Quest Labs · The Creator

About

The practitioner-researcher behind the praxis.

Makēda Gershenson
20+ Years of practice
450+ Coaching clients
37 Countries

Quest Prime · Practitioner-Researcher

Since 2008, I've been building playgrounds for the future. As founder of Quest Labs | Mosaics in the Making, I facilitate sandbox sessions and research collaborations that function less like classrooms and more like portals: places where play becomes possibility and constraints are composted.

My work dances at the intersection of education, workforce evolution, and radical foresight, weaving decolonial scholarship and embodied practice into experiences that move people from what they've inherited to what they're brave enough to create.

I hold tension tenderly and am rigorously playful toward co-crafting infrastructures of care.

Whether I'm facilitating sandbox sessions that crack open new capacities, conducting organizational research that remaps who holds power over tomorrow, or exploring how a single metaphor can unlock what once seemed impossible. I create the conditions for you to see the stories you've been living inside and then craft a different future together.

A little bit about me
Founding

Founder of Mosaics in the Making (2012) and Quest Labs (2022), A Living Lab for Futures Literacies.

Practice

Nearly twenty years building spaces where people think, feel, and act differently.

Reach

Classrooms in Palo Alto, the South Bronx, and international schools across the globe: staff development, restorative practices, and futures facilitation.

Education

Dual BAs and an MEd from Stanford. Executive MBA from Quantic. MA candidate in Futures Research at FU Berlin Institut Futur.

Lineage

Trained with Riel Miller (UNESCO), Sohail Inayatullah (CLA), Ivana Milojević, and Jake Dunagan (IFTF). Co-authored The Power of Metaphor.

Frameworks

Developer of The Black Menagerie and the ABCs for Futures Literacies. A living methodology.


This is what it looks like in practice.

Download the one-pager →

Everything you need to know. One page. 90 seconds.

Work with Makēda

Four ways to bring
this work to your world

01
For your school or district

Custom Sandbox Sessions, Sarkar Sandbox facilitation, STEEP Bingo for staff development, futures literacy workshops. Built around what your educators actually need.

02
For your organization

Organizational futures research, STEEP Bingo for leadership teams, participatory foresight facilitation, custom futures literacy experiences via Mosaics in the Making.

03
As an individual

Join a FLIP cohort or the Flip the Script educators cohort. Twelve weeks of embodied futures literacies development. The founding cohort is full. Cohort 02 is forming now.

04
Sponsor a seat

20 sponsored seats available for the Flip the Script Fall 2026 founding cohort. Fund an educator's place in the room. Pay it forward and materially disrupt systems of oppression and harm.