Author Archive: Sohail Inayatullah

My Son Deals in Hamburgers and Other Futures: Causal Layered Analysis in Rio de Janeiro (2019)

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Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro. Picture by Sohail Inayatullah
First published as JFS blog on

By Sohail Inayatullah and Jaqueline Weigel

THE CLA METHOD INTEGRATED INTO SCENARIOS

One of the participants lowered this voice, and said: “I am ashamed to admit it, but my son is involved with hamburger dealing”. This was the punch line of the “Healthy organic food”  group’s presentation on the Futures of Food 2030.

During the Futures Thinking and CLA Method workshop at  Rio de Janeiro, four groups presented their findings. They used the Integrated scenario method developed by Inayatullah. In this approach, four scenarios are developed: the preferred, the disowned, the integrated and the outlier.  The preferred group conceived of food in  2030 as organic, abundant and accessible to everybody. The world would be a place where people would spiritually feed themselves on light and colors, physically receive vitamin and vegetable shots, and would mentally find their balance through aromatherapy. They would practice regular meditation and be free from harmful food.  In this future, drinking alcohol, smoking or eating too much sugar would be unacceptable. In the final moments of the group’s presentation, one of the participants stated his son shamefully sells hamburgers, as if he were an outlaw. The shock was immediate, and the imagination of this ridiculous scene gave way to a possible future reality. Their metaphor, it was obvious to all, was “food for health.”

The second group, the disowned scenario, focused on a large current corporation,  interested in keeping their markets and using technology such as 3D printers to make food on a large scale for everybody.  Science, technology, and capital would guarantee future demand by ensuring abundant food, even with high initial investment costs.  Their metaphor was “food for all.”

The third group, which represented the integrated future (combining the preferred with the disowned), imagined a world with healthy food for all by 2030, resulting from both the combination of science and technology and from the better use of the planet’s natural resources. Sustainability was their core worldview and the narrative metaphor was “food for life.”

The last group, the outlier,  brought values which were atypical, but common to human beings. The group challenged the others with the narrative “Home as a farm”. Each Brazilian home would produce its own food with the use of natural resources and 3D printers.

The ingredients would be organic and small producers would be part of a relevant and active network. Large corporations – who waste natural resources and produce high levels of industrialized food – no longer dominate. Small Brazilian startups –  Brasileiras  –    lead the way.

After the presentation of the created scenarios, the organizer and CEO of Wfuturismo, Jaqueline Weigel played the role of a referee of preferred futures and decided that, while the first group had the best performance at presenting their future, the ” home like a farm” was the most convincing presentation.

FOUR SCENARIOS

Scenario title Preferred Future Disowned Integrated Outlier
System Healthy foods embraced, other foods avoided Science and technology plus large capital investment. Science and technology plus sustainability Every home has a 3D printer
Worldview Government and community regulations Large Corporations Corporations with community groups Small start-ups
Metaphor Food for health Food for all Food for life Home as farm

CLA IN BRAZIL

These scenarios were created by the participants of a CLA  – Causal Layered Analysis – workshop held for the first time in Brazil on February 15th by Sohail Inayatullah and Jaqueline Weigel. The Futures Thinking Lab overlooked the Museum of Tomorrow, which served as an inspiration to the group for Brazil to truly create their preferred tomorrow. The intention was to show how CLA  could be applied to different problems faced by Brazil, bringing a quick possibility of changing mindset and transforming the nature of strategic decision making in the Brazilian market. CLA  is used to dive into deeper waters than just scenarios and trends in order to create transformative stories of personal and collective futures.

CLA is both a theory of knowledge and a futures thinking method. It assumes four levels of reality. Daily litany or headlines make up for understanding reality. For example, the number of deaths caused by the Coronavirus. The system-level brings the complex causes of the virus, such as the sale of wild animals in the markets, the consumption of exotic animals, and the lack of buffer zones between wildlife, agricultural areas, and cities. Worldviews are the deeper perspectives enacted by the global actors on this subject, such as doctors, scientists, citizens, food producers, and government. Urbanization, patriarchy, and capitalism are the core worldviews that continue to create pandemics such as the Coronavirus. The deepest level is the metaphor. In the case of the Coronavirus, this could be the story of “more, more and more” or “food for me”, with no real rules of protection or prevention, just food to meet immediate desires, however harmful to others.

Jaqueline Weigel presenting Futures in Brazil. Picture by Garoa Produções

THE CLA GAME AND THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT

Prior to the scenario development, participants played the CLA game. In this role-playing game, members are divided into four groups. The litany – ladainha – group articulates the headlines. The systems group substantiates why the headline has become a reality. The worldview group contributes different perspectives of stakeholders, and last, the metaphor group transforms the headline into stories. The CLA game tests to see if the litany is plausible – does it have support from the system, the stakeholders, and narratives – or is it extremely unlikely.

Jaqueline Weigel presented the first headline: “Oil and gas companies have broken down and there are many unemployed Brazilians”. The systems group embraced the headline and justified that this has occurred because of corruption, the lack of foresight and innovation in creating new technologies, and systems that are not adapting to a rapidly changing world. The worldviews were presented by a worker, a student, a CEO and Minister of Labor. The student said that she was afraid of the scenario. The worker agreed. The CEO added that she was anxious and unable to make a decision, and the Minister replied that he was on his way to Hawaii.

The metaphor group entered the conversation, asserting that we always knew this would occur, as “Brazil remains a sleeping giant and is now behind schedule.” Everyone agreed that, without a fight against corruption, and without foresight built into governmental, corporate and community  Brazil would not rise.

The next headline was “Digitization has led to a recovery in Rio’s economy. Employment has reached peak levels.” The systems group burst out laughing, skeptical that this could ever be the case. The worker said he was happy, as well as the student and the CEO. The Minister was still in Hawaii.

The metaphor was: “Brazil still not on the map”.

The main emerging narrative was that Brazil was a place where everyone works hard for themselves but does not yet have the narrative of “one for all and all for one”. This partnership between capital, companies, preservation of natural resources, government and workers is urgently needed for Brazil to be able to transform.

A light moment at the workshop. Sohail Inayatullah with Brazilian foresight executives. Picture by Garoa Produções

CLA WORKING GROUPS

To practice CLA, participants created three working groups. The first looked at the futures of football. The second the futures of food. The third that futures of employment. While we explored the latter above, a deconstruction of football revealed that while loved by all, football remains owned by the few. They imagined a different future for Football. In this future, football would be owned by all. Football teams would be run by cooperatives, not large corporate clubs. This would change the deep structure of sports ownership in the nation. The narrative shift would be football “loved by all” to “owned by all.” This would thus see a systemic change toward the peer to peer co-ownership model. The litany would shift from the number of people who watch and play football to the number of people who were co-owners of football clubs.

CLA TABLE ON THE FUTURES OF FOOTBALL

Football futures Today Transformed 2030
Litany Number of citizens who  love football – watch and play Number of citizens who are part owners
System Hierarchy Peer to peer
Worldview Corporate Cooperative
Myth-metaphor Loved by all Owned by all

 

https://www.lawinsport.com/topics/item/why-isn-t-there-more-private-investment-into-brazilian-football-clubs. Accessed 21 February 2020.

CLA intends to create the most robust policy and strategy formulation for countries, society, institutions, companies, and people in general. CLA is also used for self-analysis and re-creation.

A second group focused on privacy. They wished to see a transformation in the use and ownership of data moving from self-interest to data that was good for them all.

