By Umar Sheraz I was introduced to the idea of teaching futures thinking to young children in 2020, by Teach the Future. Teach the Future is a global non-profit movement that promotes ‘futures literacy’ as a life skill for students and educators. The premise is simple and thought-provoking. We passionately teach about the past to millions of children but we do not tutor them about the future space, in which they will live. Working with kids from classes 5 to 8, provides a different and refreshing perspective about the future, then while working with adults. I have always been amazed…
Author: Abril Chimal
by Francois Pretorius Imagine a moment in your life when change loomed large—a crossroads demanding a leap into the unknown. For me, this pivotal moment arrived a few years ago while contemplating the seemingly downward trajectory of my life, akin to a contemporary version of Lady Macbeth. In this vulnerable moment, I rediscovered a profound truth: that change, however daunting, holds the key to growth and renewal. But why does change evoke such complex emotions within us? And, crucially, how can we navigate these shifts more gracefully? These questions drove me to develop a personal approach to confront the fears…
by Mete Yazici The ongoing phase of industrial transformation, known as the fourth industrial revolution, aims to merge the physical, digital, and biological domains through extensive digital innovation (Saldanha, 2019). The pervasive incorporation of digital technologies into all facets of human existence became particularly evident following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 (Hantrais et al., 2020). Moreover, there is tough competition for users’ loyalty. MindSea (2023) reports that there are tens of thousands of applications released on smartphones annually. A typical smartphone holds over 80 apps, yet nearly 40% are removed due to lack of use. Additionally,…
by Catherine Flynn Working adults returning to school face unique challenges as they navigate their past, present, and future all at once. Like students of any age, they must learn unwritten rules, like how and when to reach out to professors and staff for help (Jack, 2016). Working adults may possess inaccurate ideas about their learning, which they may need to unlearn as they strive toward becoming expert learners who know which learning strategies best suit them (Rose et al., 2014). Fleener’s Futures Adult Learning Theory (FALT) (2021) establishes a current view of working adults’ perceptions of their probable futures.…
Hi and welcome to the JFS Perspectives podcast! We’re excited to have you tuning in. This podcast is a new venture for JFS, aimed at reaching more people and giving you a glimpse of the incredible content featured in our quarterly publication. We can’t wait to share some highlights with you and hopefully inspire you to check out the full issues. Episode 3: The Future of Sport and Recreation in New Zealand Interviewees: Dave Adams | Interviewer: Loes Damhof & Abril Chimal In this episode, we talk with Dave Adams, award winner in the APFN 2024, about the challenges sport and…
by Oliver Markley, PhD Introduction Many seemingly insurmountable challenges face the achievement of preferred futures that are economically just, ecologically sustainable, and socially inspiring (Markley, 2015, Inayatullah, 2018); for example, the way that social media algorithms drive increased social polarization. One of the founding tenets of the World Future Society (WFS) in 1966 was that a better future will emerge if many people explore their ideas about possible, probable and preferable, futures together—particularly about the specific types of future that they desire and/or see as most desirable for all. Whether this premise is something that holds up in practice, rather…
Ivana Milojević, Sohail Inayatullah, Ora-orn Poocharoen. A two-day workshop was held on 7-8 November 2023 and was facilitated by Professor Sohail Inayatullah and Dr. Ivana Milojević from Metafuture.org as well as Professor Ora-orn Poocharoen from the School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University, Thailand. The workshop was attended by over sixty participants from diverse organizations in Thailand from governmental, academic, civil society, corporate, and non-governmental organization sectors. The purpose of the workshop was to use futures thinking to widen and deepen strategic conversations about the directions of public policy in Thailand. The School of Public Policy, Chiang Mai University and the…
Karla Paniagua & Jose Antonio Sada Conjectures about the future of food are not new. Diverse studies outline a series of concerns and expectations that researchers and working groups in different geographies have raised about the availability and scarcity of commodities, significant changes in food practices, supply chain behavior, among other aspects of the complex food phenomenon: Los futuros de la alimentación en la CDMX (Arroyo, 2018); Co-Designing Water-Energy-Food Futures (Bell, 2018); The Future of Food – Who Will Be Hungry? (Russo, 2018); Imagining transformative futuresParticipatory Foresight for Food Systems Change (Hebinck, Vervoort, Hebinck, Rutting, & Galli, 2018); Eating…
by Sohail Inayatullah and Satya Tanner Electrifying a Continent Nine years ago, while working for a large African national energy supplier, participants imagined a unique future for the continent. In their vision, every village would use solar with artificial intelligence and peer-to-peer energy networks to create a decentralized grid. Each village would have a storage battery. The energy company would become the platform connecting and electrifying the continent. They would move from being engineers to platform designers. Africa could become energy abundant, they believed. Traditional forms of energy would still be there, as needed, for backup. However, when they looked…
by Matt Scott Inspection practices used internationally by the red meat industry date back to the late 1800’s, which can constrain innovative thinking within historical boundaries. This paper documents the beginning of a transformative journey for meat inspectors in New Zealand, by applying Futures Thinking to stimulate collaborative innovation. Interactive workshops with meat inspectors triggered a paradigm shift, redirecting the focus from automating conventional inspection methods to exploring uncharted territories. This shift revealed new possibilities for meat inspectors, by reimagining their roles in possible futures scenarios dominated by non-meat alternative proteins, and with integrated data negating the need for post-mortem…