How to be a catalyst?

When I first (officially) started working on multi-stakeholder foresight work 30 years ago, the community was not so big. Fast forward to today, and the numbers engaged has rocketed – and correspondingly it has become harder to know everybody else.

It was therefore a great pleasure to see how the Nomads Foundation and I were able to bring 15 “prospectivistes” together in Geneva, just simply so as they could get to know each other and find out what others are working on. With participants coming from international organisations, the cantonal government, NGOs, companies and consultants, there was a great diversity of foresighters – and energy – in the room. As one participant pointed out, it was a great chance to link people working on the international level with those “on the ground”, as well as to break the sectoral silos. As somebody who does not live in Geneva, it was fun to be the catalyst, crystalising the appearance of this group.

In any case thanks to Sabrina Cohen Duman, Giorgio Pauletto and Verena Tommasi for organising the event, and Beris Gwynne, Kristel Van der Elst, Corinne Roëls and Dessi Dimitrova for suggesting others to invite!

foresight-to-strategy, lively event, multi-stakeholder strategy