Curated news, events and signals exclusively for

Envision's Strategic Foresight graduates

April 2025

Through this network of trained futurists, we hope to make strategic foresight

part of the DNA of Northeast Wisconsin, driving our preferred

futures rather than simply reacting to what happens.

World Futures Day 2025 a Success!

World Futures Day was held on February 28, 2025 with more than 450 people in attendance. The program continued to inspire and equip leaders with the tools to anticipate change, foster innovation, and build a stronger future for the Green Bay community. The morning included futurist Jonathan Brill's keynote address along with a Four Futures Skit from our Envision Greater Green Bay Signals Team.

Below you’ll find resources from the event that you can leverage to help shape a preferred future for our region:

View the Introduction and Four Futures Video here.
View the PowerPoint slides here.
View the transcript here
View the Drivers of Change Booklet here.

Did you attended the event and have not completed the post-event survey? You can do so here. Start survey.

Save the Date for Next Year - Friday, February 27, 2026

Support for our Foresight Grads

What future-focused organizations will participate

in the Fall Strategic Foresight cohort?

Will you take this opportunity to build and strengthen your trained team?

Workshops will begin in September.

Build your potential to shape your organization's preferred future by building your foresight team! We'll be at the Green Bay Botanical Garden for our next workshop with futurist Garry Golden. Here are the 2025 dates:

September 12 – 8:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Botanical Garden)
September 26 – VIRTUAL 8 to 10 a.m.
October 10 – VIRTUAL 8 to 10 a.m.
October 24 – VIRTUAL 8 to 10 a.m.
November 14 – 8:30 a.m. to noon (Botanical Garden)

Invite your team to register here.

Resources from the Foresight Community

Recommended by Nan Nelson

A game called FutureCast was developed by UN Global Pulse that helps players explore multiple possible future scenarios related to an election as a way to generate robust, inclusive conversations about our political futures.

The game allows users to craft scenarios across three time horizons, decide on stakeholder questions based on chosen topics, and use a "sensemaking" template to synthesize insights and plan actions.

Futurist Thomas Frey offers a proposal to radically reform government structures for the future. He calls it Super Democracy It’s “built on the fusion of advanced technologies, AI-driven oversight, and direct citizen participation… Unlike traditional democratic systems, which rely on static institutions prone to gridlock and special interest manipulation, this model actively evolves alongside society’s changing needs. Its foundation is a four-branch structure that integrates flexibility and technological innovation while preserving essential checks and balances.”

One of his key concepts is a House composed of “10,000 Super Citizens, proportionally drawn from regional population pools across states. These Super Citizens are continuously trained and tested, ensuring they remain informed on the policies they vote on... Super Citizens are compensated with a living wage, promoting broad socioeconomic participation and preventing political elitism.”

Institute for the Future reported an interesting example of using Generative AI to leverage public research and data. Ethan Mollick, an Associate Professor studying AI at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, prompted the AI tool Claude to build him software code that could create a visual of almost any global city's street networks. By simply sharing a research paper with the formula needed to visualize a city's street networks and using data from OpenStreetMap (an open-source map), the chatbot provided Mollick with Python code to make his own city histograms.

Why it matters: We're continuing to discover the uncanny superpowers that Generative AI tools can unlock for people without subject matter expertise or advanced technical skills. With an URL and a button click, we can wield AI to leverage doctorate-level research for our whimsies.