-term technological and market shifts.
Co-initiated two EUDA technology-focused foresight projects (Technology Foresight; Foresight of Synthetic Drugs), shaping their early methodological architecture and strategic framing.
Co-moderated a five-day transformational road-mapping process for UNFCCC (Resilience Frontiers, Botswana), supporting climate actors in exploring post-2030 resilience pathways and translating them into actionable roadmaps.
Co-created scenarios for the agrifood sector (Geek4Food, Erasmus+), opening alternative pathways for food systems transformation beyond standard “innovation-as-usual” narratives.
Applied Assumption-Based Planning for a leading bank, making latent strategic assumptions explicit and surfacing hidden vulnerabilities and opportunities in their planning logic.
Designed a foresight-based workshop methodology for the SRWD 2030+ regional strategy in Lower Silesia, helping regional stakeholders co-create shared directions under high uncertainty.
Get to know Bartosz Frąckowiak’s latest initiatives.
Co-author & process designer | Client: British Council | Co-created reports and future scenarios; designed the foresight process and co-moderated workshops with cultural sector leaders.
The Futures of Museums and Art Institutions by 2050
Lead researcher, project manager & co-author | Client: Regional Labour Office in Warsaw | Co-developed a report on AI-driven job creation/replacement in Mazovia, combining quantitative + qualitative research with trend analysis.
AI & competences in Mazovia
Project leader (4CF) & Work Package Coordinator (Strategic Foresight) | Client: Horizon Europe consortium | Co-designed the Horizon Scanning process and tools; led an international process spanning 11 industrial clusters across three ecosystems, reaching 150+ SMEs.
IDEALIST (Horizon Europe)
Co-curator | Client: Biennale Warszawa Foundation (_BW_Lab) & OFF-Biennále Budapest | Co-developed the curatorial concept and narrative framework on security infrastructures and technology-as-control; shaped the artist/works selection and supported new commissions for the 2025 exhibition in Budapest.
Granice bezpieczeństwa | Biztonsági határok | Security / Borders (OFF-Biennale Budapest 2025)
Methodology designer, facilitator & co-author | Client: Lower Silesian Voivodeship | Designed the workshop methodology for the regional working group and co-authored the final report with strategic recommendations.
Lower Silesian Voivodeship Development Strategy 2030+
Co-author (D5.1) & (D5.2) (4CF) | Client: IDEALIST consortium | Co-designed and co-wrote the WP5 Horizon Scanning methodology (based on literature review, stakeholder interviews, and three “Training the Trainers” iterations) and authored the Toolbox with ready-to-use workshop agendas and templates, enabling 11 industrial clusters to run the process independently.
IDEALIST (Horizon Europe) — D5.1 Foresight Process Guidelines & D5.2 Foresight Toolbox
4CF lead | Client: Erasmus project partnership | Mapped future competencies for green/digital transitions in agrifood; designed and delivered foresight training and developed futures scenarios for the European agrifood sector.
Geek4Food (Erasmus)
Horizon Scanning process lead & co-author | Client: IDEALIST consortium | Led an online Horizon Scanning process with three cross-cluster international focus groups (Aerospace & Defence; Energy-Intensive Industries; Mobility–Transport–Automotive), engaging 11 industrial clusters/associations to map key weak signals, drivers, disruptions, assess signals (Impact; Earliest Time to Mainstream), and synthesize outputs into ecosystem maps, matrices, and strategic implications.
IDEALIST (Horizon Europe) — D5.3 Key Drivers and Disruptions by Ecosystem
Exhibition & public program curator | Client: Biennale Warszawa | An exhibition on the entanglements of political/economic power with technology—authoritarianism, capital, extractivism, and data infrastructures—paired with alternative technological models, prototypes, and speculative projects that open up more democratic, egalitarian futures. Co-developed the curatorial concept and narrative for the 2nd Biennale edition (03.06–17.07.2022, Warsaw; Wars Sawa Junior Department Stores), shaping the exhibition framework and public programme format, including curator-led tours and talks.
Biennale Warszawa 2022 (2nd edition) — “Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley”
Project leader (initiation phase) | Client: European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) | Led the initiating phase of the foresight initiative and set its strategic directions.
EUDA — Technology Foresight
Project leader (initiation phase) | Client: European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA) | Co-developed the methodological framework and led key preparatory stages for a study strengthening EU resilience to synthetic drug market changes by 2050.
EUDA — Futures Scenarios of Synthetic Drugs
Co-moderator & moderator of futures scenarios module | Client: UNFCCC | Co-facilitated a five-day roadmap workshop, leading modules on unconventional/transformative scenarios in a multicultural setting, integrating Global South futures perspectives.
UNFCCC — Resilience Frontiers (Botswana)
Lead methodology co-designer, workshop facilitator & report co-author (with Ewa Kozik, Anna Galas-Kosil, Marta Michalak) | Client: British Council Poland | Cultural Diplomacy
British Council – UK/Poland
Cultural Season 2025: Imagining Future Collaborations
Project lead, methodology designer, horizon scanning lead, scenario co-author, master facilitator & report co-author | Client: Carlsberg Polska | FMCG
Carlsberg Polska – 10+ year futures scenarios and potential development directions (2025)
Co-curator & Deputy Director (2017–2022) | Biennale Warszawa | Interdisciplinary Arts, Technology & Politics
Co-founded and co-curated two editions of Biennale Warszawa—a transdisciplinary institution operating at the intersection of art, research, and socio-political activism:
1st edition (2019): “Let’s organise our future!” — 56 events across 16 Warsaw venues engaging 400+ artists, researchers, and activists. Programme explored self-organisation, direct democracy, and transnational solidarity. Curated the East European–North African–Middle East Forum. Authored the curatorial essay “Transnational Alliances.”
2nd edition (2022): “Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley” — Exhibition and public programme featuring 50 artists and researchers, exploring relations between technology, power, capital, and authoritarianism. 25 artworks (9 commissioned), examining algorithmic control, surveillance, border technologies, and democratic alternatives.
Let’s Organize Our Future! – Biennale Warszawa 2019
His Voice in the Conversation:
Through the omnipresence of new media and ever more electronic devices, every aspect of our daily lives can be measured—and thereby inscribed into the logic of commodification and consumption.
Bartosz Frąckowiak,To Reclaim Agency, “Tygodnik Powszechny”
Suddenly it turns out that the people working on super-modern, progressive technologies are, at their core, steeped in reactionary, radically conservative views. And yet for many years—really until quite recently—Silicon Valley was associated with freedom, equality, even hippie ideals.
“A New Techno Order: Sylwia Niemczyk Talks with Bartosz Frąckowiak”, “Przekrój”
We must break free from the imaginative frameworks shaped by Silicon Valley—its companies, its discourse, its practices. And keep pushing the boundaries of our own imagination, creating alternative ways of thinking about data and technology.
Seeing Stones: Designing the Future, “Tygodnik Powszechny”
The exhibition also aims to make us aware that what algorithms see is merely correlation—not causation. Artificial intelligence cannot understand the world the way a human being can. A central claim of this exhibition is the need to return to thinking of the human as a singular being who resists quantification, who is not merely a statistical model and cannot be reduced to one. There is a complex sphere of indeterminacy in every person that defies classification into hard data. This is not about a naive retreat from technology—it’s about engaging with it consciously.