Let's collaborate

Systems · Design · Intelligence

Bringing the future into the present.

Making complex systems work better.

We bring together expertise in innovation systems, strategy, design and applied intelligence to help organisations navigate complexity, strengthen institutional capabilities and turn knowledge into meaningful action.

Let's collaborateOur expertise

Perspective

From where an institution stands, many futures open. We turn knowledge into agency: the capacity to choose one of them and give it body.

KnowledgeAction

Agency

Institutions rarely lack information. What they often lack is agency: the capacity to turn what they know into decisions and coordinated action. Building that capacity, inside the institution, is the purpose of our work.

Who we are

Different perspectives. Shared purpose.

FuturAct is an independent consulting practice founded in Brazil, with an international outlook.

We combine extensive experience in innovation policy, productive development, strategic design, institutional transformation and applied research.

Our work connects strategic thinking with practical implementation, bringing together different disciplines, institutions and perspectives to address complex challenges.

We work independently and through partnerships, contributing to projects of different scales and durations.

Our expertise

Connecting knowledge, strategy and action.

Six areas of practice, often combined in one engagement. Open each one to see the questions we help answer and what we deliver.

Experience behind our practice

Experience across institutions, programmes and ecosystems.

Our founders bring professional experience developed through research, public institutions, innovation programmes, entrepreneurship and strategic design.

  • Innovation & Deep-Tech Programmes

    Statewide leadership and coordination of initiatives supporting science-based entrepreneurship, emerging technologies and innovation ecosystems, including Start Bio, Start IA, Start Deeptech, Start Mercado and Acelerando Cientistas.

  • Institutional Learning & Capacity Building

    Design and coordination of professional development initiatives for innovation ecosystem managers, institutional leaders and public-sector professionals.

  • Territorial Development & Innovation Ecosystems

    Experience in cluster competitiveness, territorial innovation, institutional collaboration and local innovation ecosystem development.

  • Public Service & Strategic Design

    Human-centred research, collaborative methodologies, service design and innovation in public and institutional contexts.

  • Knowledge Systems & Applied Intelligence

    Development of methodologies and emerging AI-enabled approaches to organise knowledge, retrieve evidence and support institutional decision-making.

These experiences reflect the professional trajectories of the founders and should not be interpreted as previous contracts undertaken by FuturAct.

Our approach

Understand complexity. Design possibilities. Enable action.

We believe meaningful transformation emerges from the interaction of knowledge, people, institutions and practical experimentation. Our approach combines four moves that turn knowledge into agency, revisited as the work advances.

Systems thinking

Understanding contexts, relationships and underlying dynamics.

In practice

We map actors, flows of resources and information, and incentives before proposing anything, so that the work acts on causes rather than symptoms.

Strategic design

Translating challenges into programmes, services and actionable solutions.

In practice

We design with the people who will run and use a programme, and test ideas through prototypes and pilots before committing resources to scale.

Applied intelligence

Connecting research, evidence and knowledge to decision-making.

In practice

We bring evidence to the moments when decisions are made, in formats teams can actually use: briefs, dashboards of learning, structured knowledge bases.

Implementation & learning

Supporting coordinated action, adaptation and lasting institutional capabilities.

In practice

We work alongside teams through implementation, adjust as results come in and make sure the capabilities stay in the institution when the project ends.

The founders

Complementary expertise. Integrated perspectives.

Portrait of Maria Augusta Pimentel Miglino

Maria Augusta Pimentel Miglino

Innovation Policy · Productive Development · Programme Design & Evaluation

Maria Augusta is a senior expert in innovation and productive development, with nearly 30 years at the intersection of innovation systems, territorial development and science, technology and innovation policy. Her work spans the full cycle of public programmes: research and diagnosis, evaluation, programme design, implementation and governance.

Over 16 years at Sebrae-SP she worked on cluster development and competitiveness, designed and oversaw complex innovation programmes and managed the state deep-tech programmes Start IA, Start Bio and Start Deeptech.

More

Selected experience

  • State manager of the Sebrae for Startups deep-tech programmes Start IA, Start Bio and Start Deeptech, delivered with IPT and ecosystem partners.
  • Coordinator of the Startups do Futuro award (2022 to 2023): 531 science-based startups mapped and 103 recognised as the most promising.
  • State coordinator of the Incubadora-SP programme at Sebrae-SP.
  • Evaluation of results and impacts of R&D programmes at UNICAMP, including PROSAB (FINEP), published in Research Evaluation.
  • Research on local innovation systems, clusters and the evaluation of R&D programmes at UNICAMP.
  • Member of the FAPESP and FINEP project on a science, technology and innovation strategy for São Paulo (2006 to 2009).
  • Thematic Study of Regional Economic Development in Latin America and the Caribbean, FOMIN/IDB (2013), as a SISTME specialist consultant.
  • Papers on local innovation systems and clusters at EUNIP conferences (2001 to 2003), the 15th TCI Global Conference (2012) and the Triple Helix Conference (2024).

Education

  • Economics, UNICAMP
  • Master's in Science and Technology Policy, UNICAMP
  • Executive International MBA, Saint Paul Business School and ESMT Berlin
  • Industrial Policy, University of Ferrara, Italy
  • Competitiveness Summer School, Inter-American Development Bank, Washington DC
Portrait of Leandro Pasini

Leandro Pasini

Strategic & Service Design · Public Innovation · Evaluation

Leandro is a strategic and service designer working on public innovation and institutional capacity. For more than 20 years he has turned complex problems into programmes, services and governance arrangements, combining systems thinking, qualitative research and collaborative facilitation with public institutions, foundations and territorial networks.

He conceived and facilitated a local innovation ecosystems initiative in ten territories of São Paulo state, co-developed the Design Doing methodology and, in 2026, conducted an evaluation for UNESCO.

More

Selected experience

  • UNESCO, individual consultant (2026): methodology, fieldwork, analysis and final recommendations for the evaluation of a São Paulo municipal public innovation laboratory.
  • Sebrae-SP, innovation projects specialist (2021 to 2026): local innovation ecosystems in ten territories, the São Paulo agricultural innovation corridor with Embrapa, APTA and universities, and the Barretos healthtech ecosystem.
  • Instituto Tellus, service designer (2014 to 2021): secondary-education public policy with Fundação Itaú in Mato Grosso do Sul, Paraíba and Amapá, including the training of 60 state network managers; ReDUS platform with GIZ; InovaJuntos public policy lab; Startup Outreach Brasil with MDIC and ApexBrasil.
  • Earlier career in digital creative direction and advertising (Ogilvy, Leo Burnett, JWT, F/Nazca), including one of the first Brazilian internet banking projects, in 1999.
  • Ongoing personal research on AI-enabled knowledge architectures for evidence organisation and decision support.

Education

  • Social Communication, PUC-Campinas
  • Postgraduate specialisation in Psychoanalytic Semiotics, PUC-SP
  • Design Thinking Action Lab and Mobile Health Without Borders, Stanford University
  • Service Innovation Journey, EISE

Collaboration

Let's turn collaboration into action.

FuturAct works with development organisations, innovation agencies, research institutions, cluster organisations, public institutions and consulting partners.

Joint projectsWith development organisations and consulting partners, from design to implementation.
Specialised advisoryFocused assignments in strategy, evaluation, programme design or learning.
International consortiaBrazilian expertise for multi-country proposals and programmes.
Collaborative initiativesResearch, events and learning initiatives with institutions that share our purpose.