Impact networks
As part of the National Futures Initiative TACSI are looking to establish two impact networks around the streams of ‘the future of childhood’ and ‘the future of communities’.
We are calling on people with lived and learned experience, professionals and passionate community members, artists, academics and activists, to join us in growing a future of childhood and future of community network.
In this network you will be invited to explore daring new ideas, valuable futures thinking tools, and most importantly a network of truly diverse people that you can learn, share and imagine with. The network will meet online (with possible in person sessions) every 6 weeks for the next two years, allowing conversations, relationships and trust to grow. As a network member, you will also be part of shaping the direction of the National Futures Initiative, and helping us grow social R&D systems and innovations that will accelerate just transitions.
What you’ll experience?
Facilitation through a wide range of different approaches to futuring (from strategic foresight to arts based practice)
Time and space to lift out of work as usual and imagine what’s possible
New futures thinking frameworks and approaches to bring into work or life
The chance to connect and learn from other people with learned or lived experiences within the focus area of the network
Opportunities for coordinated action as a result of futures processes and experiences
Connections with unlikely people from across systems to spark new insight and surface new perspectives beyond usual contexts.
What makes this network different from other networks and futures experiences?
Futuring experiences that go beyond futures trend reports to actively shape the futures we want, rather than just preparing for them
We’re working with our Indigenous Systems Knowledge partner, AIME, to ground these futures experiences in Indigenous knowledges from both here in Australia and from around the world.
Networks are intentionally curated to bring together a diversity of people from across these systems - we want to create unlikely connections beyond people usually involved in futures conversations
The futures that we will explore together have an explicit focus on justice - we see justice as a lens to systemically address past and present power structures at the root of some of our toughest challenges.
Joining the network is free and we will also be offering payment for people to attend when their time is not covered by an organisation.
If you are interested in participating please watch the online taster session or reach out to Claire for a chat before filling in an expression of interest form via the buttons below.
New futures paper: Practices for realising just futures
There are many ways to look at the future; some people approach it through trend analysis, others through collaborative art making, some turn to experts, others draw on their spirituality, some believe it's important to look back before looking forward, while others prefer to build on unlikely inspiration.
To better understand these diverse practices and learn from what people have done before us, we’re written a series of papers. The first reviews existing futuring practices and sets forward a hypothesis for the practices we need to embrace as part of the National Futures Initiative, to get to a more just future.