Co-creating Humanitarian Foresight and Futures

How is the humanitarian sector changing?”, “What are the emerging trends and technologies?” and “How can we prepare for the future?” are some of the questions raised at the first Humanitarian Foresight & Futures Co-creation (#HFFC17).

Over 65 participants from more than 25 international organisations, NGOs and permanent missions were hosted by IdeaSquare and welcomed by CERN’s Director for International Relations, Charlotte Warakaulle, at #HFFC17 on 4 April. They discussed and defined common thematic areas relating to the future of the humanitarian sector and how to prepare for it.

Designer and internet entrepreneur David Galbraith, CrowdAI scientist Sean Carroll, genomics futurist Juan Enriquez, human-centered innovator Tuuli Utriainen and organisational behavior lecturer Rich Cox gave their opinions on how data, new algorithms, the mobility of work, improved education and the re-shaping of challenges will change the future of the humanitarian sector.

“The inspiring atmosphere of IdeaSquare is ideal for fostering co-creation and the “dare to dream” for strategic humanitarian foresight,” said Olivier Delarue, CEO of the Global Humanitarian Lab (GHL).

In the afternoon session, co-creation led to the identification and visualisation of 31 leads for common activities in a “readiness and impact” map. Jean-Marie Le Goff, from CERN Collaboration Spotting, showed how automatic analysis of patents and publications can lead to information on academia and industry key players active around technologies interesting for the humanitarian sector.

A summary video of #HFFC17 can be found here.

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