After two years of being WDF’s moderator, John Thackara now joined the World Design Forum team as creative advisor and inspirator. Thackara studied philosophy, and trained as a journalist, before working for fifteen years as a book and magazine editor. He then began to organise conferences and exhibitions around the world, and was Director of Research at the Royal College of Art in the UK.

John was the first Director (1993-1999) of the Netherlands Design Institute where he founded Doors of Perception in 1993. Doors of Perception became an independent company in 2000. It organizes festivals and projects around the world in which grassroots innovators work with designers to imagine sustainable futures and take practical steps to realize them.

He was programme director in 2007 of Designs of the time (Dott 07) a new biennial in North East England. In 2008 he was commissioner of City Eco Lab at Cite du Design in St. Etienne, the most important French design biennial. These Doors events bring real-world sustainability projects together so they may cross-fertilise, and grow.