 Good afternoon. I wish I could be there. First of all, it's almost, well, I've gotten into the habit of speaking to people in an actual room again. So this has actually been a while since I've done this online, or it feels like a while. It feels like in times of COVID, everything, the multiply everything with 10, but really good to be with you. I trust that Johanna introduced me, who I am, so I don't have to do that anymore. What I would like to do is to take you on a little journey about a capability called Futures Literacy. And I will talk for about 20 minutes, I think, and I will have some time left for some questions. So feel free to do so. And also, if you have a question in the meantime, don't be shy. I can see all of you. I think I can see all of you. So raise your hand and maybe I can answer it while I'm speaking. OK, I'm going to share my screen now for a little bit. And sometimes I will just stop sharing so I can see you. Can everybody see my screen? Yes. Fantastic. OK, good. You can also see that the title is Using Futures to Make Sense of the Presence. Now, I know this was a topic was to make sense of the future. But I think what we do is what I do is that I try to make sense of the presence by using futures visions and future scenarios. I want to start with a question. You wake up in 2070. And for those of you who are thinking, how old will I be? It's irrelevant. That doesn't matter. It's just a little experience. You wake up in 2070 in a post-normal world. So in a sense that you don't really recognize this world. It's very different. You have no idea what happened in the past 20 or past almost 50 years. But you have one question you can ask to make sense of the world around you. The question that can only be answered with yes or no. What would you ask if you can ask one question that can be answered with yes or no that can help you make sense of that world? I'm going to stop sharing for a second because then I can see you more clearly. Anybody? Should we just talk for you or should we just wish to answer? Maybe if someone can moderate it a little bit, that would be helpful. But yeah, but please speak freely otherwise. Is this real? OK, good. Next one. OK, good. Good. Next one. The only one I see or is it just a VR or something? Yeah, yeah. OK, good. I think we'll go away in a second. Do people with a sense of solidarity nowadays? That I didn't get. Do people value solidarity nowadays? OK, OK, good. Do we live or do people live peacefully together? OK, good. Good. Are my children alive? Are children alive? Children. OK. I think there was another one you wanted. Is that on the other hand, somewhere? No, mine wasn't really covered in there. Oh, really? OK. Yeah. Are these humans? Are these people humans? OK, OK, yeah. One last one. Welcome then to ecosystem collapse. OK, good. Good. Thank you very much. Really good questions. These questions give us a lot of information. Yeah, if I listen to your questions, I can already hear the assumptions that we have about the future. That sometimes we use the word still but we assume that there are people or we assume that the person that you are entity, you ask a question to understand the word ecosystem. It's also these kind of questions, also kind of have some similar themes in common. And there's what I hear, and maybe you do too, is this concerned for the world? None of you asked about the safety of your family? None of you. Which is, that's not what I intended, so this is just, I'm teasing you a little bit. But that's sometimes that happens too, right? Am I safe, where am I, where is my family, et cetera? But the question, do we live peacefully? Of course, it's also interesting to think about if the answer to that is yes, what do you know? Do you know that at that moment you, it is safe there, it's OK. And what is, would you say that we live peacefully now? And who are we to begin with, right? So my point is by doing this exercise is that when we think about futures, or when we make them explicit and talk about them, we can detect a lot of data, information, about what we find important. And it tells us a lot about where your concerns are, where your thoughts are, your worries, maybe your hopes and your dreams, et cetera. That is one of the fundamental basics, fundamentals of future literacy. Using futures, and you can see that because the questions are so, so different as well, that you are already thinking of, you have a different future image in your head. So we're using futures to make sense of the present. Okay, I'm going to share my screen. It's gonna go back. OK, yes. So we're gonna leave this question a little bit behind for now. Of course, there's a lot to unpack, but I want you to remember that word assumptions when I said that there's a lot of assumptions lying underneath all of your questions. Assumptions about continuity and assumptions about discontinuity. I wanna start this talk with a quote. All that you touch, you change. All that you change, changes you. The only lasting truth is change. I don't know if there's anybody in the audience that likes sci-fi. I personally don't, but I like Octavia Butler. She's one of the few African-American sci-fi, female sci-fi writers out there. And in her book, Parable of the Sower, she describes a journey in a dystopian Los Angeles of 2025, which has eerily, eerily similarity with the current situation sometimes. But she describes this young girl who starts a new religion, a new community based on a new belief. But the belief is not about a deity or God, but it's about change. She really asks starts a community where they worship change. And I like