Visiting 2050 with 80 Future Futurists

I recently had the opportunity to participate in delivering the innovative new programme ‘Disrupted Futures’ (‘d.futures’) at emlyon business school, led by Professor Thomas Gauthier. Inspired by numerous approaches including the Oxford Scenarios Programme and UNESCO Futures Literacy Labs, d.futures seeks to demonstrate the value of exploring the future in terms of what might happen—not just what we think will happen or what we want to happen. To do this, students are coached through a process of developing scenarios for a real-life client. Scenarios are sets of alternative fictional descriptions of the future manufactured for the purpose of challenging or reframing the client’s worldview (Ramirez and Wilkinson, 2016). The goal is to help tomorrow’s leaders “use the future” (Miller, 2018) to make wiser, more robust strategic decisions.

I coached two groups of 40 students as they took on the challenge of imagining the future for an international organisation in the multilateral system. They envisaged how it could face a future very unlike its past or present. They scanned the horizon for signals of change; identified plausible disruptive world transformations; designed futures where the rules of the game were different; and constructed scenario stories that delivered their findings in a catchy, interactive, and relatable way. Lastly they presented their scenarios in an ‘immersive experience’, and used them to explore some big strategic questions. What did their scenarios teach about how future-fit our institutions are? What hidden truths about today’s reality were revealed by a discussion of a future which hasn’t yet materialised? What new courses of action make sense today in light of these insights?

Exploring 2050 Today

Below is a short synthesis of the future worlds that the students constructed. It cannot be stressed enough that these are not predictions or recommendations, but explorations. Readers should draw their own conclusions about what lessons these scenarios could hold for the decision makers of today.

Some of the students' ideas went in highly original and even farfetched directions, touching on topics like space agriculture, human organ printing, and virtual reality night markets. Though some people might find these ideas too implausible to discuss, I found value in using them as metaphors for some of the real challenges we face today. At the risk of manipulating or even censoring what the students really meant, I used some of my own analysis to create the three slightly more anodyne scenarios that follow.

Divided World

By 2050, different systems and standards solidify in different parts of the world, creating non-regional blocs that compete on values and well-being, but without ever really agreeing on what is right or good. Attitudes towards technologies such as bioprinting and surveillance are highly diverse and context-contingent. Institutions need to think carefully what ideals their strategies are (implicitly or explicitly) promoting—and what that could mean for their place in the world tomorrow.

Virtual World

Dematerialised activity proves a huge game-changer, and by 2050 it has fundamentally reshaped currencies, meeting spaces, trade, and even conflict. High-level global decisions affecting billions are unimaginably more complex, and require AI to coordinate countless countries and cyber-stakeholders. Not everyone has the voice they need or deserve. Institutions need to reflect on which voices they are choosing to represent, and how they are helping to make policy dialogue inclusive and diverse.

Out of This World

A near-disaster occurs in the one territory no nation can claim: outer space. There is a renewed urgency to agree common rules to prevent a tragedy of the commons. Progress in this effort leads to a breakthrough in international collaboration. New international institutions, standards, and ideals emerge—but they’re nothing like those we knew before. Institutions need to think whether our challenges today, including the climate crisis, are not already urgent enough to start moving further and faster in addressing the challenges of tomorrow, even if greater sacrifices must be made now.

Learning from 2050

Whatever future we really get (it won’t be one of these scenarios, or a continuation of the present) will be a result of our combined actions today. Therefore in order to create better futures, we must first imagine them collectively. Strategic foresight is a participatory endeavour. My greatest hope for the students of emlyon is that this collaborative experience has given them a greater sense of agency in shaping our shared future.

References

Ramírez, Rafael, and Angela Wilkinson (2016). Strategic Reframing: The Oxford Scenario Planning Approach. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press.

Miller, Riel, et al. (2018). Transforming the Future: Anticipation in the 21st Century. London: Routledge.