EP 187 - APF IF 2023 Awards Spotlight - Dreams and Disruptions & Young Voices

 
 

We are delighted to continue our new podcast series based on the Winners and honorable mentions from the APF 2023 IF Awards. Today we hear from the team from the Center for Engaged Foresight in the Philippines and their game, Dreams and Disruptions and the Teach the Future gang and their incredible project - World Futures Day, Young Voices.

Interviewed by: Peter Hayward with Maggie Greyson and John Sweeney

Center for Engaged Foresight - Dreams and Disruptions

Teach the Future - World Futures Day, Young Voices

Transcript

Peter Hayward: Welcome to the FuturePod Spotlight Series on the APF IF awards for 2023. In 2022 the APF changed from the most Significant Futures Work Awards to the IF Awards. Let's hear from Maggie what the IF awards are all about.

Maggie Greyson: The awards served as an invaluable resource for pointing clients. and the future's curiosity towards understanding the nature of work.

If questions, What If X, then y, are central to what we do as curators, facilitators, and researchers in supporting communities, organizations, and institutions to explore the futures.

John Sweeney: In celebration of the APF 20th anniversary, MSFW was re imagined as the APF IF Awards to reflect the globality, diversity, transdisciplinarity of the organization and the futures and foresight field. The Reimagined IF Awards program recognizes the evolving excellence in futures and foresight work with an emphasis on key thematic areas such as impact, imagination, and Indigenous.

 

Peter Hayward: Those awards are done and dusted and now we are here to celebrate the winners and special mentions. So get ready to hear from people doing important futures and foresight work all over the globe that is innovative, inclusive, indigenous, and much, much more. So on with the show.

Okay. John, who's up next?

John Sweeney:Peter, so up next we have Sherman, PJ, and Nicole, who are going to be sharing about the Dreams and Disruptions game. This was commended as an innovative and immersive scenario based card game that could foster stress tested and anti fragile visions of the future

The game was commended as an innovative and immersive scenario building approach that could allow for stress testing and anti fragile visions of the future. The game's structure leverages scenario archetypes, diverse leadership perspectives, planetary disruptions to create a thoughtful and engaging space to allow participants to envision and navigate complex futures.

The judges recognized the game's contribution to both theoretical and practical conversations in the field of futures and foresight, and of course scenarios as well. Now there are lots of games out there, but the game was quite novel in how it encouraged disruptive thinking, and that was really appreciated by the judges.

Overall, the game was praised as a valuable contribution that could really foster resilient visions. of the future.

Peter Hayward: Welcome to FuturePod. So I'm here with Shermon Cruz, who we've had before on FuturePod, and a couple of other people from the Center for Engaged Foresight, Nicole and PJ. So welcome to all of you. And congratulations for winning an IF award for your game, Dreams and Disruptions. I think in the category of Inclusion. I might start with Nicole. Do you want to just tell us something about the genesis of the game?

Nicole Moura: Yes, Peter. Thank you so much for having us. We're very happy to share more about the Dreams in Disruptions game. So it was conceptualized, actually, in 2019. Pre pandemic by the Center for engaged foresight, because the team identified a need for there to be a way for people to confront the reality of chaos and the existence of.

Disruptions that may come up at any point in our lives, usually when you play a foresight game, it helps you to imagine a preferred visions of the future, but the dreams and disruptions game actually takes it a little bit further by helping you challenge these preferred visions of the future and placing you together with a disruption.

That you have absolutely no control over and then you are supposed to find a way for your preferred future to continue to thrive under these circumstances. So it was actually 1st played in person at the Asia Pacific futures network conference in Bangkok. And I believe that the game was also played. During the conference of the Association of Professional Futurists, which was held online, and since the game has been developed, there have been many changes, many tweaks and iterations of development that has helped bring the game to where it is today.

Peter Hayward: Nicole, one thing you have mentioned is the Anti Fragility or that we have these dreams of the future, but when they encounter reality and disruption that these disruptions can actually make the dream stronger, or more possible Is that how it works?

Nicole Moura: I think that introducing the element of disruption and challenging your preferred vision of the future does in fact help make these visions of the future more anti fragile because then you're prepared for a scenario that you never thought of and being caught unaware and being unprepared for disruption and a chaotic reality is what can essentially.

hinder us from achieving our preferred visions of the future. But when you simulate it through game in a gamified way, you introduce the elements of fun, make it an opportunity for people to learn about the future and future's thinking, and also help them to challenge themselves and how they bring resilience towards any particular situation.

So I think that's very unique in the Dreams and Disruptions game.

 

Peter Hayward: The power of the dream. One of the things I used to talk about was hope, but big hope or strong hope and, and it's not just wishful thinking, it's actually, no, I really want this to happen, not withstanding the disruptions that land in the way. It's almost a way of really girding your loins and purpose because this has to happen, not withstanding what disruptions land in the way.

