Center for Engaged Foresight at the MVP Future Thought Leaders Summit

UNESCO Bangkok took part in the MVP Future Thought Leaders Summit held on 13-16 November 2016 at the First Pacific Leadership Academy (FPLA) in Antipolo City, Rizal, Philippines. The Summit was organized as a Corporate Social Responsibility project by the Executive Education department of FPLA. Its goal was to reach out to “underprivileged” student leaders from all over the Philippines and provide them with leadership development training through a series of seminars, workshops and team-building activities.

Shermon Cruz, as Summit’s content partner and main facilitator, UNESCO’s foresight team conducted a Futures Literacy workshop designed for Filipino student leaders. Entitled #FuturesLiteracy: Developing the Capacity of Young Leaders to Use the Future, the workshop introduced foresight for the first time to 105 student leaders who came from eight provinces in the Philippines including Bataan, Batangas, Bicol, Cagayan de Oro, Caloocan, Pangansinan, Rizal and Tarlac. The workshop was geared towards using futures thinking as a way to teach students the values of leadership as identified in Kouzes and Posner’s The Student Leadership Challenge: Five Practices for Exemplary Leaders (2014). Specifically the design aimed to meet the following objectives:

• Introduce foresight and anticipation as a tool to setting future goals and inspiring a shared vision;
• Enhance students’ future thinking skills for leadership and innovation;
• Broaden the perspective of students on how to imagine future scenarios, find solutions and create impact;
• Help students produce well-founded statements and arguments about effecting their desired future through learning and thinking together;
• Provide opportunities for students to articulate their visions in concrete and creative forms;
• Promote team work, open-mindedness, active listening and creativity.