rehearse the future.

A new way to help children participate in an uncertain future.

Hello, and welcome to GiFT (Global Institute for Futures Teaching), where children explore ideas, tackle real-world challenges, and discover they have a place in shaping an unpredictable future.

After decades of working with children, educators, and future-focused learning experiences, one truth became increasingly clear: Children don't need more information. They need orientation.

In a world changing faster than any generation has experienced before, information has never been easier to find. Answers are everywhere. But knowing more isn't the same as knowing what matters.

Children need help making sense of a world filled with possibility, uncertainty, and constant change. They need the perspective, judgment, curiosity, ethical reasoning, and confidence to navigate whatever future emerges.

Threshold is a new way of thinking about how children become oriented toward an uncertain future—and confident enough to participate in shaping what comes next.

Mission Zero is where students practice through hands-on challenges that ask them to imagine possible futures, invent solutions, make difficult decisions, and adapt to surprises.

GiFT is the learning platform where families, educators, and students experience these ideas. Inside GiFT, your child will stretch their thinking beyond the classroom—exploring future scenarios, solving conundrums, building brainpower. Every experience is designed to help children become thoughtful, creative, and adaptable participants in a rapidly changing world.

Threshold answers Why.
Mission Zero answers How.
GiFT answers Where.
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Mission Zero: How it works.

The future cannot be predicted. But children can develop the confidence, judgment, and imagination to shape what comes next. 

That requires more than lessons. It requires practice. It requires rehearsal. That's what Mission Zero is designed to do.

Mission Zero is a future-focused learning experience where children tackle real-world challenges through imagination, collaboration, creativity, and thoughtful decision-making. They don't memorize the future—they rehearse for it.

1. Begin with Threshold (Free)

Start by reading Threshold — a short orientation written for parents.

Threshold is an invitation to pause, recognize the moment your child begins to see the world differently, and discover why orientation matters more than urgency.

No cost. No obligation. Just a conversation.

2. Experience Mission Zero (Free)

Next, try a free Mission Zero challenge.

Experience the process firsthand as your child imagines possible futures, wrestles with meaningful questions, creates solutions, and adapts to unexpected surprises.

If it resonates, wonderful. If not, you've still gained a new way of thinking about the future together.

3. Continue the Journey

Choose a Mission Zero challenge that matches your child's interests.

Each Mission explores different real-world scenarios while developing the same enduring human capacities: curiosity, judgment, imagination, collaboration, adaptability, and participation.

No two Missions are exactly alike. New challenges are added regularly, giving children fresh opportunities to imagine, create, and rehearse possible futures.

One Purchase. No Subscriptions.

Mission Zero is purchased one Mission at a time. We don't believe families should stay enrolled out of habit or obligation. The goal isn't dependence. It's giving children the confidence to meet whatever comes next.

Imagination in Action

Each Mission Zero challenge includes a unique downloadable deck of beautifully designed challenge cards that guide your child through a future-focused experience.

Downloadable card decks include four types of cards:

Scenarios — Imagine a possible future.
Conundrums — Explore a difficult question with no easy answer.
Artifacts — Design something that could exist in a possible future.
Surprises — Adapt to an unexpected twist.

See Clearly. Participate Fully.

Mission Zero challenges begin with Brain Builders—short riddles, puzzles, or teasers that spark curiosity, sharpen reasoning, and prepare your child to think creatively before the mission begins.

Continue the Journey

Your Mission Zero experience includes everything your family needs to begin exploring possible futures together.

For families who wish to continue the journey, optional live coaching, parent conversations, special events, and future challenges offer additional opportunities to deepen the experience—at your own pace.

SmarterWorld Café

Includes interviews with the world's leading scientists, engineers and designers. Great minds who don't think alike!

GiFT Exchange

Connect to a vibrant community to share ideas and explore possible futures. This is where your child's network builds.

Classroom Time Machine

Take Virtual field trips to tour the world's most innovative, future-shaping companies. Behind-the-scenes of next-generation jobs.

GiFT Guide

Personalized Tutorial Live Coaching (TLC) with futurist educator Richard Tavener. Where wisdom meets curiosity, innovation and futures thinking.

Includes everything your child needs to Mission Zero

Home Edition--Digital

Try it!

Free
Orientation
  • Get Threshold
  • Parent and Student Orientation
  • Mission Zero Challenge Preview
  • Explore possible futures
  • No Credit Card, No Auto-Renew
  • Challenge Prompts
  • Future surprise!
  • SmarterWorld Café (parents)
  • Threshold Signals (parents)
  • Virtual Field Trip (students)

Environment

$90.00
One purchase. No subscriptions.
  • Mission Zero Challenges: Emissions, Waste, Traffic
  • Parent Guide
  • Brain Builders
  • Virtual Field Trips
  • Reflection prompts
  • SmarterWorld Café
  • Letter of Recommendation 
  • Access GiFT Exchange Community
  • Invite to Future Thing® challenge
  • Certificate of Completion

Health

$90.00
One purchase. No subscriptions.
  • Mission Zero Challenges: Homelessness, Hunger, Water
  • Parent Guide
  • Brain Builders
  • Virtual Field Trips
  • Reflection prompts
  • SmarterWorld Café
  • Letter of Recommendation 
  • Access GiFT Exchange Community
  • Invite to Future Thing® challenge
  • Certificate of Completion

Safety

Coming October 2027
One purchase. No subscriptions.
  • Mission Zero Challenges:
    Cyber, Social and Physical Safety
  • Parent Guide
  • Brain Builders
  • Virtual Field Trips
  • Reflection prompts
  • SmarterWorld Café
  • Letter of Recommendation 
  • Access GiFT Exchange Community
  • Invite to Future Thing® challenge
  • Certificate of Completion
Still thinking about it?

We'd love to hear from you.

At The Threshold

Explore More.