Nicole Moura: I definitely agree. Having a vision of the future that you really yearn for and is powered by your inspiration and is powered by your desire, fueled by your desire makes it harder for you to be harder for you to be shot down along the journey of making this dream a reality.

Peter Hayward: Yeah, and I suppose also it's. Rather than you be passive about wishing for a future, it actually encourages you to be active in creating that future.

Nicole Moura: Yes, and I think that the randomized element of the disruption also helps people to overcome whatever reservations they may already have about achieving their dreams, because when we think of a preferred vision of the future, we already have in our mind, what are the Weights of history, the hindrances that could be preventing us from achieving this future.

And if we've lived in a situation for so long where we haven't been able to do anything about these challenges, then we feel hopeless. But when you give people this new challenge that they may maybe have never thought about before, suddenly they become more creative, they're empowered by being able to change the future and being able to do it in a group setting also helps people be more creative and bounce off of each other's ideas. So I think that the game sets a very good situation for people to engage with futures thinking.

Peter Hayward: Good. Terrific. Thanks, Nicole. Now, so PJ, who I'm going to invite in now, I think PJ, you played the game before you actually started working on the game. Is that the case?

PJ Demdam: Yes. Yes. Funny enough. By the way Peter, thanks again for having us on FuturePod, but funny enough, I actually played the game before I even met Sherman. So it's a nice full circle moment for me to be finally, to get to actually be part of the team working for the design of the game. So I've been working with Sherman for, on this project for the past year and I played it, I think about a year and a half ago.

So it's, basically, the game is what introduced me to Futures Thinking. Prior to that, I didn't even know what Futures Thinking was. Okay, so this got me into, this got me into some A world that I never knew before. And that's, I think that's Nicole touched on it earlier, but that, I think that's the value of Dreams in Disruptions game.

Not only does it prove to be a useful tool for futurists, but you don't have to be a futurist to play it. A, as you mentioned earlier, I worked on the design with Sherman of the initial cards that we have produced. So, the first question that we had to ask ourselves was, what should be the role of the design of the game?

Cause the gameplay was already there all the elements were, was already there. It's just that we needed to have we wanted to have something physical to hold on to just to make the games more tangible. So we decided on the role that design, the design of the card game is not there to set the tone or.

to set the mood of the game. Rather it should empower or the role of the design is to help enable and empower the players to, to be able to set the tone of the game themselves. What the card serves as is a tool that helps the players and it should help the players get their, get themselves in a mindset that would help.

imagine and anticipate future possibilities navigate challenges, disruptions, uncertainties, and also help them collaborate together as a group to create unique and innovative scenarios when they're playing the game. But most important of all, it's important for them to be enabled to Tell their own stories of their imagined futures using the cards.

So, that was the most important part of the role of the design. And with that. We designed the cards in such a way that we were intentionally giving the players just enough information so that they can create their own scenarios on their own. So we could inspire them to create those scenarios on their own.

Peter Hayward: So you weren't putting it on rails or you weren't trying to roll them through preconceived notions. You were seeding their thinking. But also allowing their creativity and their collaboration, importantly their collaboration, as non experts, because you don't require expertise to play the game. Have I got that right?

PJ Demdam: Exactly. Yeah, so you don't need any expertise to play the game. What we intentionally did was basically the role of design is, the role of the design of the cards was to lift barriers to imagination. Not just lift barriers, but push for, but push imagination. From the players towards their scenarios

Peter Hayward: and PJ, I'm interested in your take as a person who was a novice to futures thinking when you first encountered the game and now here you are waxing lyrical about the design and inclusion. How important is it that this is not just merely? A game to imagine a preferred future, but to actually reckon with disruptive reality at the same time. How do those two for you work together?

PJ Demdam: I think those two things are not separate at all. It's all one, one big thing that we have to reckon with our future. Understand that not everything is as beautiful as what we want to be. The role of disruptions is not just to disrupt, it's not just to disrupt and destroy whatever imagined scenarios we have, it's there to to challenge us to, to challenge us on how we can adapt around or with those scenarios or with those disruptions. So disruptions are not there to destroy, but to help create whatever imagined futures that we'll end up imagining in a game or even in real life.

Peter Hayward: And I believe you've. You've spoken to me about how creative the game is in terms of how people choose to play it. I even think you said that you've actually played it as a drinking game.

PJ Demdam: Oh, yes. Yes. That's actually a great thing about The game. It's not just it's not just for the ones for people without knowledge of futurist thinking. It's been played by kids before Sir Sherman can speak about. More, more about the organizations that's played it in his native region in the Philippines.

But it's also been played in various levels of sobriety. So I've played it with a lot of friends over drinks. We've explored a multitude of scenarios. It's funny because when you're a bit. When we're a bit under the influence of alcohol the scenarios gets more exciting. Yeah. And it gets weirder, and which is what we want when we play the game.