this quote a lot because it challenges our thinking about change in itself. Is that we often talk about the times that we are in that they are changing very fast or that change feels more present somehow that we are living on certain times. But I would also argue that change is always constant. Times have always been uncertain and always been complex. They just feel more uncertain and things feel more that they are changing faster because of our assumptions about that continuity are being challenged at the moment. So change is already happening. And sometimes we think that we need to change if we want change that we need to actually act. And we do need to do something. But as you will see at the end of my talk that sometimes it's also very wise to not do something. Okay, what are we going to talk about? We're going to talk about the capability which is called futures literacy. What is it? There are some, there's no clear cut and paste, clear definition yet, but we're trying to explore the field in the field of future studies. But this is I would say a pretty accurate one. The capability of imagining multiple and diverse futures. So really stretch that imagination. And the practice of using those futures as almost lenses through which we look at the present and see the present differently. See the present and you detect new things that you did not see before. So we're using futures like we use our phones or headphones or our laptop. We really use it just for the time being to make sense of the present. Now, why is that important? A lot of the times what we think now by the future is that we're becoming very attached to a certain scenario. So we're talking about the future, first of all, like there is one. It's like, okay, that's the road ahead. We throw, we're rolling out a rope. And if we point, put a dot on the horizon and say, that's where we're going to go, let's see how we're going to get there. This is one guy in front that thinks he knows where he's going. He has some tools to balance and to create this sense of safety and we're just following on that road. But of course, as you can see, it has a false sense of security and safety. But that's how we often see the future. We talk about it like there is one. And because we talk about it like one that sometimes can imply that we become too attached to one line or one certain scenario or one path forward. That does not mean that we are eliminating risk or eliminating uncertainty. It's actually more riskier and more uncertain if we become too attached and only see one way ahead. And once we're on that path, it becomes increasingly difficult to diverge from that road. So we talk about the future, not only like there is one, but also like somehow we can create the future or shape the future or make it or that we are ready for the future or that the future is here. In all that language, we talk about the future like some kind of phenomenon out there that it is one and that we can create it. But I would tell you that the future does not exist. It only exists in our imagination, right? And only through anticipation is that we can actually talk about the future. And the future literacy and specifically in the chair within my chair UNESCO chair and the work that I do, we don't study futures. They're not really that interesting to me. They give me information about the present. They give me data and I can use them to start a dialogue, but it's very much about the present. So we don't study futures. We study how we think about futures. We study how we anticipate. Now, I know that this day is also the launch of your, of course, the toolbox with like great future tools that you can use as educators, as learners, et cetera. And in the toolbox, there are some really good tools to start dialogues and narratives and stories. And one of the tools to unpack that those stories that we use about the future is we're kind of looking at what is that we see in society what the dominant narrative is, for example. So for example, what is being communicated? What is in the headlines? What is in the newspapers? What is on Twitter? What is the dominant narrative? What the problem is today? So we can, whether it's climate change or migration or technology, et cetera. But under that dominant narrative that we sometimes see about the future in society, there are certain systems and layers underneath that are there, but you cannot necessarily see. And what you see here is a very famous or well-known model, it's called the causal layered analysis by Soha Inayatullah, who uses this kind of model to unpack the certain layers of narratives about the future to say, yeah, we talk about the future, but are we, what are we saying? What does it tell us about the system that is underneath, underneath the water surface? You can see here. What is the worldview? Do we talk about that as well? Do we share the same worldview? And is there a certain myth or metaphor that drives that worldview and that systemic cause? And by talking about unpacking our future narratives, we can actually get to the bottom of things. Cause often when we talk about change, we're changing the litany, we're changing maybe the dominant narrative. That does not mean that change there also changes the system, the worldview or the myth or the metaphor. But it's a causal layered analysis called not for nothing because if you start to change from the myth and the metaphor at the bottom, that has an impact on all the different layers. And it's very important that if we talk about futures that we do kind of look at it from a closer perspective and really look at it as a narrative and