Intellectual Biography of Professor Pentti Malaska Published

​An intellectual biography of Professor Pentti Malaska was published on 21 March 2017. Pentti Malaska was the founder of the Finland Futures Research Centre (1992) and the Finnish Society for Futures Studies (1980). He played a significant role in the establishment and development of the academic field of Futures Studies, particularly in Finland but also throughout the world.

Pentti Malaska was a radical visionary thinker whose research interests widely crossed academic disciplines from mathematics and electrical engineering to philosophy, ecology and strategic management.

The biography is mainly written in Finnish but it includes an English synopsis that consists of three articles that explore the nature of futures research, Pentti Malaska’s futures thinking and Pentti Malaska’s theory of societal change in the context of human-centric organizations. In addition, the biography contains poems written in English by Pentti Malaska himself and a couple of English texts from Pentti Malaska’s international colleagues looking back their co-operation with him.

The biography is edited by Laura Pouru, Markku Wilenius, Karin Holstius and Sirkka Heinonen and it is published in the Futures series of The Finnish Society for Futures Studies. The compilation of the biography was funded by the Turku School of Economics Foundation.

The biography can be downloaded free of charge from here. The printed book can be ordered from the Finnish Society for Futures: toimisto(a)futurasociety.fi.
 

Further information:

Laura Pouru, Project Manager
laura.pouru(a)utu.fi, tel. +358 50 3290 711

 

“I met Pentti in Dubrovnik where he gave a lecture that was absolutely mind-blowing. It was one of the few truly futures-oriented lectures that were given there in this course on futures studies. And I said this is a tremendous intellect, and a warm person who is able to combine both – the mind and the emotion very well.”

– James A. Dator, Director, Professor of the Hawaii Research Centre for Futures Studies

“We were two committed futurists, doing our best to understand and help create futures studies, encourage others to do so too, and even hoped the results of our work might help create a better world.”