Yeah,

Peter Hayward: Certainly, alcohol is one form of reducing inhibitions. I think what you're saying is if we can learn to become more in uninhibited, but not necessarily have to use. A drug or something to do it does help our ability to both be creative and also imagine things.

PJ Demdam: Yes, exactly. I guess we can say that I guess we can say that the Dreams and Disruptions card game play the same role of lifting in that, of lifting inhibitions and lifting barriers to whatever scenario you want to imagine. Fantastic.

Peter Hayward: Thanks B. J. So Shermon, I'm going to invite you in now and we're going to have a bit of a nerdy conversation now because I've heard a lot from Nicole and PJ, and the things I'm already hearing is obviously futures literacy. I'm hearing agency and I think Nicole said that I think is really powerful is what we're in control of and what we're not in control of. And I'm going to throw that to you now because, you are an expert and you know how futures operates as an expert technique and yet we're also watching people get excited about playing with it.

Shermon Cruz: Oh yeah. Yes. In fact, building on what Nicole just shared a moment ago about not being able to control those things, large forces, or those forces that are beyond us, both as human beings in the context of our institutions instructions institutions and structures including, of course, at the societal level, wherein people gets to congregate a collective.

To influence and change the conditions of change, there are a variety of forces in the world, both identified and emergent that are not necessarily up to us. Because there is nature, there is culture, and this are You know vague subjective things, and in the process we get to learn how to deal with them as we learn through the process of doing it, defining who we are in the context of meaning making.

Now with that in mind, it just reminded me about, there was a question at the APF before there wasn't able to be a part of that session, but then they've asked us, if there was a song, that could encapsulate, what the game is. And two things actually emerge, from Nicole it's a song about, everybody wants to rule the world, and . So in the context of the game, it's not just about dreaming and disruptions, but also about, leadership. And I think it in that part of the game where the, where the face emerges and gives a situation for players and users of the game to imagine what would the scenario look like and how it would evolve if enters the domain of the military, if it enters the domain of the intellectual, the capitalist the laborer.

And then, of course, building on the idea of Prabhatranjan Sarkar's theory of social psychology and leadership archetype, the sub vipra, which is, of course, what's pretty quite extensively discussed and simulated in the game that you've invented, which is the Sarkar's game, that provides a real inspiration as well for us who would eventually Think of a further iteration that is now included in the game.

 

Peter Hayward: We've heard from Nicole and PJ how accessible the game is, how you don't necessarily need to be an expert or be subject expert or process expert. However, at the same time, experts and subject experts and process experts are often caught in the same process where they can't think creatively, and they tend to be trapped by their expertise, and I wonder if both the game and you're saying these deliberate social archetypes that exist in us. Whether this is also a game that isn't just, yeah, yes, it's important that people play it to get excited and have fun and get creative ideas, but it's also capable to scale it to actually do serious work. I think you refer to it as serious play, don't you?

Shermon Cruz: Yes. Yes. In fact, the phase one and phase three, which is of course the dreaming part, which is the scenario building aspect of the game and then the disruption, which presents you a dilemma, about ways by which you can rethink and reimagine how would the scenario evolved in the process and provides you agency as well to think about those things that you can do in those kinds of scenarios.

But then here comes your different ways of knowing. And from the lens of social psychology is the view, I would like to borrow this context from Leah Mayo's Hacking Selves, Hacking Culture is his idea of what he called epistemological rupturing. When you try to, let's just say, play, and put it in your context a way by which, for example, you're not a military, but then in the game, it affords you to think like a military.

Is, how might your scenario change, how much your view of the world change or evolve in the context of the military. So here is the thing, I've also learned this from the participants who played the game, is that, Sherman, it's very hard for me to think about the future in a pessimistic point of view, because all of my life I've been always an optimist.

And then they realize that might not be evolutionary, really, if you're then suddenly you realize that, perhaps I should learn how to be a pessimist as well. Because that gives me a different way of knowing the world. It's not just about optimism. And I think the epistemological aspect of the conversation that emerges.

In the game opens up people to begin and learn how to think about the unthought of future. I think it's a precursor, for for every one of us including futurists. That in order for us to think about emergence and the unthought of future is that we need to have a conversation about epistemes.

And the social psychology enables us to actually simulate and situate ourselves in the mind of others. Yeah. That, that gives a lot of insights eventually about scenario construction because it's not just the forces of change. The trends, but also I think our worldviews definitely would change the conditions of change depending on how we mean it or frame or reframe it.

Peter Hayward: Back to the Sarkar Game, what I was excited about when I played the game with Archetypes was to almost the system, the drama, that the archetypes create. That drama itself is systemic in the way that it operates And the social psychologies become like an ecosystem or at least the structure of the ecosystem of how we think and act our way through both the future and the disruptions in our environment.

