Friday, September 18, 2015

Academia and fun

On Wednesday the 16th of September a new Knowledge Center for long term Futures was launched. Maya Van Leemput had invited two colleagues from abroad both involved in applied futures research. The name of the project is Open Time. The Open Time team consists of Maya Van Leemput, Chris De Smedt and Annie Verhaeghen. After the presentation we got more than an inkling of what Open Time Futures research can bring to you.

The program was interesting with a warm and to the point welcome by Maya Van Leemput, coordinator of the knowledge center. After that Cornelia Daheim from Duisburg Germany spoke about using creative methods for foresight in practice. There were practical workshops and I must admit I had a lot of fun of role playing and trying to think out of the box, not always simple, since the items of the day, like the many refugees who need a welcome and a place, a legal status and such in foremost on peoples minds. The other workshops were: The thing from the future, a gaming technique to think up possibilities of futures, there was Futures Wheel, an exploratory workshop technique entailing to alway look at the consequences of a change, and what that changes causes 'down the time-line'. There also was a workshop called: The four quadrants scenario, a rather popular method.
Luc De Boever, the departmental director held a warm and funny speech which touched upon the normal layman's questions on how one can do research about what doesn't exist yet. As Maya had already stipulated that there are no future facts. Thus new ways of research have to be thought off and we got a bit of glance of the possibilities. It is great that Applied Futures Research has found a home at the Erasmus Highschool, in Brussels.
It was an enlightening and fun experience with a lot of food for though. Thanks to all who made this possible.



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