Visionary Lab · Spokane

Designing the Future built for us

Without science fiction we would not have cell phones. Somebody had to imagine it before an engineer could build it.

Four times a year we get in a room in Spokane, look hard at a system that was not built for us, and work out what we would build instead. Then we leave with something to do about it.

Think of it as a living room, an academic lecture, and a Persian café of philosophers all in one.

The kind of room where you sit next to a stranger and leave having said something you did not expect to say out loud. Every session is built around a topic rooted in systems, structures, and experiences that were not designed for women. We do not skim the surface. We go where the conversation usually does not.

There may be one speaker. There may be a panel. The format flexes to serve the topic. What does not change is that everyone in the room is expected to think, not just listen. The Visionary Lab is part of HIKE with Her, built on the belief that women deserve real conversations, and that real conversations lead somewhere.

Up next in the lab

An afternoon with cultural anthropologist, Terry Buffington.

Building Rooms: A story of Resilience, Survival, Trauma, and Courage

Tell me more

parts that don't change

How an Visionary Lab works

Not a panel.
A conversation.

You are not an audience. There is no keynote to sit through and no networking hour bolted onto the end. Nobody is going to ask what you do first.

Facilitated,
not performed.

Someone holds the room so the conversation actually goes somewhere. Nobody is on stage, nobody is competing, and you can pass on anything.

It goes
somewhere.

Every Lab closes with action. Not inspiration. Not just more awareness. Something concrete you can do with what you just heard.

for speakers

Bring your thesis to the room.

We are looking for speakers and panelists with a point of view. People who have something real to say about systems, structures, and the experiences of women navigating them.

You do not need a polished keynote. You need a thesis and the willingness to let the room respond to it.

If you have been saving something you have never had the right room for, this is the room.