Shermon Cruz: Yeah, I totally agree with you. on that. And in fact, just to encapsulate, this conversation, it if it was about a song, if it was a song, I, it reminds me about the song of Crowded House, that popular song Don't Dream It's Over, right? Yeah. Why? Because, as the lyricist As the lyrics says, there's freedom within, there's freedom without, try to catch the deluge in a paper cup.

There's a battle ahead, many battles are lost, but you'll never see the end of the road while you're traveling with me. It's some sort of a radical reframing. About the constraints that engulf us, as human beings, as institutions, as systems, but then through futures and foresight, and one iteration of that is the dreams and disruptions card.

It gives us the opportunity to In fact, think about absurd and unthought of future because for people, when they get to achieve that point, it becomes liberating and emancipatory for people who feels trapped, by the constraints that they are in. But then the good thing about this is that while they search, for alternatives and emergent scenarios, they're doing it.

While there are tensions that might emerge in playing the game the game enables people to talk about these things in a low risk context because they're having fun playing it. But then, when they f reflect on the scenarios that they just Imagine in, in the context of emergence, it becomes a liberating for them, including me, who facilitates the game.

And then they get to start really, questioning what it means to think about the future.

Peter Hayward: So Shermon, can we just, in the last part of this this chat can you maybe just talk about listeners that are interested and want to know more about the game. Cause they've heard about a game that obviously works with novices. It's a game that builds literacy and confidence, and it's also a game that can be used to do serious inquiry work, disruptive epistemology. So how do people find out more about it?

 

Shermon Cruz: Yes. Yes. Yes. Now about, about those information, we do have a website. Of course it's a, it's www. dreamsanddisruptions. com. So anything about dreams and disruptions game cases, videos resources, supplementary resources, a guide decks anything that you need to learn more about the game is in the website.

And then we began sharing stories as well from those who have used the game in the Philippines, in different parts of the world. And we're trying to build literature around that, not just about the game, but their experiences in, in futures literacy and foresight of course, in the context of dreams and disruption.

It, it continues to expand, including the possibilities about the game, it's iteration reiterations and new iterations. It's really about the game. It's a horizon of anticipating and creating possibilities through play.

Peter Hayward: I won't say you've got an online version, but it was something that obviously went online during the pandemic. I played it in the online APF event. You are continuing to work on it as both an online and a physical game, aren't you?

Shermon Cruz: Oh, yes yeah it's it's a continuing experimentation. And innovation and reflection. Yes, definitely we will have a variety of versions about the game. Of our participants and stakeholders, including clients, have asked us if they can localize or customize the game according to their, priorities and interests. For example, science, technology, and innovation in the military. In national security including of course regenerative systems. We've been exploring that and collaborating with our partners to build specific additions of the game.

Peter Hayward: We're going to have you back on FuturePod a few months Sherman, so we can go even deeper into this. I'll just close this one off by again congratulating the Center for Engaged Foresight and you each. Congratulations for winning recognition in the IF awards and congratulations for the game. As an old games designer, I love seeing new games and congratulations on what you've done. And thanks for spending some time with the FuturePod community.

Shermon Cruz: Yes. Thank you, Peter. And the FuturePod community, and of course the Association of Professional Futurists.

Of course.

Peter Hayward:I hope you're enjoying the podcast. The FuturePod is a not-for-profit venture. We're able to do podcasts like this one because of our patrons, like Frank Spencer at Kedge Futures. Frank has been an active patron for the last three plus years. Thanks for the support, Frank. If you'd like to join Frank as a patron of the pod, then please follow the patron link on our website. Now, back to the podcast.

Okay. Maggie, who's our next guest?

Maggie Greyson: We have Peter Bishop, Lisa Giuliani, and Amna Habiba, and they have an honorable mention for amplifying intergenerational voices to shape our shared future.

This incredible project World Future Day, Young Voices, held intergenerational dialogues in all 24 time zones for the first time in 2023. Registrations came from 54 countries in 2023. This global initiative spotlights diverse youth perspectives vital for inclusive futures, demonstrating the power of listening across generations. What I think is very important about this initiative is that they demonstrate that we can and need to create safe spaces for plural narratives and embracing imagination. Youth are our future and they'll be making choices on our behalf. This program creates a global community who champion multiple futures coexisting simultaneously.

The judges commended this thoughtfully designed global platform that fostered intergenerational dialogue on futures across diverse time zones and age groups. Engaging young people worldwide in futures thinking from an early age was seen as impactful and important. Specific strengths highlighted with a dual moderator approach catering to different audiences and the initiative's continuity beyond the event day.

Peter Hayward: I'm welcoming back to FuturePod three of our previous guests, Lisa, Peter and Amna, welcome back to FuturePod, guys.