CLA TABLE ON DATA PRIVACY FUTURES

Data Privacy Today Transformed 2030
Litany There is no privacy Data decisions are democratic
System There are no rules, citizens unconcerned Data rules in all countries
Worldview Data rules are based on convenience Data exchange is facilitated for the good of all
Metaphor Gerson’s law [i]– take advantage of everything to get ahead The three musketeers

 

One of the working groups. Juliana Abelha, Thayani Costa, Rosana Pauluci, and Juliana Magalhães. Picture by Garoa Produções

CLA OF THE SELF

CLA is of use not just for understanding and changing external conditions, but as well for transforming’s one own life story. Beginning with a problem one faces, the transformative question is:  what metaphor are you stuck in? What is your future narrative?

When applied to an individual, CLA suggests first identifying a problem (e.g. feeling stuck in a job). Then, identifying the system which may have created the problem. For example, a conflict between the need for stability and the need for freedom; the conflict between the selves of “parent” and “teenager”.  The third level is the source event or process that creates the worldview. In this case, a parent may have told a child that he/she needs to be responsible and get a job and that the future is a risky place. The final level is the metaphor. In this case, one interviewee said that his life was like that of “a bird in a cage”.  The new guiding metaphor for this person was “flying like an eagle”.  Next, participants create systemic changes that align with the narrative shift.

Another participant facing a health issue changed her story from the “black hole” to a “shining path”.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/brasilnarual/photos/?tab=album&album_id=62309. This is fr2271043298&ref=page_internal. This is from the Facebook page, “O Gigante Acordou”.

We can also create a new metaphor through inner meditation work, applying a sacred sound to the metaphor. This creates a potential for transmutation in which the new metaphor does not come from the rational self, but from a deeper aspect of who we are. For example, the final metaphor could be the wise owl – not trapped in a cage nor flying high – but knowing what are the right steps to follow: safety with innovation.

Foresight in Brasil

The context of the CLA workshop was to help propagate Futures Studies methodologies to Brazilian executives, so that organizations and society are able to transform themselves, instead of only responding to the short-term demands of the market. Without depth, there is no transformation, and without transformation, there is no habitable future. Given that Brazil remains the giant that is almost awake, it is hoped that foresight tools can help Brazil awaken and stay awake.

About the Authors

Sohail Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). He can be reached at sinayatullah@gmail.com. Jaqueline Weigel is the CEO of Wfuturismo and can be contacted at jaqueline@wfuturismo.com

References

Inayatullah, Sohail. 2015. What Works: Case Studies in the Practice of Foresight. Tamsui: Tamkang.

Inayatullah, Sohail and Milojević, Ivana (Eds.). 2015. CLA 2.0: Transformative Research in Theory and Practice. Tamsui: Tamkang.

Milojević Ivana and Inayatullah Sohail. 2018. Narrative Foresight. Futures. 73:151-162.

Ramos, Jose. 2010. Alternative Futures of Globalization. PhD Thesis Dissertation. Brisbane: Queensland University of Technology.

[i] https://eyesonbrazil.wordpress.com/2008/11/12/gersons-law-getting-ahead-in-brazil/ (Accessed 24 February 2020).

Who is Right, Lyn or Pam? Using Conflict Resolution Scenario Methods (CRSM) to Resolve an Organisational Conflict (2020)

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By Ivana Milojević, First published as JFS Blog, 11 February 2020.

Lyn and Pam (names have been changed) are co-workers in an Australian organisation. They are in the middle of a conflict that has been brought to their director’s attention. The director is not sure whether to engage with this conflict, as it appears rather trivial. Like most people do when it comes to conflicts, the director is hoping that the quarrel will dissipate and disappear on its own. Also like most people, she habitually uses a style of conflict resolution that she learned in her family of origin; she applies it to all conflicts, regardless of the context. She has spoken to both Lyn and Pam, yet the conflict persists. Team work is suffering and the organisational targets are not going to be met.

Conflict in organisations can take many forms and can manifest at different magnitudes. Left to fester, conflicts can have a number of detrimental consequences for the organisation and the people who work in it. The ten biggest costs of organisational conflict have been identified (Blank, 2020: 46) as: (1) wasted time, (2) bad decisions, (3) lost employees, (4) unnecessary restructuring, (5) sabotage, theft and damage, (6) lowered job motivation, (7) lost work time, (8) health costs, (9) toxic workplace and (10) grievances and lawsuits. In terms of ‘hard currencies’ of time and money, one 2008 study found that U.S. employees spent 2.8 hours per week dealing with conflict – the equivalent of 385 million working days of $359 billion in paid hours (Blank, 2020: 45-46).

Conflicts have been part and parcel of human experience. For a very long time, humans have tried to solve conflicts and have developed a host of strategies which can be grouped into four basic categories (Ury et al 1988, Galtung, 1965):

  1. Power-based methods. The question asked here is: who is the most powerful? Common strategies used are direct violence (e.g. military action, forceful policing, domestic violence, torture) and various types of threats and coercion (e.g. economic sanctions, shunning, ostracising and bullying).
  2. Rights-based methods. The question asked here is: who has (or can make) the best case? Common strategies used are reliant on dominant rules and authorities within a society or a community (e.g. laws and legal systems, religious texts, codes and tenets or other forms of authority).
  3. Randomness or chance-based methods. The question asked here is: who is the luckiest? Strategies used may involve any type of sortition such as coin toss, straw-draw, rock-paper-scissor game or random lottery/selection.
  4. Interest or needs based methods. The question asked her is: what are the needs and concerns by all parties involved in the conflict? Strategies used involve various problems solving approaches which require empathy, nonviolence and creativity.

https://examples.yourdictionary.com/internal-conflict-examples.html

It is clear from the above that the way conflict is resolved and whether such conflict resolution is sustainable is highly dependable on the way the conflict is framed. The way conflict is framed then influences the question asked and the strategies used. The underlying views and assumptions about human nature – such as (1) humans are violent and world is competitive vs. (2) humans are rational and can resolve conflicts non-violently vs. (3) humans are naturally good and connected with everyone and everything else that exists vs. (4) humans are all those things – will also impact on a choice of strategies. Finally, personal and cultural factors determine whether parties involved will be able to resolve the conflict themselves informally or there will be a need for the third party and formal involvement. As the power of disputants to manage their own conflict decreases, so does the potency of interest and needs based methods, to be replaced by rights based and power-based methods instead. As evocatively expressed by Kraybill (2001: 18) when law begins community ends.

At the organisational level, disputants commonly have access to a range of these methods, and sometimes legal instruments are needed. Legal processes, however, are costly and time consuming so interest or needs based methods are preferable when there is still even a semblance of a community within an organisation. Moreover, even after legal processes are completed, organisations need to restore optimal communal functioning. Conflict resolution scenario methods (CRSM) help with such organisational, interpersonal and community-based disputes.

