Exceptional Women Out West featuring Trina Phillips, senior writer/creative futurist, SciFutures
Trina Phillips has always looked to the stars for inspiration. She was born four months before the moon landing and her childhood was shaped by interstellar science fiction like Star Trek, Star Wars, the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov.
It’s no surprise that she grew up to be a science fiction writer, looking at the world through a sci-fi telescope to help understand the human condition. What is more surprising is that her love for the fantastic found a job in the corporate world. Phillips uses her skills as a sci-fi writer and futurist to help Fortune 500 companies stay ahead of technology at SciFutures, a technology and innovation house based in Burbank, California.
Phillips sees herself as an outsider in her company, one who doesn’t come from a business background. But that’s also a superpower for her, along with lots of hard work, which she uses to help clients with their storytelling.
Phillips wants to see us work to use technology and science to improve humanity – to eradicate diseases, to make sure people are fed, to raise standards of living, which is why she says that now is an exciting time to be alive.
Storytelling is at the heart of everything she does, and she encourages people to travel to experience new things the way locals do to create their own stories. She likes writing to music, like classic rock, sci-fi soundtracks and even Mongolian throat singing. She thinks diversity is a wonderful thing, that people need to figure out who they are and be the best person possible, and that we all need to look to the future and beyond, because the future is already here.
Exceptional Women Out West is a podcast that highlights and celebrates both the great achievement, lives and POV of amazing women in the Western US and Canada. Listen to previous episodes here. If you would like to nominate women out west to be part of the show, please contact North America Editor at Large, Doug Zanger.