Chief Futurist
& Hope Engineer

Igniting curiosity and action in 300+ world-leading organizations and governments

Today, Nikolas works as a futurist speaker and foresight thought leader with world-leading organizations and governments in the United States, Canada, UK, Europe, and Asia.

He has delighted more than 200,000 people at over 300 events with his insights, humour and guidance. He has also connected with millions through his work in film, news, media and radio. He is committed to keep pushing leaders to think bigger about their role in the future and to impact billions of people by providing a number of services over and above futurist speaking.

Nikolas has advised Robert Downey Jr.’s team for the ‘Age of A.I.’ documentary series, starred in ‘SMART DRUGS – a Futurist’s journey into biohacking’, and features on CTV, Global News, Sirius XM regularly. His mind-expanding research and opinion has also been featured globally on BBC, VICE, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Techcrunch, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Forbes, Sputnik and Venturebeat.

He provides the opening chapter for the 2021 book called ‘The Future Starts Now: Expert Insights into the Future of Business, Technology and Society’ for Bloomsbury.

In Fall 2022 Nikolas’ new book will be released – ‘Facing Our Futures’ provides executives and organizations with the foundations for futures design and the tools to imagine new futures, create bolder visions, anticipate unforeseen risks, and strengthen strategic planning. Nikolas’ thinking can also be seen in the opening chapter of the ‘The Future Starts Now’. Both are published by Bloomsbury Business. Please reach out if you’d like to discuss this.

Supercharging organizations as Chief Futurist at Futurist.com

Nikolas is the Chief Futurist at the Futurist.com Think Tank – an international consultancy founded in 1993 that is focused on long-range future trends and on strategies and techniques for shaping the preferred future. Our commitment is to a greater understanding of and enthusiasm about the future and future-related subjects.

He runs this with founding futurist Glen Hiemstra and and incredible roster of notable experts – Dr. Cindy Frewen, Bronwyn Williams, Sanjay Khanna, Anne Boysen, Richard Yonck, Melissa Eshaghbeigi, Tiffany Hamilton, Ramez Naam, and Jared Nichols.

Work with Nikolas and his team

Today, Nikolas Badminton is recognized as a world-renowned Futurist Speaker, Futurist Consultant, Author and Executive Advisor that creates foresight capabilities that help shape impactful organizations, trillion-dollar companies, progressive governments, and 200+ billion dollar investment funds. Nikolas will shift your mindset from what is to ‘WHAT IF..?’ and into brighter futures.
Want to find out more? Then reach out to Nikolas to discuss how your organization can benefit from developing futures literacy, seeing signals of change, and anticipating risks by clicking here.

The early years: Computer programming, Internet revelations and Artificial Intelligence

Nikolas first sat at a computer in 1980 at the tender age of 8, and was given a copy of the Usborne Book of the Future by his father. This was the beginning of being inspired by what the future could hold for all of us and the beginning of his journey to become a futurist.
Shortly after, he was given his own computer – a ZX Spectrum – and spent hours each day programming, hacking games and working out how to manipulate code. By 1989, he had focused his education on building out graphical programs and database solutions from the ground up.

In 1993, Nikolas enrolled in BSc in Applied Psychology and Computing at Bournemouth University in the United Kingdom. This progressive degree allowed him to experiment with the Internet, data, Organizational Design, Cognitive Psychology, Human-computer Interface (HCI) design, Artificial Intelligence, and debate Chaos and Complexity theories and the emerging cyberculture.
His final year thesis focused on a study into sub-symbolic language systems, how Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) could aim to infer grammatical structures from them, and how we are potentially facing a devolution of grammar. Nikolas writes regularly on the subject of Artificial Intelligence to this day.

Building capabilities: 35+ years of experience and impact

In 1996, Nikolas started working in the space business for Matra Marconi Espace in Toulouse and Portsmouth, and eventually moved on to lead strategic capabilities a number of high-profile data and technology providers, management consultancies, advertising agencies and sharing economy platforms – Kenan Systems, Lucent Technologies, Capgemini, Blast Radius, DDB, TAXI, and Freelancer.com to name a few. In these places he built teams and led strategic programs delivering large-scale data analytics and CRM practices for impactful governments and global blue chip organizations.

In these roles Nikolas worked with CEOs and their executive teams to change how they see the world and provide impactful strategic advice. His advice has resulted in hundreds of millions of dollars in operational savings and increased revenues.