Peter Bishop: Welcome to be here, Peter,

Peter Hayward: and I'll start with the congratulations because you won a nomination in the IF Awards this year for the redesigned Most Significant Futures Work. How does it feel to have Teach the Future recognized as doing significant futures work?

Lisa Guiliani: To be recognized by the APF as an honorable mention for doing work in the futures field is joyful. It's humbling. There's anticipation. What's next? We are filled with  gratitude for the recognition and validation it provides for the hard work our team has put into making futures thinking and foresight accessible to young people.

Amna Habiba: I think it's a really great opportunity for us as well to be recognized for the work we do here at Teach the Future and for more people to learn more about Teach the Future's mission and our goals to get more young people involved in futures thinking. Peter, do you have anything to share?

Peter Bishop: Of course, I have something to say. A college professor always has something to say. You know that, we're former. My take on this is that it is a marvelous opportunity to include young people in the APF. The APF just celebrated its first 20 years last year.

And we've always wanted to have a lot more youthful audience, a lot more youthful membership. And the fact that the IF Awards judges realized that this award went to a program. That was primarily designed to include futures for young people into the Foresight community. So to me, it's a special one because now we have the official recognition that the APF is taking young people and their work in Foresight seriously.

So that's a particularly gratifying thing. Thank you.

Peter Hayward: Great. So Lisa, can you maybe just for the listeners who don't know much about Teach the Future and certainly probably haven't heard of the Young Voices part of the World Futures Day, do you want to just maybe set this up?

Amna Habiba: Great.

Lisa Guiliani: Yes. Thanks, Peter. So a bit about the origin story. As many listeners may know, Celebrating World Futures Day was started by the Millennium Project, and this year was their 11th year of hosting this event, and Teach the Future was invited to join the celebration and host a parallel event To include young voices in 2021.

So a brief, not so brief timeline world futures day, young voices began in 2021, where we covered seven time zones that year, we hosted a workshop in Brazil. We listened to a youth panel in Mexico, played a futures game in the Netherlands, and became future detectives in the U. S. I also want to mention a shout out to Deona Julary, our youth intern at the time, who helped initiate and organize the event.

Then in 2022, Peter and I formed an advisory committee who helped us expand on the event. That year, we almost had 24 hour coverage. We missed about four or five time zones. Amna, I remember you attended some of these sessions, you and your mom also presented a session on the futures of resilience, and I would also remember later, you would come to tell me that you saw me dozing off in one of the sessions, not knowing that I had been up 24 hours behind the scenes, orchestrating the transitions and the smoothness of the event.

Peter, you were there as well. We were up late, late hours that year. Then world futures day, 2023 was a major success for Teach the Future. That year we did cover 24 hours. We had 24 hour time zone coverage. We had a lot of support from our partners, some to mention the European commission, the Association of Professional Futurists and Futures Problem Solving International.

That year we had 450. Registered for the event with over 100 of those being young voices, young youth voices under the age of 25, the topics span from democratizing futures thinking to the futures of vulnerability, future of Ethiopian youth, futures of urban farming, education, love, food, and building future with compassion.

Then let's fast forward to this year, 2024. The momentum continued 24 hour coverage. Our presenting partners this year were UNICEF, Innocenti, NASA, St. Peter's School in Barcelona, the School of International Futures, And the NGFP Fellows just to name a few and if you like the numbers this year we had over 655 who registered for the event 251 were youth tickets so far over 600 views on youtube, which we went live for the event. Average participation, 20 participants, maybe per session.

So if you think about it, that's a 24 hour, 24 hour conversation, nonstop with about 20, 20 folks at it, at any time, and we did have a surprise 50 participants plus maybe 60, 50 to 60 participants in some of the sessions. 125 unique countries in attendance. We had a school from Brazil, Spain, and the U.S. join us.

And we love when that happens, when the session starts and we have a whole classroom of students just pop on the screen, most definitely. I'll end with the array of topics that we covered this year. I'll just name a few indigenous knowledge and systems change, oceans futures and sustainability, quantum cryptography and encryption, discussing failure and its role in the future and futures of work in space.

Wow. That is a brief, not so brief timeline.

Peter Hayward: It is amazing. That's in what, three years, four years. It's amazing how far it's come. You must be both proud and just wondering where the heck this is going to end up. I know we're going to talk about that, but just when you just hear Lisa lay it out like that, it is stunning.

Lisa Guiliani: Yes. Amna, Peter, is there anything else? Does that sum up the origin story of WFD?

Peter Bishop: Let's hear Amna's experience. Cause she was a presenter and participant, and now she is the technical background. She makes all the magic work. So Amna, what has it been like for you to participate in this experience in different ways?

Amna Habiba: I think when I started, my first world futures day was the 2022 version. I joined as a participant, and this was right after receiving the NGFP award in 2021. And I remember what Lisa mentioned, I remember her dozing off and we still laugh about it today.

