Iniziative per Nuovi Scenari

 

futures literacy

&

DISCIPLINE OF ANTICIPATION

IT

 

Che cos'è la Futures Literacy (FL) ?

La Futures Literacy aiuta le persone a capire perché e come utilizziamo il futuro per prepararci, pianificare e interagire con la complessità della nostra società. Attraverso attività strutturate di apprendimento sul campo note come Futures Literacy Laboratories (FLL), le comunità locali e gli individui possono conoscere le origini di ciò che immaginano e possono consentire loro di diversificare le loro azioni.

Ma cosa significa realmente essere alfabetizzati al futuro ?

Originariamente il termine “alfabetizzazione” si riferiva semplicemente alla capacità di leggere e scrivere, ma oggi il termine copre una gamma molto più ampia di competenze e conoscenze in contesti specifici come “alfabetizzazione finanziaria” e “alfabetizzazione digitale” e molti altri settori.

Per l’alfabetizzazione al futuro il contesto specifico è l’immaginazione umana, poiché il futuro può solo essere immaginato.

Ma la sua "anticipazione" no !

Infatti, attraverso sia dell'aggregazione dei flussi informativi strutturati e sia dell'utilizzo della potenza di calcolo dei supercomputer (HPC) e dell' intelligenza artificiale, risulta possibile avere una visione più ampia dello scenario dell'orizzonte del futuro.

L’abilità deve essere collegato alla capacità di sapere come immaginare il futuro ed essere consapevole di quanto sia importante questa azione ed atteggiamento.

Quindi, non si tratta di immaginare un futuro, ma più futuri generativi.

L’alfabetizzazione al futuro ci consente di diventare più consapevoli delle nostra esperienza sulla Terra e dedicare molta più attenzione alla esperienza degli altri e delle prossime generazioni.

Nel 2012, l’UNESCO ha iniziato a concentrarsi sullo sviluppo dell’alfabetizzazione futura esplorandone le caratteristiche, dimostrando al tempo stesso il suo ruolo cruciale come un modo efficace per focalizzare la nostra attenzione sulle sfide che ci attendono.

Ogni decisione attuale deve garantire il miglior risultato possibile !

 

 

 

 

Perché dovremmo occuparci esplicitamente di futuro ?

Viviamo in una fase di cambiamenti sempre più veloci: l’accelerazione dei cambiamenti richiede di adottare nuovi strumenti e nuove soluzioni che ci aiutino a capire in anticipo le sorprese positive o i problemi che dovremo affrontare.

Bisogna estendere il nostro sguardo oltre i confini temporali del presente per non farci trovare impreparati e per poter usare al meglio le opportunità che dovessero presentarsi, minimizzando i rischi ed i pericoli.

 

Che cos'è la Discipline of Anticipazione (DoA) ?

Tutti gli sforzi per “conoscere il futuro” nel senso di pensare e utilizzare il futuro sono forme di anticipazione.

Allo stesso modo il futuro è incorporato in tutti i fenomeni, consci o inconsci, come anticipazione. Il presente è continuamente influenzato dal futuro.
La DoA copre tutti i “modi di conoscere” l'anticipazione del futuro, attraverso le varie forme di osservazione.
Considerato come un “modo di conoscere” il DoA affronta la decodifica dei sistemi di anticipazione, sia al livello consapevole e sia a livello non consapevole.
La DoA sviluppa, ordina e sviluppa dei processi/sistemi di anticipazione del futuro attraverso la progettazione di modelli predittivi.

Risulta banale sottolineare che risulta IMPOSSIBILE vedere il futuro, ma NON la sua anticipazione che quotidianamente influenza il nostro presente.

Si tratta di osservare quella sottile linea di demarcazione tra queste due dimensioni temporali riducendo al minimo la latenza.

Esiste una metodologia sviluppata dall'UNESCO che si chiama "Capability-based approach to Futures" per disegnare modelli predittivi.

