ASU futurist urges historical perspective for building better futures in new TED Talk

In a world hyper-focused on emerging trends, Senior Global Futures Scholar with the Global Futures Scientists and Scholars Dr. Bea Rodriguez-Fransen urges learners to look back as a way to co-design the future we want as a global community. She is also the director of Next Lab at Arizona State University (ASU).  

Watch Dr. Rodriguez-Fransen’s TED Talk, “Unlocking Indigenous Knowledge: A new path for education”

In her new TED Talk, delivered at TED headquarters in New York City in February and released on May 16, Rodriguez-Fransen shares how the world — including educators and practitioners — can benefit from our ancestors' wisdom and the story of the Philippine nation by working together to “decolonize” our thinking.

As she describes in her TED Talk, a colonized mindset is a kind of intellectual captivity that we may not be aware of.

“I’ve conducted research specifically with Filipina educators living in the Philippines and examined what’s known as colonial mentality, which is known in the Philippines and other parts of the world as a psychological phenomenon,” said Rodriguez-Fransen. 

Her research into the impacts of colonial mentality builds upon the work of Filipino American researcher Dr. E. J. R. David, associate professor of Psychology at the University of Alaska Anchorage. David is a leading clinical psychologist who has conducted extensive research on colonial mentality in Filipino American history. Based on her own research, Rodriguez-Fransen re-defined colonial mentality, shifting it from an individual psychological construct to a systemic problem that concerns the whole world. 

Rodriguez-Fransen, originally from Malabon, Philippines, and later moving to the outskirts of Manila, came to the United States in 1999 on a college student visa, later becoming a US citizen in 2018. 

She pursued her bachelor’s degree with a double major in English & Sociology at Beloit College, followed by years of working at a social service agency, in higher education and local government. Rodriguez-Fransen earned her master’s degree in Liberal Studies at North Central College in 2019 with an emphasis in writing, editing and publishing, and later obtained her doctorate in leadership in Adult Learning and Higher Education from Aurora University in 2023.

“I began my doctorate with the idea of using design thinking to transform universities,” explained Rodriguez-Fransen. “Then, through my coursework, I decided to shift gears and study Decoloniality.”

Rodriguez-Fransen dives deeper into the thinking and concepts she encounters in her work below.

Question: What is an overview of your TED Talk? Why would you encourage someone to watch it?

Answer: I share the knowledge of our ancestors and Indigenous people today. And when I say “ancestors,” I mean the ancestors of all the people who came before us. For me, it's really not just about Filipino leaders and national heroes. Mark Twain is an ancestor to all of us, for example. 

I also talk about colonization and how it shows up in education systems today. I discuss what a colonized mindset is and what decolonizing means. It's important to note that there are many ways to decolonize minds, and I share just some practical techniques. These techniques are applicable not only to educators, but also to practitioners in various sectors across the world. 

Q: What do you hope viewers will gain from watching your TED Talk?

A:  I would love for those who hear my talk and my ideas to reflect on our histories, and to pay attention to their thoughts and emotions while they watch my talk.  I encourage everyone to clearly see how our past, present and future all influence one another, and to cultivate radical long-term thinking. For example, together we can imagine the consequences of our actions today on the next seven generations. 

The idea of impacting the next seven generations is believed to have originated with the Iroquois, who encourage us to think seven generations ahead and decide whether the decisions made today will benefit or harm our descendants.

Q: What was your “aha” moment when you realized you wanted to pursue your study of futures thinking? 

A: During my fellowship at the University Design Institute (UDI), I worked directly with Dr. Minu Ipe, the managing director. She asked me to do some initial work on an emerging studios concept – just the ideation of what it might look like. That's when I decided to immerse myself in the field of futures thinking and that's when I really examined the limits of human-centered design. 

We in academia have the privilege, the space and the venue to reflect and think about what the future of society could be. I believe short-termism is a challenge we can overcome. I’ve realized that we need more foresight techniques and tools integrated into our designs. Based on insights from my research, I decided to integrate decoloniality,  design thinking and futures thinking into my own framework, which I call Decolonial Design Futures. I’m currently working on a book that shares the values, mindsets, and specific steps of this framework, which can be used by educators and practitioners in various sectors for scholarly or design research.

Q: What do you mean when you refer to design as part of your work?

A: By "design" I mean products and services (educational programs, social impact projects, etc). While I was a UDI fellow working with Dr. Ipe, I began studying Design Futures at the Institute for the Future and introduced UDI staff to futures thinking, specifically the fundamentals of researching the future using the "signals of change" concept.   

Q: Do you have someone you admire or look up to? Maybe someone whose work has had an impact on your own?

A: One of my greatest inspirations is my mother, Mila, the first futurist I ever encountered. She was able to clearly imagine and articulate the futures for all of her seven children. I was an unexpected child, my parents’ sixth, and when I was born my parents had only 500 Philippine pesos in the bank. Instead of despairing, my mom said out loud about me, "This child is going to be lucky." They worked hard and eventually became successful social entrepreneurs, helping low-income women and their families make a living. Later on, when I was in high school, she said that her vision for me was to become a motivational speaker and author. When I heard that, I was skeptical and thought that she was way off the mark. Today, her vision has come true, with my TED Talk and my upcoming book I’m working on, where I turn my dissertation research into a shorter book that’s more accessible for any audience. Both my parents have passed away, but their wisdom lives on through my work! I’m also inspired by the Filipina educators who were participants in my research and study, who truly love their students and have brilliant minds and hopes for the future of the Philippines.

Dr. Rodriguez-Fransen’s work brings together individuals, research, and communities to boldly imagine and create humane technology and equitable futures. Prior to joining Learning Futures (now ASU’s Next Lab), she was an inaugural fellow for ASU’s University Design Institute, which co-designs solutions with universities and diverse stakeholders to transform higher education on a global level. Rodriguez-Fransen is a Certified Foresight Practitioner, trained by the Institute for the Future and The Futures School.

By combining the disciplines of Futures Thinking and Decoloniality, she has been able to find her own unique perspectives into organizational and futures design. In her TED Talk, she offers practical techniques we can use to begin decolonizing minds, and she also encourages us to design our way toward our preferred futures.