A friend and colleague Jake Dunagan (@dunagan23) started an important initiative at the Institute for the Future called the Governance Futures Lab. I gave a lightning talk at the launch event (The Reconstitution Convention) about how we use foresight in the UAE. It covers a bit of the history of the UAE and Dubai, about futures consciousness in the government, and how we’re testing out new techniques like crowdsourcing to engage the future (see a summary of the Connected Citizens game or contact me if you want a copy of the report). It was an amazing event with some incredible conversations and interaction. I recommend checking out the other lightning talks (here), but some of my favourites are:
- Stuart Candy on “Futures, the Scaffolding of Imagination“
- Jordan Greenhall on “Complexity in Governance“
- Stephen Duncombe on “Depths of Distrust: Lessons from Occupy Wall Street“
- Jamais Cascio on “Hacking the Earth“
- Aaron Maniam on “Governance and the Challenge of Containing Multitudes“