 

 

 

EN

 

 

What is Futures Literacy (FL) ?

Futures Literacy helps people understand why and how we use the future to prepare ourselves, plan and interact with the hypercomplexity of our society.

Through structured learning activities on the field known as Futures Literacy Laboratories (FLL), local communities and individuals can know the origins of what they imagine and can allow them to diversify their actions (with many versions).

A professional futurist is a person who studies the future in order to help peopleunderstand, anticipate, prepare for and gain advantage from coming changes.

It is not the goal of a futurist to predict what will happen in the future.

The futurist uses foresight to describe what could happen in the future and, in some cases, what should happen in the future.

Most people use some sort of foresight all the time - something as simple as listening to the weather forecast to prepare for the next day.

A professional futurist uses formal methods to develop descriptions of possible futures.

The output of a futures study may include the driving forces, assumptions, evidence or indicators of the futures. A futurist is more likely to say how or why a future could appear rather than to say what the future will be.

One of the founding principles of the field of futures studies is the idea of personal and organizational choice. Although the future is unknown, a person can identify possibilities, select the most favorable outcomes and attempt to influence events to create a desired future. By considering systems and human agency, futurists help identify choices that affect the future, for ourselves and future generations.

Futurists work in large and small businesses, governments and non-profits, as teachers or researchers in education, and as consultants or as permanent staff.

Many futurists focus on one topic such as a technology or an industry. Other futurists study broad social changes or global problems. All futurists take a very wide view of the world in both scope and time. Futurists tend to take a much broader perspective, consider longer time horizons, and include many more factors in a study than analysts such as economists, technology specialists, social critics or political commentators.

A futurist’s analytical process falls into 6 general areas

• Framing - defining the focal issue and current conditions

• Scanning - exploring signals of change

• Futuring - identifying baseline and alternative futures

• Visioning - committing to a preferred future

• Designing - developing prototypes to achieve goals

• Adapting - generating strategies for alternative futures

 

 

History of Futures Literacy

The contemporary practice of futures studies emerged during the second half of the twentieth century.

In the US, the formal study of the future began after World War II when Herman Kahn of RAND started using scenarios to explore the consequences of nuclear war. He found scenarios to be a useful tool for enabling people to “Think the Unthinkable.”

In Europe, Bertrand de Jouvenal’s The Art of Conjecture was a key development in the emergence of futures studies.

In France, Gaston Berger founded the Centre International de Prospective and the important journal entitled Prospective. Practitioners such as Robert Jungk began to conduct "future workshops."

The 1960s saw the emergence of several consulting firms and think tanks devoted to futures studies plus the formation of the World Future Society.

De Jouvenal founded the Association Internationale de Futuribles Association and the journal Futuribles in France.

Kahn went on to found the Hudson Institute, and other RAND analysts, such as Olaf Helmer and Ted Gordon, went on to develop the Delphi method and helped Roy Amara start the Institute for the Future, with Gordon later forming The Futures Group.

SRI became a focal point of futures research under the guidance of Willis Harman in the 1960s. The Institute for Alternative Futures was later launched in the 1970s by Clem Bezold with help from Alvin Toffler and James Dator.

Royal Dutch Shell became the most recognized corporate practitioner of futures studies in the 1970s, using scenarios under the guidance of Pierre Wack, who learned/borrowed the technique from Herman Kahn.

Shell later produced several leading “second generation futurists,” such as Peter Schwartz, who went on with colleagues, such as Jay Ogilvy and Stewart Brand, to start Global Business Network in 1987.

By the mid-'80s, Oliver Markley invited Peter Bishop to teach Futures Studies at the University of Houston, which further strengthened professional futures work

Since these first generations futures work has spread beyond its roots in Europe and the US to embody a global movement today with third and fourth generation academics and researchers such as Riel Miller or Sohail Inayatullah with UNESCO, to practitioners such as Wendy Schultz, Cindy Frewen or Stuart Candy.