storytelling. Another example that I wanna say here is that this beautiful Nigerian proverb is that unless the lion learns how to speak, the hunting story will always glorify the hunter. It's kind of a similar approach towards the history is written by the victors. Now, what do we tend to do if we're wanna change a certain narrative about the future society? We say, okay, we should teach the lion how to speak because then we can listen to the story of the lion. But if we do that, we will be teaching an animal, a human skill. And I think it's better to say we can give that lion our vocabulary, our language to express itself. But why not look at the story, the narrative altogether? Why do we think the hunting story is worth telling and not another one? So it's about deconstructing the narratives that are dominant right now. So if we talk about future and if we're talking about how we use these narratives, these stories about the future, we always do this through what we call anticipatory systems. And anticipatory systems are ways to use the future, ways of using the future. And you see here, two pictures, they're both of me. And the most dominant ways of using the future is either for planning or either for preparation to prepare yourself or something. And you see, I think it's for you, maybe it's on the left side, you see me like a little bit on the forefront, walking towards the light tower all the way in the distance. I don't know if you can see it, but I have a pretty clear path in front of me and I'm planning my road ahead. It's pretty clear that's where I'm going. That's how we often use the future. That's a very common way to use the future. We plan for something we desire, we plan for something we like, we want to eliminate uncertainty. We just wanna make sure that this is going to happen. That's very common. That's what we do, that's how we function. That's how I plan to be here today. Another way to very common to use the future is to prepare yourself for something. So to imagine a future that might bore you or that is desirable that you think it's going to happen and you either prepare yourself for it. Now that picture on the right, it's me actually in Germany, I'm closer to the Brocken. It's in the Hartz Mountains, sure you know it. And I got caught in a kind of a pretty bad weather. And I was prepared. I knew that the weather is not gonna be great. I was wearing good bike hiking boots. I had a map, but of course, preparation can only bring you so far. So I was still struggling with my map. So I had plans for my trip and I prepared for it. But of course, there's always something, but at least I knew this, I'm assuming making the assumption that it's gonna be cold, it was February. So I'm gonna make sure that I'm prepared. Planning and preparation is how also, how we organize our educational programs. And I'm also an educator. I work at the University of Applied Sciences. And I know that every time we think about when we design or develop curriculum, we plan it from, you know, from front to cover, completely or all the curricular, all those classes and lessons are fully planned. And we say to our students, we will prepare you for jobs. We will prepare you for the future. Whatever you do here, although we don't know the future, we know it's uncertain, we're still saying that whatever we designed and planned is to prepare you for a life after that. And one of the reasons why COVID was, at least at my university, such a huge shock to the system because it challenged these ways to use the future. It challenged these anticipatory systems. Our planning, our desire to plan because we want to make sure our students reach a certain goal and our desire to prepare themselves for, to prepare them for unknown futures. So the response to COVID was to stick to the plan, but now we're gonna do this online. And what we could have done instead is really embracing the idea that we are entering a post-normal world. And let's see if we can explore that world a little bit more, yeah? Because you cannot plan or prepare yourself for any type of future. So if we, because if we continue to do that, we continue even when disruption happens, we want to plan better, we want to prepare better then how we respond to a problem might become actually the problem. So if disruption change, I think it's good to see what were we taking for granted and what were we not seeing in the first place. And maybe it's also good to think about, it's not how we got here that makes us feel so uncertain, but what were we thinking? Why were we thinking we would never get here in the first place? So constantly holding onto that one scenario becoming attached to a certain scenario to become more adaptive, to prepare yourself better is actually probably becoming part of the problem. So we need another way to use the future and that is exploration. And exploration, I mean literally exploring unknown territory. The future does not exist, of course, but you can, we can stretch our imagination and really try to imagine alternative futures, maybe whimsical ones, maybe silly ones, futures that seem absurd, that are fueled by stories or books and movies, et cetera. And by exploring alternative futures that we do not plan for or prepare for per se, we can identify our assumptions, the things that we took for granted in the first place. Like I asked you that question, when you wake up in 2017 in a post-normal world, all your questions had assumptions underneath. And if you would explore a little bit more in that world in 2017 that was post-normal, you would encounter said, hey, I'm assuming there are people. Why