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Future Thinkers is a media platform and global community exploring the future of civilization through technology, consciousness, systems thinking, and culture design. Over the past decade, the podcast has reached millions of listeners and featured hundreds of thinkers, innovators, and founders who are shaping the future. Future Thinkers provides the narrative and thought leadership behind the Smart Village Movement.
Portal.Place is the membership-powered platform building a network of Smart Villages — regenerative, culturally rich, AI-supported communities designed for the post-AI world. Members get early access to village programs, seasonal immersions, long-stay opportunities, and the development of new locations across bioregions.
The Smart Village Movement is a new model for living that blends nature, community, wellness, regeneration, and technology. It provides an alternative to the rising costs, disconnection, and instability of city life. Smart Villages are designed to be walkable, intergenerational, resilient, culturally vibrant, and supported by AI-powered coordination tools.
Located on 400 acres in Interior BC, the first Smart Village prototype is a hybrid hospitality and community site with cabins, domes, RV pads, coworking spaces, wellness amenities, and a growing community. Phase 1 expansion includes ~80 new glamping units, a wellness spa, event spaces, and maker infrastructure.
To build regenerative, economically viable villages that give people a healthier, more meaningful way to live in an era defined by automation, climate stress, and social fragmentation.
Smart Villages offer a practical, scalable path forward.
Designer, Entrepreneur, Village Builder, Podcaster
CEO and Co-Founder
Mike Gilliland is a futurist, technologist, and storyteller who has spent the last decade exploring how humans can live well in a world transformed by AI, automation, and ecological change.
Together with his wife and creative partner, Euvie Ivanova, Mike co-founded Future Thinkers, a media platform that has reached millions through its interviews, documentaries, and explorations into consciousness, technology, governance, and the future of society.
In 2020, Mike and Euvie left city life to move to a remote 400-acre property in the mountains of British Columbia. Their goal wasn’t just to escape — it was to build a real-world prototype of a 21st-century Smart Village. Over four years, Mike did the work the hard way: fixing machinery, clearing land, running operations, building community, managing emergencies, raising kids, and learning dozens of practical and digital skills by necessity.
Out of this experience came their larger vision: a global network of regenerative, AI-enabled villages for a post-job future. Mike now leads design, technology, strategy, and the development of Village OS, the AI coordination layer for next-generation communities. His creative approach blends systems thinking, immersive media, and hands-on engineering — always with an eye toward how humans can thrive in the decades ahead.
Educator, Writer, Village Builder, Podcaster
Co-Founder
Euvie Ivanova is a cultural creator, network weaver, and writer developing healthier, more meaningful ways for people to live, learn, and grow. Her work centers on how communities can raise and educate children, support families, revive ancestral knowledge, and cultivate cultures that reconnect us to land, purpose, and each other.
As co-founder of Future Thinkers, Euvie has spent over a decade in dialogue with leading thinkers in social change, consciousness, and regenerative civilization design.
Her perspective is shaped by lived experience across multiple worlds. Growing up in rural Russia and Bulgaria during the collapse of the USSR gave her firsthand insight into cultural transformation under instability. Studies in psychology at the University of British Columbia and the University of Copenhagen grounded her understanding of human development, attachment, and resilience. A decade of international travel with her partner Mike broadened her view of diverse cultures, communities, meaning-making, and family life. Becoming a mother deepened her dedication to cultivating long term human flourishing. Co-creating the Smart Village prototype added a practical foundation.
Through Portal.Place, Future Thinkers, and the Smart Village Movement, she works to help build the next stage of human living: places where children thrive, elders are valued, nature is honored, creativity is shared, ancestral knowledge is part of culture, and everyday life becomes meaningful again.
Mike Gilliland and Euvie Ivanova are the creators of Future Thinkers and Portal.Place, and the founders of Canada’s first Smart Village project.
Over the past decade they’ve interviewed global thinkers, built a thriving online community, and developed a visionary real-world village in British Columbia that blends wellness, technology, culture, and regenerative design. Their mission is to prototype a new model for living in the age of AI — one that supports creativity, resilience, community, and a healthier, more meaningful life.
Mike Gilliland and Euvie Ivanova are the creators of Future Thinkers and Portal.Place, and the founders of Canada’s first Smart Village project.
Over the past decade they’ve interviewed global thinkers, built a thriving online community, and developed a visionary real-world village in British Columbia that blends wellness, technology, culture, and regenerative design. Their mission is to prototype a new model for living in the age of AI — one that supports creativity, resilience, community, and a healthier, more meaningful life.
Founders of Future Thinkers and the Smart Village Movement, Mike and Euvie are building a regenerative, tech-enabled village in BC as a prototype for future community living.
A Smart Village is a regenerative, community-oriented place to live that integrates nature, wellness, culture, and technology into daily life.
It’s designed to be walkable, intergenerational, resilient, and economically diverse — a modern village prototype built for the post-AI era.
Smart Villages blend:
They are not communes or intentional communities in the old sense — they’re scalable, hospitality-aligned micro-neighbourhoods built for families, creators, remote workers, and purpose-driven people.
The first Smart Village prototype sits on 400 acres in Interior BC, combining hospitality, culture, and regenerative development.
Current features:
Phase 1 expansion (2025–2026):
This site acts as the development hub, training ground, and cultural heart of the Smart Village Movement.
Portal.Place is developing a distributed network of Smart Villages across regions and biomes.
Each location is unique, but all share a common culture, design standards, and AI-enabled operations.
The network model enables:
The long-term goal is a franchisable ecosystem of regenerative villages linked by shared culture, standards, and technology.
Village OS is the AI-powered coordination layer for Smart Villages.
It supports:
It’s designed to make village life easier, more harmonious, and more scalable, not more technical.
Smart Villages offer a real, actionable alternative:
Regenerative, tech-supported, human-scale living with community and nature at the center.
Mike and Euvie are available for interviews, podcasts, conferences, documentaries, panels, and expert commentary on topics including:
🔗 Future Thinkers: https://futurethinkers.org
🔗 Portal.Place: https://portal.place
🔗 The Land & Resort Booking Website: http://wellsgrayresort.ca
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/futurethinkers
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/futurethinkers/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@futurethinkers
X / Twitter: https://x.com/FutureThinkers_
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearefuturethinkers
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/e7UTQNP