Estimates range from 5,000 to 15,000 practitioners, depending on how one counts.

 

 

But what does it really mean to be alphabetized to the future ?

Originally the term "literacy" was simply referring to the ability to read and write, but today the term covers a much wider range of skills and knowledge in specific contexts such as "financial literacy", "digital literacy" and many other sectors.

For alphabetization to the future, the specific context is human imagination and creativity, since the future can only be imagined.

But the "anticipation" no !

In fact, through both the aggregation of structured information flows and the use of the calculation power of supercomputer (HPC) and quantum computing  and artificial intelligence, it is possible to have a wider view (many versions) of the scenario of the horizon of the future.

The ability must be connected to the ability to know how to imagine the future and be aware of how important this action and attitude is.

Therefore, it is not a question of imagining a future, but more generative versions of the future with constants and variables.

The literacy to the future allows us to become more aware of our experience on Earth and dedicate much more attention to the experience of others and the next generations.

In 2012, UNESCO began to focus on the development of future literacy exploring the characteristics, while demonstrating its crucial role as an effective way to focus our attention on the challenges that await us.

Every current decision must guarantee the best possible result for the many versions of the future !

 

 

 

Why should we explicitly deal with the future ?

We live in a phase of increasingly faster changes: the acceleration of changes requires to adopt new tools and new solutions that help us understand in advance the positive surprises or the problems we will have to face.

We must extend our gaze beyond the temporal boundaries of the present in order not to make us find unprepared and in order to be able to use the opportunities that should arise, minimizing the risks and dangers.

What is the disciplines of anticipation (doa) ?

All efforts to "know the future" in the sense of thinking and using the future are forms of anticipation.

In the same way the future is incorporated in all phenomena, aware or unconscious, as anticipation.

The present is continually influenced by the future.

The Doa covers all the "ways of knowing" the anticipation of the future, through the various forms of observation.

Considered as a "way of knowing" the Doa deals with the decoding of anticipation systems, both at the conscious level and at an unaware level.
DOA develops, orders processes/anticipation systems of the future through the design of predictive models.

It is trivial to emphasize that it is impossible to see the future, but not its anticipation that daily influences our present.

It is a question of observing that thin demarcation line between these two temporal dimensions by minimizing latency.

There is a methodology developed by UNESCO called "Capability-Based Approach to Futures" to draw predictive models.

 

It is like thinking time as a "Continuum", where past, present and future are all binded together in a "Universe Loop".

 

 

 

 

 

 

Links:

 

>>> https://ed.ted.com/future-forward

 

 

>>> https://policy-lab.ec.europa.eu/how-we-do-it_en

 

 

>>> https://policy-lab.ec.europa.eu/stories/future-builders-equipping-young-minds-fairer-europe-2025-08-04_en

 

 

 

Articles:

https://medium.com/lansaar/what-is-data-fabric-278df3aa5375

 

 

 

Links:

https://www.uil.unesco.org/en/literacy/global-alliance

 

 

 

Links:

 

>>> World Bank + Atlas SDG

 

>>> World Bank + Future Scenario

 

>>> EU + Future Literacy

 

>>> United Nations + Future Literacy

 

>>> UNESCO + Future Literacy

 

 

 

...more links:

 

>>> Future 4 Europe

 

 

>>> https://www.futures4europe.eu/tags/scenarios

 

 

>>> https://www.ceskepriority.cz/foresight#projekty

 

 

>>> c-fd.eu

 

 

>>> nomos-elibrary.de

 

 

>>> https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en

 

 

>>> https://www.futuribles.com/en/et-si-on-testait-le-futur/

 

 

>>> https://www.inter.chula.ac.th/futuresliteracy/fl-resources-eng/

 

 

>>> https://www.inter.chula.ac.th/futuresliteracy/dr-riel-millerpre/

 

 

 

 

Video YouTube

 

 

>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCmpHD6wy1E

 

 

...

 

 

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