Wow, this was such a nice way to have young people be part of these conversations. And future thinking was still a very new topic. It's still a very new topic to me, I would say, and I continue to learn every day. And just being part of those conversations and learning from. All of these amazing people all around the world shared their work and the work that they are doing in their respective fields was really interesting.

And then that's when I started being more involved with Teach the Future as well. And then 2023, I had a session presentation and also was able to see how World Futures Day really worked behind the scenes but not really that well. And then this year was a really big upgrade I would say because I was able to help Lisa behind the scenes coordinate and help out with organizing World Futures Day.

So transitioning from just a participant to a presenter and then to helping organize. I think I really looked at The event from multiple perspectives, and that just makes me appreciate all of the different roles. I would say that we come together to put such an event in place and I feel like with every year that passes by, it keeps getting bigger and better.

And I just, of course, we're going to just based on this later, but I can't wait to see how. How much we can grow and how many more young people around the world we can reach because future thinking is something that I feel like, as Peter preaches, every school, every young person should be aware of.

Unfortunately, I've already passed school and now I'm in university. I feel like I'm still learning, but if it was included way earlier, I feel like there would be so many advantages to that that we don't really see, and I think it's really important for futures thinking to be included in the curriculum and not just.

In the curriculum, but also in such activities that students can do out of school, like attending World Futures Day, or even within school, and I think it's a really great way that I have been involved with Teach the Future and I get to contribute to the mission.

Peter Hayward: Amna are you Can you take us deeper into really what, what are you learning about engaging with young voices?

Amna Habiba: So I'd like to just bring up the Young Voices Network that we have withinTeach the Future.

And one thing that sort of popped up for this year is that we organize these sessions with our Young voice leaders over the time span before World Futures Day to support them in their presentations on World Futures Day. And I think that's just one of like many examples I can think of when it comes to really engaging young people in such conversations.

One thing that I feel like we don't really talk about a lot maybe is that there's so many amazing ideas that young people have. It's just that they need a platform and support from organizations or people that have already built their career, let's say, in a field to, Be able to, go out and share it.

For example, we had a very amazing young person join us from Dubai and she talked about quantum computing. And I thought that was really interesting because we often feel as a young person, I myself, I would feel like we're often limited to just what we're taught in school and then to just go ahead and, Get into a career that would be more so traditional in a pathway that, we grow up seeing in books and stuff.

So there's not really a lot of thinking about the future when it comes to things like that. And one thing that for me changed was ever since I started. Being involved with Teach the Future and World Futures Day was thinking about my future differently and thinking of all the different possibilities there are.

So one part, one essential component of engaging young people is just giving them. So I feel like building such platforms and giving them opportunities to engage and learn because we'll be the ones living in the world in the future so why not let us know about what the future is and how we can build the future.

So I feel like helping young people know and equipping them with the necessary tools and the skills and the knowledge so that we can build our own future is. A very crucial 21st century skill that unfortunately we don't really see incorporated a lot.

Peter Hayward: We create these special classes to ensure that women are represented or people of youth are represented. That can become tokenism. It's, as Amna said, important to give platforms and opportunities and support, but we also want to integrate this? So we don't even need to have the special emphasis or in fact, do we actually want to have young voices kept separate?

Peter Bishop: Let me comment on that because you've hitten one of my buttons, Peter.

Thank you very much. You've mentioned integration and we're very proud to be part of the movement and it is now a movement to include young people's voices in discussions and indeed policymaking about the future. One of our partners, the School of International Futures in the UK is one of their missions is called Intergenerational Fairness, and they include a whole alumni network of winners and applicants for their program in that, and they're putting them in important places at the table, so to speak when discussions about the future where UN is UNICEF is a partner, UNESCO is a partner. So those are places outside where, yes, I think the possibility of tokenism, frankly, is real and we want to avoid that. But let me talk about integration.

Where are young people living these days? Mostly in school, young people are the majority in the school. The adults are the minority, and it is really there that we believe. The real effect should be introducing foresight to young people. Being part of World Future Day, being part of policy discussions and platforms and webinars is absolutely important, but also we should be also teaching this in school where all the students in the class, all the students in a school, All students, indeed, in a country get to hear about how to think about the future and how to prepare for the future.

So we're talking about not small scale integration of being at the table when policy discussions take place, which is wonderful. And that's what World Future Day is a harbinger of. It's doing it day in and day out, year in and year out. We have a few schools around the world that are doing that. So World Future Day is a beginning to integrating Young voices. And so those voices would happen not on the internet or on some kind of platform, it would happen in the classroom. It would happen as part of the regular curriculum. So that's obviously, unfortunately, Amna called out my religious and preaching background. That's my sermon for today is that integration using world future day as a beginning to actually introducing these things into schools.

Peter Hayward: Lisa, have you got a perspective?

