School of Radical Imagination

Course Overview

Modern/colonial political, economic, and communications systems erode humanity, by turning us into data points, money-making centers, and users. Social media and digital technology have polluted everyday life making us more disconnected. The number of sophisticated artificial intelligence (AI) tools rapidly grows for doing simple and complex things like writing, communicating, thinking, calculating, analyzing, diminishing our ability to live fully and flourish. While we can do anything we set our mind to — learn, change, solve, adapt, survive — we choose to overvalue AI technologies and societally expected achievements rather than see them as complementary to what we truly want for our life. Most people are racing to build coding capabilities and mastering AI. However, they struggle to engage in a face-to-face conversation with another person, build and maintain high-quality relationships, make authentic decisions about their life, or empathize with a person who thinks differently.

Why does this course matter now?

The present is uncertain. As AI grows, we feel more hopeless, lonely, sad, and anxious — we are angry and impatient. We may be very accomplished or very wealthy, but we still feel disconnected from others — at work from colleagues or employees, at home from friends and family. We feel that AI will replace us; we don’t know where we belong, we don't feel in control anymore because we are forgetting how to stay human — how to feel, to think, to listen, to imagine, to understand, to converse. This is limiting our agency and our capacity to care for others as well as to believe that a different and better way to live is possible.

But this is not inevitable. We can change it.

How will this course help me?

This course will equip you with skills to stop living in autopilot and feeling profoundly isolated; you will learn how to stay human and restore your confidence in shaping your own life. Positive psychology frameworks and cognitive behavioral therapy strategies will provide tools to engage in honest conversations with yourself and others. Through dialogue-based learning, we will engage in mindfulness-based practices, digital detox strategies, and movement practices to make daily living more meaningful. You will strengthen your emotional and relational intelligence, and train your social fitness. Hands-on practice on futuring will prepare you to envision more sustainable, positive views about the future for yourself, others, and the planet.

By the end of the course, you will be more present and aware of your needs and behaviors; you will have the tools to engage in mindful, deep listening and to cultivate these skills in others, as well as to build and maintain more authentic, supportive connections and more caring teams. As a result, your human agency, the quality of your relationships, and the clarity to take control of your life and lead change will increase.

This is a journey back to our roots.

Who Is This Course For?

This course is designed for:

• Managers struggling to connect with their teams or wanting to strengthen their teams’ human skills

• Educators feeling disconnected from their students and colleagues

• Activists wanting to connect with their communities at deeper, more human levels

• Mid-career professionals – tech professionals, computer scientists, designers, data artists – feeling scared about the future or helpless about the negative impact of AI on their their jobs

• Anyone seeking to build and maintain more authentic, high-quality relationships, and live a more meaningful life

What You'll Learn

The impact of social, economic, political, and communications systems, and technology on humanity

Core flourishing pillars and essential human capabilities for the AI Age to break off autopilot behaviors

How to use mindfulness for regulating well-being, developing cognitive flexibility, and activating imagination

Deep awareness of their internal blocks and emotional response patterns, and practical strategies to dismantle them

How to confidently use your human skills — listening, imagining, conversing, empathizing, paying attention, collaborating — to build more authentic relationships and lead change

How to design an actionable strategy to live more fully in uncertain times

Course Modules

Being Human

• What is it to be human? What is a good life? What is to flourish? What is emotional wellbeing? • Individual and group techniques

Human Intelligence

• What is Relational intelligence (RQ)? What is Emotional intelligence (EQ)? Why are social connections important for wellbeing and social change in times of AI? What are best practices for social fitness? • Individual and group techniques

Human Skills

• What can we cultivate conditions for individual and social change? What are human skills? • Individual and group techniques

Human Skills in Action

• Learners-led practice, not replicable by technology! • Individual and group techniques

Human Agency

• Practice focused on how to consciously cultivate social skills to build connection and foster participatory structures • Individual and group techniques

Human Strategies Sharing

• Project presentations and feedback • Discussion on project ideas and progress

Real-World Project

You will reflect on personal learnings about your inner and outer interactions, and the role of external forces in your life — your community, technology, social systems, etc. Then you will create a strategy rooted in human skills for radical change in your life, your community, your organization, or the planet, that proposes a more balance way to live for everyone.

The strategy can take the form of short-term interventions or a long-term step-by-step plan. In the last day of class, you will prepare a short human-led presentation of your strategy.

About the Instructor

Sheila Pontis, PhD

Professor & Researcher in Imagination, Wellbeing and Design

From an interdisciplinary perspective, my work contributes to the development of a flourishing society. I am a professor, researcher, and author in Imagination, Wellbeing, and Design with extensive leadership international experience in higher education and industry. After more than two decades working at leading institutions, including University College London, Princeton University, and MIT, now I empower individuals and communities from the inside out to unlock their unbound potential and experience the transformative benefits of imagination to embrace their human agency and build their dream future. My vision is a world where imagination and human flourishing are integral to each aspect of life and as high priority as work on other domains, such as climate change, AI, existential risk, politics. Through the Everyone Imagines initiative, I investigate the symbiotic connection between imagination and emotional wellbeing, and teach workshops and training worldwide, contributing to human infrastructure. My background as an information designer, combined with my expertise in human-centered research, Creative Problem Solving, mindfulness, and positive psychology, allows me to offer a unique approach to inner growth, imagination, and emotional wellbeing.