The (trivial?) conflict between Lyn and Pam is as follows:

Pam recently moved to the same shared, open-space office where a number of other people, including Lyn, work. When she met everyone, she introduced herself as Pam. While all other people call her by that name, Lyn refuses to. Instead, as is the custom in some parts of Australia, she decided to make her name longer and add ‘o’ to it. The day Pam became ‘Pam-o’ was the day she became irritated by Lyn. At first, she tried to ignore her. Then she became stern and rude towards her. Then she engaged in some passive aggressive behaviour, refusing to follow up on the projects that were to be done cooperatively. After a number of months, she stopped talking to Lyn completely. She tells her friends that Lyn is a horrible person. Pam’s friends at the office agree. They say Lyn is a ‘country bumpkin’ and a ‘bogan’ [an Australian slang for an uncouth or unsophisticated person regarded as being of low social status]. Lyn has no idea why Pam is so upset. Her and her friends think Pam is a bit uptight and should mellow out. Lyn is higher in the organisational hierarchy though not directly Pam’s superior. Pam has worked in that organisation for a longer time but has never confronted Lyn about the nickname issue directly.

https://blog.bookbaby.com/2017/07/internal-conflict-and-your-characters/

From the outside, the conflict between Lyn and Pam seems relatively easy to resolve. The director of the organisation thought that by raising the issue with Lyn, she would stop her behaviour. However, Lyn claims that she has trouble distinguishing between Pam and Pat who both work at the office, so calling Pam Pam‘o’ makes it easier for her. Pam rejects this explanation and believes Lyn’s motives are more sinister. In any case, both are now so irritated with each other that they are requesting the director to ‘chose a side’ and to explain the other one why she is wrong in her thinking and behaviour.

The director herself became irritable that she has to waste her time on a trivial conflict, instead of focusing on reaching organisational targets. She attends a futures workshop (which I co-facilitated) where Conflict Resolution Scenario Methods (CRSM) are used.

I have previously used CRSM on a number of conflicts and in a number of settings. For example, I have written a theoretical piece, published in 2008 in Journal of Futures Studies, which applied it to an international, inter-ethnic conflict (Milojević, 2008). I have also used it to better understand and propose solutions to an intergroup conflict, e.g. the Australian 2005 Cronulla Riots. Finally, I have used it to assist disputants resolve interpersonal conflict, such as the one between Lyn and Pam.

In a nutshell, CRSM proposes there are five basic future outcomes of any given conflict between two disputants. Based on works by Johan Galtung (the Transcend method), Thomas Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument and Ron Kraybill’s Conflict Styles method, the five possibilities are summarized as follows:

  1. Conflict is resolved ‘my way’. Disputant 1 wins.
  2. Conflict is resolved ‘your way’. Disputant 2 wins.
  3. Conflict is resolved ‘half way’. Disputants compromise.
  4. Conflict is resolved ‘our way’. Disputants achieve transcendence and cooperation.
  5. There is ‘no way’ to deal with conflict. Disputants withdraw or continue to evade the conflict.

Researchers have found that most people are comfortable using one or two conflict resolution styles and that they apply them to most situations, irrespective of circumstances. Personal, cultural and ideological factors also play a role. ‘My way’ approaches are more popular with people who hold political and economic power, and in individualistic, competitive based cultures. ‘Your way’ approaches are commonly utilised by those who have a dominant ‘pleaser’ self. Most people, most of the time, try to not deal directly with conflict, i.e. to not engage or somehow withdraw from it. Most of us are conflict avoiders (most of the time) even though the news makes it seem we are all at war with each other. ‘Our way’ or ‘win-win’ solutions are favoured by cooperative cultures and left leaning ideologies.

Each of these styles, however, has costs and benefits. What is helpful for conflict resolution, in organisations and elsewhere, is to get out of routine responses to conflict, critically evaluate which style may be the most appropriate and help our (reflective) self choose the style rather than a particular style becoming the core of our identity/habitual response.

Certainly, conflict resolution is enhanced if there is empathy (with all parties), nonviolence, creativity (imagination is practiced), honesty and compassion, and a focus on needs (Galtung, n.d.). Some knowledge and understanding of the conflict itself as well as perspectives of all involved is needed. The better the understanding, usually the more appropriate the response. The goal is a solution/outcome that is acceptable and sustainable (Galtung, n.d.).

CRSM facilitates moving away from the problem (past/present, unmet expectations) to the future (going beyond, ‘dis-embedding’ the conflict from where it is currently located and ‘embedding’ it elsewhere’ (Galtung, n.d., Boulding, 1988). When we access the future – where people could be or want to be, rather than where they were or are – we immediately move to a better place as far as conflict resolution goes. Once again, as argued by Johan Galtung, the more alternatives are presented and developed by people, the less likely they are to engage in violence, whether direct, structural, cultural, epistemological or psychological.

CRSM is helpful as it can map the conflict before a decision as to which style of conflict resolution is the most appropriate can be made.

As far as the conflict between Lyn and Pam is concerned, the mapping the director did was to create five scenarios, organised on a two by two axis wherein axis one represents the level of assertiveness (and level of concern for a principle) and axis two represent the level of cooperation (and level of concern for a relationship). Five possible courses of action resulted from the mapping:

After overviewing these possible strategies, the decision was made that some of them are either not going to work (e.g. ‘Lyn calls Pam Pam‘o’ half of the time’) or are going to create further conflict and friction (e.g. Directing or Avoiding). The director and her other co-workers present at the workshop then applied the Transcend Method’s axis to come up with a host of cooperating, collaborative, transcendent and imaginative ‘our way’ strategies. These are presented on the right side of the following table:

As is visible from the above paragraph, the Transcend method focuses on five possible outcomes as does the two by two axis, five scenario method. Both reframe conflict as an opportunity to create something new and improve relationships in the long-term. However, the Transcend method orders them differently so to enhance futures direction. Furthermore, Transcend method privileges ‘our way/win-win/cooperating’ approach and is useful when such strategies are considered the most http://asnu.com.au/levitra-20mg/ appropriate. At the same time, our way/cooperative strategies may not be appropriate if (1) the time to resolve the conflict is too short, (2) people are overloaded with ‘processing’, (3) the goals and issues of one disputant are undoubtedly wrong or (4) when the disputed issues are not really important for anyone. To further ascertain which of the five futures outcomes and styles (Style Matter, 2020) may be the most appropriate for the specific conflict, mapping via two by two axis, five scenario method is critical.

Armed with a host of strategies to resolve the conflict, the director returns to her office. She calls both Lyn and Pam to join her for a cup of tea. After they are settled and relaxed, her first question to them is: Do you want me to decide who is right and wrong or do you wish to resolve the conflict?

Stay tuned!

About the Author

Dr. Ivana Milojević is a researcher, writer and educator with a trans-disciplinary professional background in sociology, education, gender, peace and futures studies and Director of Metafuture. She has held professorships at several universities and is currently focused on conducting research, delivering speeches and facilitating workshops for governmental and academic institutions, international associations, and non-governmental organizations around the world. Dr Milojević can be contacted at ivana@metafuture.org

References:

Blank, Sam (2020) Managing Organizational Conflict. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company.

Boulding, Elise (1988) Image and Action in Peace Building. Journal of Social Issues. 44(2), 17-37.

Galtung, Johan (1965) Institutionalized Conflict Resolution: A theoretical paradigm. Journal of Peace Research. 2(4), 348-397.