am I assuming there are people? What if I let go of that assumption? I'm assuming, I've already got, I'm assuming technology will be there. So I will talk to maybe robots, is this real? So there's an assumption underneath the question, is this real that I might be living in a virtual reality world? I'm not saying that's wrong. We all make assumptions all the time, but we're often not aware of them when we think about the future. And that can limit our thinking and creativity and an innovative mindset. So future literacy is about introducing another way to use the future, which is exploration. So we ask the question, what if, what if this, what if that, that's the exploration. And that's really difficult for us because as my mentor says, we are suffering from the poverty of imagination. So it's really important to stretch that muscle a little bit more so we can explore, literally explore futures and use that third anticipatory system. So all these assumptions that are make up for these systems, they're all, they're also different in a sense. If I, for example, say it's going to rain tomorrow, which is, I can plan or prepare for that. For that, I cannot plan for it to rain, but I can prepare myself for that. We call that anticipation for the future. I'm anticipating for something that I think is going to happen in the future. This is, can be based on data on my app, on my phone, weather reports, et cetera. It's pretty, often pretty accurate, yeah. But other assumptions that we make or predictions can sometimes be more based on agendas, assumptions that are not based on repetition or well-known data or known scientific facts. They can maybe express assumptions about this one, about technology that we don't know because we don't have a precedent for it. We have never been there. So this is a guess, but we often treat this assumption or this prediction with the same certainty as we do the first one. And it's important to kind of see what are certain assumptions? Are they more static? Are they based on data and repetition? And sometimes they're based on something else and they can be challenged. And of course, what I started with, the only lasting truth is change is also a prediction for the future. And this is what we call anticipation for emergence. If you are thinking about the future, but there's so much space and openness in that future, like change and constant change, you're anticipating for that change to occur. You're anticipating that emergence, uncertainty, risk, complexity will always be there. And that you can practice that anticipation for emergence through imagination and exploration of multiple futures. By understanding what are your assumptions, letting go of these assumptions and therefore creating openness and space in your daily lives, in your decision-making processes. I'm gonna go because I'm already, so I'm already pressing for time a little bit. One way to do this, to practice this capability of future literacy is through workshops and future literacy laboratories. And maybe you've been in one, I don't know, but there are some really good tools available to do that. But these are tools that's different than the actual capability. The capability is navigating between those anticipatory systems. So the takeaways from this capability is that the future is fiction. It only exists in our imagination, even if I say tomorrow morning, the sun will come up. It's still fiction. It hasn't happened yet. I'm pretty sure it will, but still. How we anticipate matters, because it changes the present. It makes sense of the present. We plan and prepare to eliminate uncertainty, but uncertainty can never be fully eliminated. And explore alternative futures can help us being open for novelty and emergence. And that is the anticipation for emergence. We use the future to create more openness in the present. And we need both. We need both those anticipatory systems. We need to walk on two legs, we call it. And that is the capability of future literacy. And within my chair, we do research towards the impact of this skill, this capability. And these are the three learning outcomes, as you will, that we have identified. We see that after going through a training and a longer journey, we see an enhanced perception within people. So can they see different paths emerge in the present? Do they see more, literally observe more? Can you embrace uncertainty, a complexity? So can you appreciate uncertainty? Can you let go of certain dominant narratives or societal scenarios? Can you see them for what they are? But also understand that the underlying causes are a lot more complex and resisting the urge to make it complicated that we cancel, but appreciate the complexity. And the last one is a new sense of agency. Once you become future literate and you allow for that emergence and novelty in your decision-making process, then you can also think that, hey, maybe I should not do, not just always act or change or innovate or do something, but maybe there's a wisdom in not doing. And I don't mean not doing nothing, I mean not doing. And just observe for a while and see what is already changing around me. And if you're aware of your assumptions about the future, you will see that you will observe and see a lot more novelty in the present. And that can open up a lot more thinking towards new possibilities and opportunities. And if that makes the future better, that we will never know, because we'll never know what happened if we didn't do it, but it's better to be aware and it's better to stretch our thinking and to try to overcome the poverty of imagination. Thank you very much.