Lisa Guiliani:? Yeah, you know, I'll just add that Teach the Future's mission is to teach future's thinking to students and educators globally. And one of the steps in doing this is through the awareness in hosting these conversations about the future. It allows that, it gives that platform for young voices.

And for some who have never heard about futures thinking or futures literacy and putting together this event putting it together We knew that the focus and the intent of the event was to host intergenerational conversations about the future and we wanted to amplify youth voices. So we made some modifications to the event by starting at 5 pm in every time zone. So we start at 5 p. m. in New Zealand, and we travel around the world. We try to catch the students after school all the way till 5 p. m. in Honolulu, Hawaii. We set the facilitator sessions to be co lead with one youth under 25 years of age, paired with an adult 26 years of age, and we really leave it up to the facilitators to decide how they want to run their session, whether it's in a game form, an interview, maybe a miro board activity.

There's a lot that goes into the behind the scenes and planning for this global online celebration.

Peter Hayward: Yeah, you used a phrase there, Lisa, which I'm going to put this to each of you to think about, this notion of intergenerational, think of how many generations we are now talking about. There has probably never been an epoch in our human society where we've had so many active generations present to talk about The past and the lessons and the openness and possibility for the future. And I would think that intergenerational back to Peter's point, it's both the point of doing this in schools is to let them be integrated into it. But I think Lisa's touched on an even more important point, which is how do we actually build an intergenerational society? We're future and past and present are all present and equally shared?

Amna Habiba: I'd like to touch a bit on that. So for me, like working with Teach the Future specifically, I get to interact with a lot of different generations, if it's true world futures day or within working in the team as well, or any events. And one thing that I have noticed, which makes working in an intergenerational team, even more fun for me, I would say as an experience is to learn from everybody's opinions and thoughts and their lived experiences.

For example, Lisa and I work very closely and sometimes I'm just sharing something with her, not expecting her to really understand what I'm saying, but to know more about her opinions when it comes to the same thing. And. What is very interesting and what I've seen and observed is that we all have these different experiences and different observations that we initially think are the differences between us, but at the same time, they're the things that bring us together.

And I think that's just really wonderful about intergenerations because as a young person, usually I'm like, okay. I have a lot to learn, but at the same time, I also have mentors and I have people that I can learn from about the past, even though I've not really lived in it. And I think that's just a really wonderful element of intergenerational conversations is that we can learn from each other and we can share and work together. And I think that's really wonderful.

Peter Hayward: Peter, what do we have to do to be better learners in intergenerational conversation?

Peter Bishop: Okay. You just started another sermon. I'm afraid you, the audience can't see it, but Lisa and Amna are already smiling because they know about what's about to happen. Our generation not only is not learning foresight.

I don't believe that the intent of schools today is fit for purpose. The intent of schools, public education began whenever, 100, 200 years ago. And I think most people would agree that it was a response to the Industrial Revolution, whenever that was taking place in various countries at different times, where people had to become literate.

They had to become skillful so that they could work in a, either a factory or an office or a commercial farm or whatever. So they needed the basic education and what they were teaching them was skills like reading and writing clearly, computation, numeracy. But as you get out of that fundamental skill area in the elementary school, we switched to teaching information, telling people about history.

Telling people about science, telling people about society and social science, and that's fine. But the problem is that we don't need to tell young people about those things anymore, most of which they can look up within a matter of seconds. What we should be teaching is what to do with that information.

In the previous generations, knowing what you did and what you carried around in your head was a key to success. You had to be smart, which meant you need to know a lot. Now you have to be smart in meaning that you have to be able to do a lot with that information. And I don't think our generation has appreciated that right now.

We are trying to do that in future thinking and foresight. And futures literacy, because frankly there is no material, as we well know, quoted a long time ago from De Juvenal in the 1950s, there are no future facts. So when a teacher, and I've had this experience, when they have to start teaching futures, And the question comes up Ms.

Smith, what do you think is going to happen? The teacher feels bad that they don't have an answer to that. I don't know. That's the right answer. I don't know. Let's work together to figure out what it could be. That's the answer. And that's introducing a skill. So we believe that futures thinking and futures literacy is a great entry point to what I hope is the future of education, where we focus on foundational knowledge.

Yes, you have to know the basics to be able to think about anything. But once you pass that initial stuff, then you get into actually practicing it and doing it using skills. Actually, we do that in other areas of education in sports. In theater, in music, outside the classroom usually, where we get a little bit of instruction.

This is the game, these are the rules of football, and now let's go out on the pitch and let's practice. I wish this for our educational system, and so we are, our society today, and this is, Maybe a commentary that it would be only for me, is at loggerheads, because we're all arguing about who is right and who is wrong.