Galtung, Johan. (n.d.) Conflict Transformation by Peaceful Means (The Transcend Method). Participants’ and Trainers’ Manual. Accessed 22 January 2020, from https://www.transcend.org/pctrcluj2004/TRANSCEND_manual.pdf

Kraybill, Ronald S. (2001) Peace Skills: Manual for Community Mediators. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Milojević, Ivana (2008) Making Peace: Kosovo/a and Serbia. Journal of Futures Studies, November 2008, 13(2): 1-12. Available here: https://jfsdigital.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/132-A01.pdf

Style Matters: The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory. Accessed 21 January 2020, from https://www.riverhouseepress.com/

Ury, William L., Brett, Jeanne M., and Goldberg, Stephen B. Getting Disputes Resolved: Designing Systems to Cut the Coasts of Conflict. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

The Prout Parliament Game (2019)

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First published as JFS Blog (14 January 2019) https://jfsdigital.org/2019/01/14/the-prout-parliament-game/

At the summer retreat of the Ananda Marga movement in Australia, a socio-spiritual group that advocates the adoption of Prout ideals, I had the chance to experiment with gaming and creating progressive policy futures by running the first Prout parliament game. The core question was what would the world look like if Prout – as theory and movement – was in power; if the core ideas of Prout[1] were adopted as the norm, as informing and framing global and local legislative priorities? [2]

Prout itself is an acronym of the Progressive utilization theory, articulated by P.R. Sarkar in 1959. It is considered by leading scholars as one of the clearest alternatives to capitalism[3] (and communism).[4]

The Prout parliament game has four parts. Part 1 is an explanation of core Prout ideas in a futures context. Part 2 is a futures wheel process that develops the implications of key emerging issues. Part 3 is athe development of a checklist that is used to informed decision-making. And part 4 is the process of using the checklist to vote on parliamentary proposals. The structure and processes of the game lends itself to easy adoption for other social movements and organizations.

PART ONE

I began the workshop with the overall global context. First was Sri P.R. Sarkar’s argument that not only was time “galloping”, – increasing at a rapid pace – but that as global and local political and economic systems are experiencing flux, individuals can have a greater impact: you and I can make a difference. Second, the critical importance of vision, of defining where we as a society wished to be in 20 years. The argument made was that those who can imagine a desired future, feel the future they wish, had a greater chance of achieving the future. Strategy thus emerges from vision and not as an outcome of current problems. As Sarkar has argued: “What is the use of recollecting the history of your past life? Try to learn only about the future. [5] You are to look ahead, you are to look forward. We must keep the goal fixed before us, and keep moving towards the goal.”[6]

I then presented some critical aspects of Prout. These were:

  1. Inclusive spiritual practice
  2. A vegetarian diet, especially non-violence towards animals
  3. Deep sustainability in that Gaia is treated as a cooperative partner
  4. The switch to renewable energy and the creation of energy cooperatives through peer to peer energy platforms
  5. Neo-humanistic education – a focus on teaching and telling stories that were based on planetary identity. Ethnicity, religion, nation-states are not defining: deep spirit and nature are. Traditional ethnic and gendered stereotypes are shunned for the stories of how humanity as a collective has solved problems.
  6. The move toward regional association, imagining a confederation of Asian and antipodean states – an Asian-Australia union by 2038
  7. Finally, we sought to remeasure this future, moving from GDP as defining to a quadruple bottom line: prosperity (increased goods and services), sustainability (nature, first), social inclusion (a society where inclusion is designed as the norm) and spirituality (happiness and other measures of bliss).

PART TWO

In this context, we developed six working groups and asked a series of what-if questions (derived from the foresight literature)[7] for Australia by 2038. Each group explored the implications of each question and articulated Prout strategies.

  1. Chindia wins the current economic game – 50% of world GDP is produced by these two nations
  2. The neohumanist education revolution – national policy of teaching deep sustainability and inclusion.
  3. The energy shift to renewables – 50% of all homes produce their own energy
  4. Plant based diets as the new normal – 50% of all individuals self-identify with a plant diet based (up from the current 1 million or 5% vegetarians or vegans in Australia)
  5. Gender equity – in 50% of all boards (up from the current 27-32%)
  6. Technologies of the mind – eight million practice meditation or 36% of the Australian population by 2038. This would be up from the current two million.

For the rise of Chindia,[8] participants suggested that given the reality of conflict and war – as one hegemon was rising and another declining – developing pathways toward cooperation, through international mediation and arbitration in the Asian region was critical. More significantly, greater economic growth/equity would result if economic leaders China and India would move from the corporatist model to the platform cooperative model. They would not only succeed at the current economic game, but create a far more inclusive alternative game.

For the rise of plant based diets including the likely exponential growth of cellular agriculture, participants (who all happened to be between the ages of 8-14) suggested that Prout work with farmers to help them transition from meat based systems to plant based systems. Their suffering needed to be addressed. Prout practicing compassion was paramount here.

Moreover, what school children read and how they worked with each other would not be based on strict gender roles. Traditional feminine ways of knowing would not be marginalized in this alternative future.

The technologies of the mind group noted that with 50% of people meditating, there would likely be improved physical and mental health,thus freeing up financial resources to be used in other areas. There would also be an elevation of consciousness – softer, wiser, integrated – of the society, making progressive policy changes in other areas easier.

The energy group suggested that a renewables-based energy revolution would help mitigate climate change and help encourage local prosperity.

PART THREE

After brief presentations by each group, participants were asked to develop a Prout checklist. A checklist, developed by Peter Provost[10] is meant to guide medical practitioners, ensuring that rules of safety and procedure are followed. These are step by step guidelines to https://j-galt.com/ambien-10mg/ ensure that sentiment does not come in the way of decision-making.

For the Prout movement, the checklist becomes a way of articulating policy based on the core Prout ideas and not on sentiments one may privately hold. It also helps in taking Prout from a theory to practice.

Groups articulated a number of salient points. Some of the key ones were:

  • Does the policy lead to reduction in crime?
  • Is the policy inclusive?
  • Does the policy reduce pain to animals and nature?
  • Does the policy encourage cooperation?
  • Does the policy reduce inequity?
  • Does the policy encourage cooperatives?
  • Does the policy ensure that the basic requirements of housing, health, and education are provided for all?
  • Does the policy benefit the majority of people?
  • Can the outcomes of the policy be easily accessed by the majority of people?”
  • Does the policy decentralize power?
  • Does the policy help in creating regional governance?
  • Does the policy wisely use new technologies?

As this was the first iteration of the game, they remained the working group level. In the future, I hope to develop this checklist into broader categories and develop a ranked list agreed upon by all participants.

PART FOUR

With the establishment of a working checklist, we then convened the Prout parliament. As this was experimental, we first had policy positions that were easy to dissect.

In the first, it was suggested that all western medicine be removed by 2038. Using the checklist, this was quickly voted down – as it excluded an important healing tradition, it would lead to more harm, and as one participant reminded, Sarkar was pluralistic toward healing tradition – what mattered most was whether the modality cured or not.

The second policy suggestion was terminating funding for renewable energy sources and the move toward full nuclear. [11]

This was also quickly voted down as the risk of harm was considered too great. Nuclearization would also lead to a concentration of economic power. Local, cooperative energy solutions from solar, wind, and geo-thermal were recommended, instead.

The parliamentary floor was then opened up to all proposals. Three individuals presented.

The first suggested that meditation practice be legislated for all high schools in Australia. There was a debate as to which type of meditation. This was clarified as 20 minutes a day of quiet mindfulness every morning. Further clarification was sought as to primary versus high schools. The presenter argued that for primary schools it would be optional, but for secondary schools, it would be mandatory. Given the health gains and correlated reduction in crime and other positives associated with mindfulness/meditation, the resolution was passed.

The second suggested that regulation for housing be reduced so that one could quickly put up homes as needed so as to reduce homelessness. The votes were positive, however, the gender group was concerned that a lack of regulation could adversely impact safety, nature, and cultural heritage. The presenter modified his proposal, asking for reduced regulation and not the end of regulation.

