OCS Conference Funding Submission

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Name: Bojan Francuz

Degree Program: MPA IN PUBLIC & NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT & POLICY

Specialization: PNP-International Development Policy and Management

Conference Host Organization/Institution: The Futures School

Conference/Competition Name: Foundations in Natural Foresight

Conference Term: Spring Conference Start Date: 2022-04-05 Conference End Date: 2022-04-07

What were your takeaways from this conference/case competition?
Some of my top takeaways from an intense 3-days onsite with the Futures School:
- The future isn’t something to fear, it’s an opportunity to create.  
- By identifying weak signals, value shifts, and trends, we begin to see patterns when others just see noise.
-  Foresight as a discipline allows us to include multiple alternative futures in all our decisions, making our strategy and actions robust, adaptive, resilient, and transformational. 
- Now more than ever, we need leaders to craft and convey a ‘moonshot’ vision of the future that we can pull forward. 

How will your participation in this conference/case competition support your professional development?
The participation in TFS has given me the rudimentary knowledge, language, and the skills to use forecasting strategies and approaches in my day-to-day work, as well as apply it to my thinking about future endeavors. I know how to: perform horizon scanning for trends, challenge my own assumptions and biases about the future, do scenario planning and mapping of potential futures, and, most importantly, how to integrate foresight thinking into my work.

It has also given me access to the network in the growing foresight community, which includes, among others, policy professionals in the fed government and international organizations.

What are some next steps or action items this conference/case competition inspired?
It has inspired me to seek further training opportunities with a particular focus on foresight in public service organizations and governments. It has also made me a member of an active TFS community, and challenged to create a development/implementation plan for lessons learned.

What are some tips or best practices that you would like to share with other Wagner students who attend a conference/case competition?
These include:
- Seek out development opportunities which are not offered at Wagner
- Don't be afraid to look beyond the well established groups and orgs
- Seek creative and dynamic training and development opportunities
- Don't just go to the conference/training, but aim to become a member of a new professional community

Wagner Areas of Impact: Cities, Government, International Development, Leadership, Nonprofits, Social Innovation