“Each year the Finland Futures Research Centre (FFRC) and Finland Futures Academy (FFA) at the University of Turku organises its annual Futures Conference, an invaluable opportunity for meeting, exchanging and debating current topics related in futures studies and foresight. With approximately 200-350 individual participants attending from all over the world, international researchers, organisational delegates, business people and students convene to the FFRC annual conferences in the spirit of futures-oriented information, research, analysis and collaboration.”—from Futures Conference 2023, Finland
This year, Teach the Future is delighted to announce that Rosa Alegria has been selected as the keynote speaker for this important futures and foresight conference. Below are some of Rosa’s thoughts on this talk. We hope to share more from her keynote presentation over time.
Being the last to speak as a keynote speaker on the second day of the majestic Empowering Futures Conference at the Finland Futures Research Center (University of Turku) was a beautiful challenge. After many scientific presentations, I introduced "The Transetarian Revolution: The Power of Ageless Futures"; I invited the audience for an individual reflection starting with the question, "If you didn't know how old you are, how old would you be?" This question is attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius of the 500s BC. I brought my story, from when I realized that a generational classification did not define me and it resonated with the story of many in the room who came to thank me later for feeling free with what I said.
We have six generations coliving in the planet for the first time. This is a high point in our social history: we can choose mutual respect and intergenerational cooperation. Think of the year 2100. For a child born today, what will the world be like in 2100? How will different generations live together? Those who are around 40 today will be 120.
There will be more generations living together. Children who are now in primary school will grow up in societies full of elderly people. Perhaps with seven generations alive.
The relativization of ages leads to a society that renounces the idea of generation as a mediator of knowledge or creator of value in an age group. This leads to pedagogical and political consequences for defining the functionality of the term generation. This new way of looking at generations enables new possibilities between different ages in families and society and opens co-creative paths to a better world. I ended by talking about my pride in representing the Teach the Future movement that promotes intergenerational dialogues annually on World Futures Day, celebrated every March 1st and also promotes the NGFP Next Generation Foresight Practitioners award that recognizes young voices from 12 to 17 years old in their ideas and projects for creating preferable futures.
See the video here.
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