The last presenter wished to adopt a policy of no government interference in private education. Upon clarification that there would still be federal neohumanist[13] guidelines, the proposal was passed. Education policy would be set through educational experts and registered bodies using evidence-base policy.

The game concluded with the parliament funding the three proposals. Each committee was given (an imaginary) one million dollars to fund research and implementation.

CONCLUSION

The conclusion was that the Prout Parliament game was

  1. A practical and easy way to teach Prout
  2. A great way to envision what a Prout society could look like
  3. An excellent approach – the checklist in particular – to shift Prout from grand theory and a possible future to pragmatic strategy. And:
  4. Useful in enhancing negotiation and cooperation skills.

While some expressed positive doubt, the workshop ended with a quote from Sri Sarkar:

“A bright future awaits you – your future is glorious, your future is luminous, your future is effulgent … the future of humanity is strikingly resplendent.”[14]

References

[1] Prout has five dimensions: 1. an alternative cyclical theory of history; 2. an alternative economic system that is cooperative based; 3. a global governance system; d spiritual practice as foundational; 4. a new theory of integrated leadership that transforms the historical cycle to a dynamic spiral; and 5. a Gaian theory of self based on gender equity and planetary identity.

[2] Sohail Inayatullah, Prout in Power. Policy solutions that reframe our futures. Delhi, Proutist Bloc of India, 2017.

[3] See Dada Maheshvarananda, After Capitalism: Economic democracy in action. San Germán, Puerto Rico, Innerworld publications, 2012.

[4] For examples, writes Johan Galtung: “Two doctrines have failed miserably in this century: free market capitalism and state socialism. The latter is counted out as dead; the former covers itself better by concealing the negative effects better, the but the victims are even more numerous. The search is on for something better than these two 19th century Europeanisms. That search will soon lead us, among others, to Sarkar …Sarkar will probably stand out as one of the truly great in this century, so much deeper and more imaginative than most … He is an intellectual giant of our times.” From the foreward, Sohail Inayatullah, Situating Sarkar: Tantra, Macrohistory, and Alternative Futures. Maleny, Gurukul Publications, 1999. Also see: https://neohumanisteducation.org/about/history/. Accessed 10 January 2019.

[5] P.R. Sarkar, The Electronic Edition of the Works of P.R. Sarkar, Version 7.5. Ananda_Vacanamrtam_06.html#ch8. Kolkata, Ananda Marga, 2009.

[6]P.R. Sarkar, The Electronic Edition of the Works of P.R. Sarkar, Version 7.5. Namah_Shivaya_Shantaya – Shiva both severe and tender (discourse 2). Kolkata, Ananda Marga, 2009.

[7] For more on this, see: www.metafuture.org. Also, www.shapingtomorrow.com and www.futures platform.com

[8] For more on this and other trends, see Sohail Inayatullah and Lu Na, Asia 2038: ten disruptions that change everything. Tamsui, Tamkang University, 2018.

[9] Accessed 9 Janauary 2019.

[10] http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1733748_1733754_1735344,00.html. Accessed 13/12/2018

[11] For example, see: https://www.engineersaustralia.org.au/Event/why-not-nuclear. Accessed 10 January 2019.

[12] https://www.facebook.com/AnandaMargaAustralia/photos/gm.1984960348262154/2108113702785173/?type=3&theater. Accessed 9 Janauary 2019.

[13] For more on neohumanism, see: Sohail Inayatullah, Marcus Bussey and Ivana Milojevic. Eds. Neohumanist Educational Futures. Tamsui,Tamkang University, 2006.

[14] P.R. Sarkar. The Electronic Edition of the Works of P.R. Sarkar, Version 7.5. The Thoughts of PR Sarkar. You are never alone. Kolkata, Ananda Marga, 2008.

Will You Marry Robots and Other Disruptions Changing the Futures of Asia (2019)

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First published as Futures Platform Blog (January 18, 2019).

Written by Professor Sohail Inayatullah, UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, Professor at USIM. Tamkang University, Melbourne Business School, The University of the Sunshine Coast.

This piece is both methodological – how to do futures – and also content-based: what might the future look like?A few years back I was asked by a futures team from the Office of the Prime Minister of a North American nation to provide a report on the futures of Asia; specifically focused on social emerging issues. This report eventually became a book titled, Asia 2038: Ten Disruptions That Will Change Everything.While we touched on scenarios for the futures of Asia, we saw this as an opportunity not just to explore alternatives but to help shape the future, to be active participants even while we did our best to objectively present the emerging issues we identified.I thus began the report with my own narrative, my experience in growing up in Asia. Most salient was a story from high school when I was playing a basketball match in Singapore. After the game, we were offered a range of narcotics – which we refused – and during the match members from the gym stands routinely took younger students to the toilet where they would flush their heads. This would be unimaginable in Singapore and much of Asia today. Using this narrative to create a sense of how the last forty years had changed, we then focused on the next twenty.

From Ancient History to Transformed Future: Can Armenia Leapfrog (2019)

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First published here as JFS Blog (9 May 2019). https://jfsdigital.org/category/blog/

 
Can Armenia leapfrog other nations instead of following the traditional development paradigm? Will Armenia be able to use financial and social capital from the Armenian diaspora to transform their economy? What is a wise direction forward for cities and the nation?

These and other questions were explored over three days from March 25-27th, 2019 by senior advisors to the Armenian government, Mayors and Governors, and executives from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Working with ADB Country director, Shane Rosenthal, ADB’s Dr. Susann Roth, and futurist Professor Mei-Mei Song,[i] I facilitated four workshops for participants. The first was for senior advisors to the government (to the deputy Prime Minister, for example), the second was for nearly all the nation’s Mayors and Governors, the third was for the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST), and the fourth was for the local ADB office. These workshops used the six pillars approach to futures thinking, and applied methods such as the futures triangle, emerging issues analysis, the futures wheel, scenario planning, causal layered analysis, visioning and backcasting to create alternative and preferred futures. [ii]

My stand-out learning experience was that, when we focused on the impossible vision, participants tended to shy away, believing reality is too difficult to bend. However, the majority of participants had just created or played a significant role in the recent “Velvet Revolution” and were convinced that transformation was not only possible but inevitable.

When I showed them one my of my favorite slides of Nelson Mandela, one table quickly chimed in and said, “that is us.”

Buoyed by their recent success, they did not wish for either no-change or marginal-change scenarios. They insisted on adaptive change and indeed many wished for radical change. This created an easy playing field for our role as change facilitators.

Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

However, I was certainly surprised, especially after I had landed at the airport and saw the Ural Airlines plane,  I felt I had gone back in to the Soviet era.

But everything at the airport was swift, smooth and service providers were incredibly friendly. The stay at the hotel continued in this vein – everything was doable. When I asked for a special meal, the chef quickly emerged saying, not a problem.

While Kim Kardashian and Cher have been their most famous exports, I could see that tourism had a real possibility.

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/262730/

Each day we began the workshops with a discussion of history and the used future. For participants, this was represented by the traditional educational system with its steep hierarchy and lecture style. The lecture was considered far more important than the outcomes of learning. City design too followed the traditional pattern of center-periphery, with roads being the main measure of success. Even though Yerevan is considered one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, with a history of 2800 years, the recent revolution made it to segue from the used future to the desired vision.