And what we realize is that when you're learning skills, it's not right or wrong, it's better or worse. If you're learning to play the violin, sure, you have to finger it correctly. That takes about, I don't know, I've never played the violin, but I suspect that takes about 10 or 30, it takes about 30 minutes after that it's improving on that skill overall, not that's right or wrong. It's gets better. So I wish we had an educational system. So if you want to say, what is this generation not doing? And why we're in the fit in the, in many of the ways, in the place we're in, people leave school, believing that there are right answers to most of the important questions in the world, and that there is only one right solution to all the challenges and problems that we face.

That is a fundamental assumption, which I believe that we have yet not yet confronted in education. And the reason that I'm pushing is another reason not only to know about the future, but to learn skills for questions that don't have right answers for problems that don't have right solutions.Wicked problems do not have a solution. They have approaches. And they have strategies for making it better. But you and I know that it is not possible to come up with a solution. So everybody's arguing about what's the right solution. Hey. There is no right solution. All right. So Lisa and Amna are still smiling because they've heard that before.

Thank you for the question.

Peter Hayward: Okay. Last, I'll throw this to Lisa and Amna, where to for. This initiative in 2025 and other years?

Amna Habiba: So every year we see that World Futures Day continues to grow and be bigger and better. I said that before and surpassed our previous participation and engagement and what we found is an overwhelming enthusiasm and optimism from both young people and adults about shaping a better future and despite all the challenges we face, their perspectives are filled with hope, creativity and a desire to create positive change.

So building on the success, we would be eager to continue the momentum and expand our reach for the next World Futures Day Young Voices edition in 2025. So to anyone listening, we encourage everybody to get involved with Teach the Future and join us in making World Futures Day 2025 even bigger and better.

So we're seeking partnerships and sponsorships with organizations who share our vision and would like to contribute to reach more young people around the world and help us in providing them and continuing to provide them with the platform so that they can share their ideas and shape the futures they envision.

If you're a teacher or an educator working at a school or institution, we encourage you to invite your classroom to World Futures Day. We have emphasized how important it is to include young people while they're in school, while they're out of school, everywhere to be involved. And we've had many schools join us over the years, so there's always.

And then we're also developing educational resources and toolkits and to empower young people to continue their future thinking journey. Even after World Futures Day, we are developing materials. And resources, and we'd like to invite everybody to join us on this journey so we can together amplify the voices of young people and empower them to shape their preferred futures.

Regardless, your sponsorship, collaboration and involvement will play a crucial role in making the next World Futures Day Young Voices Edition a more global and impactful event. And I will continue by passing this over to Lisa to share any more thoughts.

Lisa Guiliani: Thanks Amna. I'll end it with, we will continue to work together to ensure that the aspirations and ideas of young people are heard, valued, and translated into tangible actions for a better tomorrow.

Thank you all for listening and for taking part in sharing and listening. To our World Futures Day event and learning about our Young Voices Network, listening to Dr. Peter Bishop drop the mic and share what will happen in next education once futures thinking is incorporated, Peter.

Peter Bishop: Yeah, what I would like to do is add another 24 hours to the time zones, but I don't think that's going to be possible.

We don't talk about impossible things in futures, but we only have 24 slots. I think 1 of the 2 of the few of the real, um, things that really stood out in the last few years. And I agree with having the 3 schools and whole classes. Were they had great discussions and they were, that was something we're going to promote a lot more and I'm thinking that maybe we can actually make it more than a one day event for those young people who want to participate.

We could have preparation sessions where they learn about the topic and present, make a presentation with our assistants about the future of a topic and indeed follow up afterwards. So we extend World Future Day. To maybe World Future Month, and here Amna and Lisa have not heard me say all this before, and of course, they're aghast now that we would actually move, but to make it more of a longer event where World Future Day is the spotlight.

But we've prepared and we've had conversations with young people both before and after for their benefit and for the benefit of World Future Day. So those are two developments that we may be talking about before next year's event. Look,

Peter Hayward: I'll close this by congratulating you guys on another great year for the World Futures Day Young Voices and also thank you for the ongoing work of Teach the Future. And thanks again for spending a bit of time with the FuturePod community.

Peter Bishop: And thanks to the APF for giving us the recognition that young people are important in the field. Thank you.

Amna Habiba: Thank you

Peter Hayward:  I hope you enjoyed my conversation today with the Dreams and Disruptions and the Teach the Future teams. Its great to continue to see people making the work more accessible and also creating opportunities for different voices to he heard. And I will let Maggie close this podcast out. I'll see you next time.

Maggie Greyson: Hi, everyone. Keep an eye out for the Association of Professional Futurists call for submissions for the IF Awards come August.

If you have a futures project you're working on or considering, this is a fantastic opportunity to share it with the APF and the broader futures and foresight community. The IFF Awards recognize excellence in futures and foresight work across nine themes, such as impact, imagination, and indigenous. Stay tuned for insights from past winners published in Compass, And the upcoming APF membership events.