From Engaged Foresight to Hiraya Foresight: Democratizing Futures Literacy in the Philippines at the UNESCO Futures Literacy Global Summit
The body of work and achievements of the Center for Engaged Foresight over the years in the advancement of futures studies and futures literacy in the Philippines and the Asia Pacific was recently featured at the UNESCO Futures Literacy Summit this year. Dubbed “From Engaged Foresight to Hiraya Foresight”, CEF, The Development Academy of the Philippines Graduate School of Public and Development Management (DAP GSPDM), Northwestern University, and the Philippine Futures Thinking Society, CEF Chief Futurist Shermon Cruz, as one of UNESCO’s Senior Curators, collaborated to curate the Hiraya Foresight Booth at the summit.
The Hiraya Foresight booth also featured, front and center, the milestones, current achievements, and ongoing futures literacy work by the DAP-GSPDM Futures Studies Platform, Northwestern University’s PhilForesight, and the Philippine Futures Thinking Society. The Hiraya Foresight developed by the collaborators’ video outlined and showcased how futures literacy began in the Philippines in 2012 and the impacts it had at the civic, academic, societal institutional, and Philippine Bureaucracy levels recently.
CEF in close coordination with UNESCO and the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, the Department of Education of the Republic of the Philippines Sec. Leonor Briones was featured and was interviewed to share her views on the future and efforts to promote futures literacy in the country as one of the plenary speakers at the FL summit. The Department of Education led by Sec. Briones was a key partner during the Asia Pacific Futures Virtual Network Conference held from November 19-21, 2020.
The UNESCO FL Summit made a significant mark as around 8,000 people registered for the summit. The participants gained a direct digital experience on how different people and organizations from different parts of the world ‘use the future to innovate today’. The summit gained a global-wide community of practitioners and supporters ready to change how we use the future to transform the way we change and imagine the future. According to UNESCO, the site link will be active until January 11, 2021. All plenary recordings are available On-Demand in the Video Library, The Expo Agora remains open for you to visit 90+ booths from organizations around the world Webinars, pre-recorded events, and live events that were recorded also remain available. Browse content in 3 languages in the Video Library, giving you direct access to an engaging community of futurists and anticipation thinkers in any field you can imagine!
The Hiraya Foresight Agora C event from December 10, 11, and 12 events at the FL summit included two live chat conversations, two live webinar events, and a foresight game workshop:
- A futures conversation on The Case of Democratizing Futures Literacy in the Philippines that featured Dr. Lizan Perante Calina’s seminal piece on the topic as the main presenter with Prof. Shermon Cruz, CEF, and Dr. Marcus Bussey, University of Sunshine Coast, as panel reactors with Atty. Ferdinand Nicolas, Northwestern University, and Dr. Maria Lourdes Rebullida, DAP-GSPDM, as guest reactors. This was moderated by Dr. Reginald Ugaddan of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society and the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration. A reflection piece on this session will be written by CEF later this year. DAP GSPDM is currently the leading public sector organization and academic institution providing futures thinking courses and programs for high-level government organizations. DAP-GSPDM under the leadership of Dr. Lizan Perante Calina in collaboration with Prof. Shermon Cruz has provided futures thinking awareness and talks to around thousands of senior public officials, government officials, public employees, experts, and organizations in the country. They have consistently and continue to advance Hiraya Foresight in the country, at the regional and global levels.
- The second live event was held to explore and discuss different ways by which futures literacy can be taught and applied in higher education at the local, regional, and statewide levels. The Futures Literacy in Higher Education conversation was led by Atty. Ferdinand Nicolas, President of Northwestern University Laoag, the first in the country to include futures thinking in its academic program and apply strategic foresight in its strategic planning, organizational education management, research program, cooperative training programs, and decision-making levels. Northwestern University created its futures and research unit the Philippine Foresight Education and Innovation Research in 2014 and organized and sponsored the first futures literacy and strategic foresight workshop in the country. CEF Prof. Shermon Cruz was instrumental in the creation of PhilForesight at NWU and was its first research director and futures studies lecturer. Panel reactors were Dr. Alex Brillantes, an intellectual giant in public policy and public administration, education leadership, and Philippine scientist, Dr. Freddie Bernal, regional director for the Commission on Higher Education and Prof. Dennis Morgan, global futurists and author who previously taught Global Futures Studies at Hankuk University, South Korea. The session was moderated by Dr. Maria Lourdes Rebullida, supervising fellow and policy foresight expert at DAP-GSPDM. The session was opened and concluded by CEF Chief Futurist Shermon Cruz. A reflection piece on this live event will be shared later this year.