Sohail Inayatullah

Yerevan celebrates 2800 years of history. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

The Future City

Thus, while mindful of their past, participants had the greatest clarity about the nature of the future city.

The Mayors imagined:

  • A clean and green city.
  • A smart city using the full range of new fourth industrial revolution technologies.
  • A city that was friendly to the disabled.
  • A city that was connected to the regions.
  • Citizens that had world-life balance.

This desired future could be possible through the use of real-time data analytics. They hoped that Artificial Intelligence applications could provide an early warning system effectively predicting congestion, pollution, and crime.  This early warning system could help decision-makers decisively act for the benefit of the population. As one participant said, “our city must be green, comfortable, with infrastructure accessible for everyone, for drivers and pedestrians, for pets, and those with disability.” This was not just a clean, green, smart and connected city, but an inclusive city.

The Geo-Political Context

To create these new cities and a new nation, participants understood that geopolitics must favor them.  They did not wish a repeat of earlier conflicts. They desired a layered strategy that:

  1. Measured as a success the number of peace treaties plus developed infrastructure which would enable regional connectivity.
  2. Had a system of open borders, with peace based on mutual safety.
  3. Embraced a worldview where the neighbors all shared an ideology of peace first. This meant moving from isolation to strong interconnection created through friendly markets.
  4. As a transformative narrative, imagined geopolitics moving from an island to an interconnected oasis.

Professor Song facilitating the causal layered analysis exercise on geopolitics. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

Participants tended to draw from nature when they articulated their narratives. The energy group, for example, saw the present as a dying tree in a desert with the ideal to become a self-sufficient forest. To do this meant exploring a range of energy security options from safe nuclear, to renewable energy sources with the renewable portion of energy increasing over time, and using AI to ensure energy efficiency as well as house-to-house energy sharing (dynamic peer-to-peer energy sharing platforms). [i]

Amalya Hovsepyan, a Coordinating Adviser at the Ministry of Justice, presenting the new energy future. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah


Stages And Scenarios Of Energy Development

One group saw this energy independence and urban development transition in four stages.

Dr. Susann Roth facilitating the scenario exercise. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

The first stage was the continuation of the present. Traffic jams, pollution, congestion, and slow economic growth all leading to unhappy citizens. Addressing these changes through short term marginal strategies such as 10% of the cars in the nation electric, 10% of the buildings green, some industrial growth, and some streets modernized would lead to marginal well-being.

However, the participants agreed that more than 10% progress was needed. Adaptive change was required, and  would be the next step. In this preferred future, 50% of the cars would be electric, 30% of buildings  would be green (indeed, trees would be seen as infrastructure),[i] and two to three developed economic sectors (tourism, food, and perhaps artificial intelligence). This was described as the “City on the Move.”

The Asian Development Bank Workshop Report. Image by  Keisuke Taketani<keisuke.taketani@gmail.com>

Where they wished to end up by 2030 was in a radical future, what they called, following the earlier nature-oriented theme: “Welcome to Paradise.”

Ararat Valley. Courtesy of Anushik Avetyan

In this future, or final stage of the energy and economic and social development transition, 100% of all cars in Armenia are electrical, all housing stock and public buildings are green (retrofitted), all streets modernized, and the economy developed in the areas  of eco-tourism, agriculture, information technology, and data analytics.

Hrachya Sargsyan, the Deputy Mayor of Yerevan, presenting the scenarios. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

Getting There

But how might Armenia get there? One group of mayors and governors were clear that the required innovations not only had to be commercially viable, they had to create wealth. For example, the progression would be first smart phone apps to measure energy use, then the use of AI to reduce congestion, and ultimately the creation of roads that could harvest energy.[i] Further steps would be similar to the new Ali Baba project in Malaysia where they are creating a city brain,[ii] to ensure that real time traffic information reduces congestion.

All participants agreed that Armenia needed to:

  1. Ensure zero tolerance for corruption – this would create a culture of trust, an enviable investment climate, and a virtuous cycle of prosperity.
  2. Investment needed to be green and sustainable. For them, this meant reducing energy costs, increasing well-being, the health, of citizens, and creating innovation that could lead to more innovation.
  3. Investments needed to use new AI supported technologies. While these disruptions would certainly lead to some unemployment in the short run, in the medium-to-long run, new industries and jobs would be created. These would be clean, green, and smart.
  4. The center of Armenia, Yerevan, needed to develop in conjunction with its regions, and development in Armenia, especially development that leapfrogged, would not be possible without open borders and peace with neighbors.

The Asian Development Bank Workshop Report. Image by  Keisuke Taketani<keisuke.taketani@gmail.com>

Is Leap Frogging Possible?

This robot was designed by Expper Technologies. Photo by Anahit Nersisyan

But is leapfrogging possible? The CEO of the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology (FAST), Armen Orujyan,  reminded participants at the workshop that Armenia was known as the “silicon valley” of the former Soviet Union.

In his view, intellectual capital had not disappeared; it just needed to be nurtured, encouraged, and invested in. Indeed, the purpose of FAST is to incubate not just start-ups, but to create an eco-system of innovation as the springboard for a possible leapfrog.

This ecosystem, however, was not just about the external world, but also about creating a climate and culture of inner peace, of life and work balance. FAST headquarters, along with the predictable robot, had a room for inner reflection, a place to pause, to slow down to speed up.

Zen Meditation Room at the FAST Centre. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

Time, as one participant imagined, had to be redesigned so that a new future could be possible. In the futures triangle below, a method that explores the visual pull of the future, the pushes of the present, and the weight of the past, he imagined a far more holistic understanding of a day. In this vision, there is time for family, time for sports, time for work, time for innovation, and time for tea. This he considers possible as there is a social desire for work/life balance and a healthy lifestyle. This is weighted down by the demands of the economy and the need to earn.

Drawn by Vardan Karapetyan, Senior Project Officer from the Asian Development Bank Resident Mission. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

During the workshops, the Armenians focused not just on technology to transform, but also especially on the inner change that is required to transform mindsets.

Futures interventions are more possible when leadership is committed to them. As an example of leadership supporting innovation, the country’s President Armen Sarkissian recently commented at a presentation at FAST.[i]

Armenia is the gateway to the future. We promote making investments in our country: the country that is young, ambitious, the people of which are talented, which has a young government, and a country which feels itself in the 21st century, is young and mature. Being young first of all means how young you feel yourself by soul, whether you are ready for new discoveries, to learn, to ask questions and find answers. Whether you are ready for research, evolution acceleration.                                                             

Back to the Asian Development Bank

ADB Building, Yerevan, Armenia. Photo by Sohail Inayatullah

This links to the newly emerging role of the ADB in Armenia. Certainly, capital for green infrastructure projects will be needed, but ADB – as expressed by Shane Rosenthal –  in Armenia needed to move from a traditional development bank focused on financing and contract disbursements to an intelligent bank, helping Armenia leapfrog ahead. The knowledge required includes intelligent support to create visions of the future; risk management through developing scenarios of possible futures; and discerning the leverage points that allow for the greatest and smartest impact. ADB thus becomes not just a finance facilitator in this future, but a knowledge change-agent.  ADB thus uses its understanding of the knowledge ecosystem (historical project and network experience, data, and technical know-how) to create change.

I left Armenia inspired by their confidence, their sense that the future was bright and that they could create this future. A few of the elders certainly were far from convinced, they had seen history move not in jumps, but in pendulum swings, and were concerned that the optimism in the streets may not continue. Their concerns may be justified, however, what was significant is that the used future had been identified, alternative futures had been explored, a vision developed, and steps forward agreed to. A leapfrog may be possible.

