BEYOND
UNCERTAINTY

The pandemic year marked the end of an era. The comfort of the knowns and thinking silos are no longer valid everywhere and cannot be assumed for granted. Uncertainty made itself evident and tangible at many levels, triggering new issues, risks, challenges, and opportunities. Everyone is now ready to accept its presence but it is still not clear how to move beyond this uncertainty.

Sessions running now! Connect for free on June 1-3, 2021

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The SUMMIT

The Global Foresight Summit is an open initiative to raise awareness on futures literacy and strategic foresight across government leaders, policy-makers, business leaders, strategists, innovators, scientists, and researchers, helping to prepare for decision-making under uncertainty, unpredictability and volatility after the global shock produce by the pandemic.

Uncertainty is defined as the state of not knowing what will happen. It is often a trigger for fear and doubt, leading to anxiety, worry, stress and mental illness. It contradicts the social dogma of progressing steadily through life and projects, and it exposes the fragility of everything done in the past. It limits our coping mechanisms for change that usually rely on consistency, coherence, and traceability. It creates volatility at the material level and also at the knowledge, expertise, and mental levels, increasing the sense of fragility and disorientation.

What we call volatility is indeed a natural phenomenon. Everything on this planet is volatile, from all living forms to oceans and from mountains to clouds. It all comes and goes given certain natural or artificial conditions. Things constantly emerge and disappear at different paces, and sometimes it happens suddenly, like the extinction of the dinosaurs. Consequently, its deep roots in nature also affect all artefacts surrounding human societies, from social structures to cultural interactions and from beliefs to expectations.

As it happens with the future, uncertainty and volatility occur in correlation to time, defining the nature, depth, and impact of change. Change challenges our assumptions of the present and expectations of the future. It triggers imagination to develop better futures, but the real question might be, how do we move beyond uncertainty?

In close partnership with the Association of Professional Futurists, the World Futures Review, and FFWD - Futures Intelligence and Strategic Foresight, this year's Global Foresight Summit will explore different voices to help us move forward and beyond.

key topics

During the course of the summit you will explore some of the most relevant topics where experts make use of futures thinking, strategic foresight and anticipatory thinking.

THE NEXT
WAVE

It would focus on exploring case studies, success stories, and best practices in foresight and futures across organizations, companies and governments, both for the public and private sector.

The future
of THE Futures

After the unprecedented events of the pandemics, foresight and futures thinking got under the spotlight. It is important now to explore the new ideas, and different approaches emerging in the field.

culture &
society

Foresight do profoundly affect society and culture, and we can start to think how to live with pandemics, embracing purpose as the new black, equality, and other transforming futures.

technology
and innovation

The digital storm hit everyone creating a new gap that helped some to sail safely across the pandemic while others drifted. It is important now to explore how biased technology affects the new digital society.

sustainability
and environment

The new green revolution to save our planet and our futures started a few decades back, but it hugely accelerated during the last months to save our resources and create a new climate justice.

economics
and finance

Earthquaking economics shake countries all across the globe with a new work order under high national debt and uncertainty. Remote work goes mainstream and other models create alternative futures.

politics and
world affairs

Geopolitics and globalization made politics a bit polarized and extreme during the last months, but governments and policy-makers start to understand the value of exploring foresight practices.

human
development

Civil society, and our leaders, are finally envisioning human development a bit more holistically to include health, migration, demography, education, and the planet as key players.

speakers

Joined the brightest minds in the world to discover new perspectives on how to use futures thinking, anticipatory system, science, speculative design or strategic foresight to anticipate possible futures. Attendees learnt about key insights and personal experiences from top international speakers that contributed to create the largest gathering on futures thinking since its first edition in April 2020.

TALKS

The summit will run during 3-days with sessions and speakers connecting from literally every time zone. It is a binge worth futures thinking immersion! All the sessions will be recorded and published once the summit is finished, together with all sessions from previous editions.

Tuesday, June 1st

Wednesday, June 2nd

Thursday, June 3rd