- The final live event was the Dreams and Disruptions Foresight game, a capacity-building futures workshop conducted by the Center for Engaged Foresight. Facilitated by Prof. Shermon Cruz, Ms. Shiela Castillo, and Dr. Lizan Perante Calina, Dreams, and Disruptions is a scenario building imagination card game with elements of time horizons, drivers of change, hybrid scenario archetype, leaders and movements, and planetary risks and threats as variables to facilitate a conversation in creating an agile and anti-fragile vision of tomorrows. The foresight game workshop was introduced by Dr. Reginald Ugaddan of the Philippine Futures Thinking Society and Director of the University of the Philippines College of Public Administration and Governance. Several alternative futures emerge at the workshop. Participants appreciated the foresight game and learned the value of futures literacy and anticipation by playing their anticipatory assumptions The CEF team will write a full-length article to introduce the Dreams and Disruptions Game as CEF’s unique contribution to futures studies and the strategic foresight field.
Hiraya Manawari
The Hiraya Foresight Team would like to give our massive thanks Azielle Aze Camama for her amazing Hiraya Manawari artwork featuring a Native Bagobo tribe maiden with Waling-waling flowers. The art description in full meant a portrait (realism and textured) painting of a Native Bagobo tribe maiden with Waling-waling flowers. The Waling-waling is considered to be the “Queen of Philippine Flowers” and it was said to be worshiped as a “Diwata” by the Native tribe. “Hiraya Manawari” is an ancient Tagalog phrase that means “reach your dreams” or “may the wishes of your heart be granted”. In the painting, the maiden wishes for better futures to come for her country. May no one forget that culture transforms and that indigenous culture resides in our hearts and souls. As we always say in CEF, the future truly is where our heart is!
Below are some action-learning screenshots we had during the UNESCO FL Summit. The Center for Engaged Foresight is proud to be a part of so far the biggest futures literacy gathering in the history of futures thinking and foresight. UNESCO reported that it had achieved these milestones during the summit:
- 8000 registered participants.
- 40 plenary videos – of speeches and ‘futures conversations’ – available “on-demand” in the video library.
- 97 content-rich booths on-line in the Agora for browsing (some of the booths may also still be offering ‘live meeting’ opportunities, drop by to find out);
- 225+ events scheduled.
For more about the UNESCO FL Summit, please the Philippine Futures Thinking Society Facebook Page and the Official UNESCO FL Summit Link. The Center for Engaged Foresight would like to thank the Hiraya Foresight Team: Shermon Cruz, Lizan Perante Calina, Ferdinand Nicolas, Celine Abella, Shiela Castillo, Nicola Parreno, Zsa Zsa Raval, and all our partners, perpetual collaborators, guests and experts for curating, managing, their ideas and insights for achieving our Hiraya at the summit.
Dr .Lizan Perante Calina on Hiraya Foresight: The Case of Democratizing Futures Literacy in the PhilippinesSec. Leonor Briones, Department of Education, Philippines link to her presentation at the UNESCO FL SummitAtty. Ferdinand Nicolas, Northwestern University, on Teaching Futures Literacy in Higher Education at the UNESCO FL SummitDr. Marcus Bussey, University of Sunshine Coast of Australia, sharing his thoughts on how culture can deepen and amplify the impact of foresight work, knowledge creation, and governance.CEF Futures Learning Advisor Shiela Castillo facilitating the Dreams and Disruptions Game at the UNESCO FL Summit.