Sohail Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia (USIM). He can be reached at sinayatullah@gmail.com

References

[1] With support from ADB project officers, Gohar Mousaelyan and Liana Arakelyan. Thanks to Russell Clemens for editorial assistance.

[2] See Sohail Inayatullah, What Works – case studies in the practice of foresight. Tamsui, Tamkang University, 2015.

[3] https://www.fastcompany.com/90241777/this-startup-lets-villagers-create-mini-power-grids-for-their-neighbors. Accessed 28 April 2019

[4] https://www.fastcompany.com/40474204/cities-should-think-about-trees-as-public-health-infrastructure. Accessed 27 April 2019.

[5] https://iecetech.org/Technology-Focus/2018-02/Harvesting-energy-from-roads. Accessed 28 April 2019.

[6] https://www.zdnet.com/article/alibaba-rolls-out-first-overseas-smart-city-ai-platform-in-malaysia/. Accessed 28 April 2019.

[7] https://mirrorspectator.com/2018/11/01/focusing-on-armenias-future-at-global-innovation-forum-by-fast/. Accessed 27 April 2019.

Change and Stillness: Visioning the Futures of Malaysia and ISKL (2019)

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First published here

ISKL IN THE 70S

I went to ISKL at Jalan Maxwell from 1973-1975,  then graduated and moved to Honolulu in August 1975.  I had two wonderful years there. The teachers were supportive, creative, and truly loved their jobs. Two teachers stood out for me. First, was Rodney Kling. What I remember most was his ability to make English literature fun. I still remember during one session when a few of us really enjoyed his treatment of Shakespeare, he commented: “there appears to be different levels of levity” in this room.  Bill Wright was equally memorable. Not for laughter, but for discipline. He was the basketball coach. He really stressed that taking care of the body was important as taking care of the mind. I still remember saying to me: “practice, practice, practice.” And if you missed basketball practice? He suggested to not show up again.

The school created a community, where teachers, students, staff all liked each other, most appreciating that we were guests of Malaysian culture.

TO HAWAII

From there I went to the University of Hawaii, where I did a BA in Liberal Studies. They allowed me to design my own major. I linked political science, philosophy, and religion and created a major called, “Spirituality and Social Change.”

I then did a Masters in Political Science, focused on Alternative Futures. I was fortunate to gain an internship at the Hawaii Judiciary, where I worked for ten years as their strategy analyst/futurist. In 1987, I returned to the University of Hawaii and I did my PhD, focusing on the Indian philosopher, P.R. Sarkar. The PhD focused on Indian epistemology and macrohistory, the grand patterns of time from different civilizational perspectives.

I began taking classes in Futures Studies in 1976, when, while discussing strands of philosophy and technological change, my dorm roommate Bob Homer, said, ” You have to take a course from Professor Dator.”   I did. It was life-changing. I took every class he had to offer and did my Masters and PhD with him. His focus was on how we create technology and then technologies creates “we”. We also did research papers on topics such as climate change, robotics, and global governance. At the Hawaii Judiciary, along with traditional quantitative forecasting, we pursued disruptions such as the rise of robots, mediation as an alternative to litigation, and the rise of the Hawaiian Sovereignty movement. We did this both to create futures literacy in the courts and other branches of government and to enhance the ability to anticipate the future and influence the trajectory of emergent futures.

The Hawaii Judiciary had gained interest in the future from the Hawaii 2000 project. This was intended to create anticipatory governance, to not be a slave to trends, but to create desired futures.

While university study extended my fascination with change, I had actually heard about futures thinking earlier, at ISKL. In the 11th grade,  Dr. Frank Shephard introduced us to the thought of Alvin Toffler, inspiring us to think about novelty and change. Indeed, as a student at ISKL, I remember reading in the Malay Mail about a conference on Malaysia 2000, which explored how Malaysia could become a developed nation. Luminaries such as Herman Kahn and James Dator presented, said the article. It would be twenty years later that Malaysia began the ambitious task of imagining itself in 2020, as a developed nation. Having a vision is critical in that it organizes strategy, allows one to focus on the use of resources and ensures expenditures are linked to direction.  Other nations, Singapore, Cambodia, and many others, have followed the Malaysian example, and are better for it.

FUTURES STUDIES

Futures Studies, as we define it today, is the study of preferred, possible, and probable futures and the worldviews and myths that underlie them. It is both quantitative, qualitative, critical, and transformative. We study what may happen, what is likely to happen, what we wish to happen, and how our mindsets and the stories we tell each other are complicit in how we see and shape the world.

By necessity, it is trans-disciplinarian. A good futurist must first be critically reflective, aware of how he or she languages the world, uses discourse to understand what is and can be. A good futurist needs to be both an expert in one area and be a generalist, being able to understand many domains of knowledge. But the most important skill of a futurist is the help to listen to the views of others and help them create the futures they wish to see.

Anticipation is essentially about emancipation.

While in the 1980s and 90s, Futures thinking was a hard sell, and only a few countries such as Malaysia were imagining where they wished to go, now it is commonplace. I work with nations around the world and help them focus on their national vision and strategy. We attempt to ensure that they are not drowned by the waves of change, that they learn to surf, and eventually become wavemakers. They frame the terms of engagement of desired futures.

Recently through the sponsorship of the Asian Development Bank, I have worked with leaders in Armenia, Kazakhstan, the People’s Republic of China, Cambodia, the Philippines on their national strategies – what should they focus on, and how can they advance futures literacy. Among the common themes has been:

  1. The need for gender partnership in every facet of society. The Cambodian executives suggested they need to change the story from the woman as the garment maker to the woman as the Prime Minister.
  2. Deep flexibility in education. The Government of Norway leaders suggested that the current metaphor of education as the factory needs to become more like a jazz orchestra, wherein every student is valued, they learn to hear and create music together, they respond to knowledge and they create new knowledge.
  3. Climate change and adaptation –  that the challenge to climate change must be met globally, as a civilizational project. This could create institutions of foresight throughout the region and the world. While there are short term political interests still focused on the previous era, it is clear, we are entering the era of renewables, As Sheikh Yamani said decades ago, it is not due to the lack of oil that the oil age will end and it was not due to lack of stones that the stone age ended, as Sohail Hasnie of the ADB recently stated. In the long term, we need to create the Uber of energy, peer to peer platforms where citizens can share – buy and sell – from each other.
  4. The need to bring AI into everything we do. In Bangladesh, they suggested, we should move the data not the patient. Hospitals are great, but we need every citizen to be engaged in preventive medicine.
  5. The need for an evolutionary jump in governance. The debate now and in the foreseeable future is not about types of political systems, but the need for transparency in every system. As well as the need to shift from nation-states as defining to individuals, regions, and true global governance. Our problems are post-national (finance flows, climate, refugees, taxation, crime) and our solutions must be regional and global.
  6. The end of work as we know it. We need to move from teaching and training for jobs that do not exist to teaching and training for the emerging jobs. Many of these jobs have been created, many will be created in the decades to come. Skill sets that focus on the peer-to-peer revolution, spiritual intelligence, caring for the aged, 3D printing, big and deep Data will become far more important. The core skill will be the ability to adapt to changing conditions.
  7. The inner revolution. While this was confined to counter-culture decades ago, today is part of optimization strategy and part of finding deep purpose and bliss. Meditation remains one of the most important technologies to help young and old create the stillness in life when everything changes.

