The SciFi Channel is taking charge of your future with a new campaign to offer a positive view of tomorrow and encourage top thinkers and the community-at-large to tackle the problems of today.

The cable channel unveiled its Visions for Tomorrow campaign Thursday here at the Wired NextFest forum in New York City. The effort includes: an 18-member advisory board of scientists, futurists, artists, writers, political activists and business leaders to examine energy, environment and other issues; an educational outreach endeavour to reach today’s youth and educators view SciFi’s Visions for Tomorrow website

“I think it’s taking a step beyond entertainment for sure,” actress Mary McDonnell, who portrays President Laura Roslin on SciFi’s Battlestar Galactica, told me here at NextFest.

McDonnell is an advisory board member and SciFi Channel’s ad hoc spokesperson for Visions for Tomorrow.

In a Thursday panel, advisory board members credited past science fiction works such as television’s Star Trek and Flash Gordon, the stories of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne – not to mention NASA’s televised Apollo Moon missions – among others for inspiring a generation of people to take charge of technology and shape their future.

“It’s about taking the future in our hands and trying to envision something that’s better and brighter,” said McDonnell.

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