Heather Schlegel

Strategic futurist and collaborative leader to identify, research, and evangelize trends that will change humanity by encouraging companies to learn and take advantage of new trends, creating great products while opening up new opportunities for their lines of business. His areas of expertise include financial innovation, future of transactions, Bitcoin, future of shopping, Mobile Medicine and the impact of demographic changes. His latest project is a TV series about the future of money that explores the positive forces in the evolution of money, funded through Kickstarter in October 2013 where he raised $73,000.

For more than 12 years he has helped create innovative products in Silicon Valley and has more than 50 product launches to his name. Heather is currently head of product development at DebtMarket, a financial startup in Los Angeles. His research projects include technology in financial markets: lending, virtual/surrogate currencies and transactions; long-term product adoption for innovative technologies. She is primarily known by her nickname, heathervescent, where she explores the intersection between technology, culture, and identity. Heather is pursuing a Master’s degree in Future Forecasting Technology at the University of Houston, where she started the first futures program through NASA in the 1960s. She has focused her studies on cutting-edge technology in the financial markets, psotive wildcards, and the long-term adoption of paradigm-shifting technology.