Rethink Next is a futures education and discovery studio that designs interactive programs, labs, and media to help people and organizations navigate change, make decisions, and explore what comes next in an AI-accelerated world.
We work with universities, creative organizations, civic groups, and independent learners who want more than predictions — they want tools for imagination, agency, and meaningful action.
Our Vision
In an AI-cluttered, fast-changing world, clarity doesn’t come from better forecasts alone. It comes from exploration, experimentation, and shared sense-making.
Rethink Next was created to help people rethink work, learning, culture, and life through futures thinking, creative practice, and applied AI — without turning humans into spectators of technology.
What We Do
Rethink Next designs and delivers:
- Interactive workshops and discovery salons
- Futures labs and participatory games
- Licensable learning frameworks for education and workforce programs
- Story-driven media and speculative projects that make emerging futures visible
Our programs are modular, adaptable, and designed to be used in live, hybrid, and asynchronous formats.
Signature Programs & Projects
- FuturesJam – Collaborative futures workshops that turn signals and uncertainty into shared insight
- Discovery Shift Salons – Facilitated labs focused on decision-making, agency, and discovery
- Ready to Zag – A career and life navigation framework for non-linear paths
- Gold Key Archives – A speculative storytelling project exploring imagined futures through archival fiction
Our Founder
Rethink Next was founded by Gigi Louisa Johnson, an educator, futurist, and systems thinker with over two decades of experience designing programs at the intersection of media, technology, and learning.
Gigi is UCLA Emerita faculty and former Executive Director at UCLA’s Center for Music Innovation and the Center for Media, Entertainment, and Sports at UCLA Anderson. Her background spans creative strategy, futures education, and media finance, including leadership roles in higher education and global entertainment finance.
Rethink Next also collaborates with a network of designers, researchers, educators, and practitioners across creative industries, AI ethics, cultural foresight, and community innovation.
Organizational Note
Rethink Next operates as an independent limited liability company (Rethink Next LLC). Earlier nonprofit initiatives informed the work, but all current programs and partnerships are delivered through the LLC.