ASIA 2040

In my latest book, with the Futurist Lu Na, we imagined a new Asia by 2040. Our chapters headlines demonstrate this change, we see occurring:

  • A Bird Cannot Fly On One Wing Alone: The Rise of Asian Women
  • Will You Be Able To Marry Your Robot or Same-Sex Partner? The New Extended Asian Family
  • The End of the God King and the Big Man: Workplace Flexibility
  • Education Factory in Tatters: New Models of Learning and Teaching
  • Gross National Cool: The Wandering Societies of Asia
  • Drown or Swim Together? Social Consequence of Climate Change
  • Living the Asian Dream: The Great Migration to Asia
  • Open Skies and Shared Umbrellas: Towards an Asian Confederation
  • Asian Dynamic Balance: Leading in the Transition to a Spiritual Post-Capitalist Society
  • The Great Leap Frog Forward: An Asia That Can Say Yes to Herself

These chapter headlines are there to help readers become comfortable with dramatic change. While my generation will not marry their robots, by 2050, well…

Of course, other futures are also possible. There could be “a fortress Asia” by then too, or far worse, “a warring Asia”, and, of course, current climate change trends suggest “an Asia underwater”. We are hopeful that as governments, individuals, businesses and non-governmental organizations gain futures literacy, they will work together to create a transformed Asia.

ISKL 2050

And what will happen to ISKL in the long run? What might the futures of education look like? First, we should expect a far greater use of AI in teaching. The repetitive tasks will be done at home via new technologies. Holograms will be the norm. I assume a robot of sorts will be on the Board. Will there still be a need for physical places to meet? While e-games will be the norm, physical places will be necessary to enhance sports learning, emotional intelligence, community connectivity, and spiritual intelligence. But while more technology is likely, there are many uncertainties.

ISKL may be far more distributed, part of a broader global education brand. “International” will likely change as well, especially if by 2050 an Asian confederation has taken shape. Will schools still call themselves international? Will there be a need to?

A second key challenge will likely emerge from the large digital companies of today – Google and Facebook, for example. What if by 2050, they become education providers? Traditional schools and universities will likely then disappear as we move toward global education?

And if these new providers interconnect, will we have finally created the “Global Brain” as imagined by HG Well over eighty years ago.

While many imagine education beyond this planet, I doubt that ISKL will have students and teachers on Mars or the Moon though certainly space science will be a foundational subject.

In my preferred future, teaching and learning will have an extraordinary convergence of nature (breathing, living, growing), technology (breathing, living, growing), and humans (breathing, living, growing) in a distributed environment all focused on using knowledge to solve the planetary problems we face today and in the future.

I am grateful for having spent two wonderful years at ISKl. They shaped my thinking and activities for decades.

[i] I am grateful to Lynette Macdonald for curating this short piece. He questions led to its development. Inayatullah is the UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies, held at USIM, Malaysia. His recent book is Asia 2038, available from www.metafuture.org.

Transformation 2050 (Book info, 2018)

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Transformation 2050: The Alternative Futures of Malaysian Universities

By Sohail Inayatullah and Fazidah Ithnin (with contributing chapters by Azhari-Karim, Ellisha Nasruddin, Reevany Bustami, Ivana Milojević)

USIM Press, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Bandar Baru Nilai, Negeri Sembilan, 2018

This book presents some of the best thinking, globally and nationally, on the futures of higher education in Malaysia. The collated articles in this volume are produced by experts and practitioners of futures thinking based on current scenarios and their imagination of preferred futures. The current pushes of the future call for institutions of higher education in Malaysia to respond in ways that enhance the system and effectuate the nation's aspiration of becoming a fully developed nation in 2020 and a global economic and social leader by 2050.

Transformation 2050: The Alternative Futures of Malaysian Universities sums up the critical relevance of designing the desired future using the six pillars approach - encouraging university leaders to envision best-case scenarios involving university leadership, teaching, and learning, students and academics.

The following salient points are made by the authors of this book:

First, Malaysian higher education is in the process of massive changes primarily due to globalization, digitalization, the development of a knowledge economy, and demographic transitions.

Second, as much as feasibly possible to create a far more flexible system -  more choices for students and academics. This system can be called the “healthy buffet” or the “education mall” or when it comes to talent, the analogy of the Swiss army knife. In any case, the factory model or the “force-feed” scenario has reached its limits. New systems of assessment and cooperation need to be invented.

Third, the ethical cannot be lost sight of; indeed, it is crucial to the future. Whether the cooperative of professors, the murabbi or the university based on social justice, scholars are clear that the ways forward must enshrine ethics in the future. Opaque institutions biased by politics and bureaucratic inference tinged with favouritism have no place in the future.

Fourth,  all these possible changes must proceed with cooperative leadership and decision-making. Leadership must hold the vision of the future, but full participation and inclusion in the process and implementation is required.

The book is introduced by Dzulkifli Abdul Razak on the transformation potential of scenario planning. This is followed with the following chapters:

  • Transforming public institutions by Azhari-Karim
  • Foresight at Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka by Fazidah Ithnin and colleagues
  • Transformative foresight: University Sains Malaysia leads the way by Ellisha Nasruddin, Reevany Bustami and Sohail Inayatullah
  • Augmented reality, the Murabbi, and the democratization of Higher Education by Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojević
  • Leadership and governance in Higher Education 2025 by Sohail Inayatullah and Ivana Milojević
  • A Meta-analysis of higher education scenarios by Fazidah Ithnin and colleagues

Concluding comments on the urgency of change and the role of leadership are provided by Ahmed Yusoff Hassan.

Length: 149 pages

Purchase: PDF (via Metafuture.org) or Paperback (via external publisher)

New Book: Prout in Power (2017)

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Prout in Power: Policy Solutions that Reframe Our Futures

By Sohail Inayatullah

Proutist Bloc India Publications, New Delhi, 2017

 

Created in the late 1950s by the Indian philosopher, mystic, and social activist P.R. Sarkar, Prout or the Progressive Utilization Theory is not only a theory of social change and transformed leadership, but an alternative political-economy; an emergent alternative to capitalism, a vision and comprehensive model of a new future for humanity and the planet. Sarkar’s intent was and is (his organizations continue his work) to create a global spiritual cooperative revolution, a new renaissance. His goal is to infuse individuals with a spiritual presence, the necessary first step in changing the way that we know and order our world.

Divided into six sections – Prout and policy-making; geopolitics; education, social issues, political-economy; and the conclusion – this book moves from theoretical comparisons of Prout and other macro perspectives on the nature of reality to policy and policy-making.

The chapters investigate particular issues facing a nation or institution and articulate alternative futures. Most of the chapters conclude with a discussion of Prout policy implications; some chapters have Prout policy implications built into them. The implications serve as guidelines for the reader. They are not there to close the policy debate but to shift the policy perspective toward Prout. Hopefully in the near future these will become not theoretical implications but real political choices that Prout citizen groups and leaders will make. We imagine that alternative future and begin with the opening up of the realities of today. The way will certainly be very difficult and full of struggles, as Sarkar often reminded us. Humans can always quit, choosing the easier downhill path that moves away from our bliss. For this reason, it is crucial to imagine and feel that the future has already arrived – it is not distant; we are living it today. As Sarkar said: “Even a half hour before your success, you will not know it.”

Length: 260 pages

Purchase: PDF