LC to host sustainable city futures forum-workshop

City Futures for City Leaders in Penang City, Malaysia. The Ilocos Times columnist Shermon Cruz with Dr. Sohail Inayatullah and fellow futurists facilitated a strategic foresight forum-workshop for the State of Penang, United Nations University, Think City CEOs, Khazanah Nasional Berhad and members of the Public Service Department of the Government of Malaysia. A similar forum-workshop on resilient cities will take place here in Laoag on May 21-24, 2014. (Shermon Cruz)

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the UNESCO Social and Human Sciences Sector, the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, the Center For Engaged Foresight in collaboration with the City Government of Laoag, Northwestern University Laoag, Tamkang University Taiwan, the Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies, the International Society for Heal Being Studies, South Korea and SMART Communications Philippines will hold the first forum-workshop on anticipatory thinking, strategic foresight and city governance to explore, imagine and create preferred futures of Philippine cities on May 21-24 at the Laoag City Auditorium.

Dubbed “Resilient Cities, Brighter Futures: Forum-Workshop on Anticipatory Thinking and Strategic Foresight for Sustainable Cities”, the workshop calls for an innovative exercise to introduce the skills related to Futures Literacy and to build the capacities of participants to use the future more effectively for city strategic planning, policy-making and decision making to transform Philippine cities in a climate change driven era.

The workshop will also engage participants in a collective reflection; spur their creativity and innovation in the difficult task of reframing the future of Philippine cities. The desired endpoint is to raise participants’ awareness, improve their capacity to imagine and use the future and build a shared narrative to address the challenges of Philippine cities. The forum-workshop offers participants a learning-by-doing experience in “using the future differently.” Professor Sohail Inayatullah, a 2010 Laurel Award Winner for all-time best futurists as voted by Shaping Tomorrow Network, will facilitate the futures workshop.

This four-day event will begin with a plenary session that will feature a general introduction to Future Studies as a new and emerging academic field, a presentation on the experiences of Foresight Centers in Asia and the Pacific region and a critique of current developments in urban areas and a presentation in imagining plausible solutions and innovations.

A two-day workshop will follow to familiarize participants to some futures thinking concepts and strategic foresight methods and engage them in an intense framing and re-framing discussions, to generate new knowledge, new insights, questions, narratives and alternative options for different sectors engaged in building sustainable and resilient Philippine cities. The fourth day will be devoted to a provincial heritage tour in Paoay and Vigan’s UNESCO World Heritage Site.

For more information and inquiry, interested city leaders and organizations may contact Mr. Shermon Cruz, Executive Director of Center for Engaged Foresight CP Nos.: +639479639858 / 09173185162; Tel. No or Fax: 077 607 03 43; or email: engagedforesight@gmail.com

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