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Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Awards

Author:
Craig Zelizer

May 2, 2020

Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Awards

Recognising the next generations' endeavours in shaping the future.

Apply before 31 May 2020

Next Generation Foresight

Who we want to support

When we look at the world, we see new foresight practitioners enabling their communities to collectively imagine and create their own futures. They are diverse voices that are effectively democratising the futures field.

The NGFP awards recognise those helping to shape the future and improve lives through innovative strategic foresight. They aim to showcase stories of accelerating and scaling change in their communities towards a positive future. Through the awards we are seeking to identify change that is coming from a new generation — millennials, with new aspirations and values — from new geographies, with a growing foresight practice in Africa and Asia, and from second and third career practitioners entering the field from other domains, with fresh ideas and approaches.

The 2020 Awards

This year there are two opportunities to apply – the Main Award and the Walkabout Prizes:

  • The Main Award is open to anyone between the ages of 18-35 or with less than ten years' experience as a foresight practitioner. It will support one Winner and a cohort of Special Awardees to develop both personally and professionally. You can enter as an individual or as a team of up to ten people.
  • The Walkabout Prizes will support two individuals or teams between 18-25 years' old to engage in their communities.

Eligible applicants will be invited to join a global sensing-network of future-alert activists. Our long-term ambition is to accelerate the transformation of the next generation of changemakers using foresight as a key tool to envision a better global future. We are motivated by the belief in the potential for everyone to engage in anticipating and shaping futures. The awrds, programme and sensing network exist to democratise futures practice by providing a platform for diverse voices.

Applications are open until 23:59 GMT+1 on 31 May 2020.

Main Award
  • Between 18 and 35 or with less than ten years' experience as a foresight practitioner on 31 May 2020
  • Winner receives both a USD 15,000 prize to support their project and attendance at the SOIF Summer Retreat
  • Special awardees invited to become fellows and receive mentoring and support from SOIF and judges.
  • Enter as a team or individual
Walkabout Prizes
  • Between 18 and 25 years old on 31 May 2020
  • Two winners will each receive a USD 5,000 prize to help translate new future-focused ideas into action in service to their community
  • Benefit from scanning training and mentoring support
  • Enter as a team or individual

What do we mean by foresight

Foresight is a systematic way of engaging with uncertainty, through the exploration of alternative futures, including aspirational ones. As a discipline it has the potential to shape the future. It is not about predicting the future, but understanding your current and future operating environment. Insights gained from foresight equip communities and organisations to recognise and respond to emerging threats and opportunities by developing enhanced competitiveness, resilience and agility.

A foresight practitioner is anyone who takes a futures approach to their work to explore and understand the impacts of longer-term factors and drivers of change on the future, to better understand how different futures might evolve, and to generate insights for decisions made today.

Learn about our previous awardees and their projects

What we are looking for

Examples of innovative practice we hope to support include:

Community futures

Next generation approaches to driving participation and empowering communities

Sustainable futures

New approaches to sustainability and the Sustainable Development Goals

Innovative methods

From digital to design thinking, from ethnography to performance

Foresight with impact

Changing the conversation and direction using futures and foresight.

An initative of

Supported by

We are excited to support School of International Futures (SOIF) and the Next Generation Foresight Practitioner (NGFP) Award 2020. The award is an inventive way of shining a light on the next generation and their bold leadership in shaping the future. The world around us is changing at an unprecedented pace. Young people will inherit the present and mould the future—they will harness emerging opportunities and tackle looming risks facing communities globally, and inspire us all to do the same. We hope efforts like these will create a platform and network they can use to seek change that builds a future that is bright, inclusive, diverse, and empowering.

— Omidyar Network

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