2020 Australia – Futurist’s Report

A group of leading Australian Futurists gathered over the weekend to consider the 10 core themes set to be tackled at Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 Summit in Canberra in April. Convened by Strategic Futurist Marcus Barber, the 2020 Australia Futurists Summit utilised some of the advanced facilitation and strategy development techniques as a means for extracting additional perspectives of how Australia might begin to address the 10 Core themes, and encapsulated thinking and insight from Futurists around Australia.

 

The final report has been offered to just ten journalists and commentators in Australia and will be quarantined from public dissemination until after the Prime Minister’s summit has been concluded.  At that point it is likely that a comparative assessment between the ideas and content emerging from the PM’s summit, and that of the Australian Futurists will highlight some interesting areas for further discussion.

Some comparative questions could be:

  • What was the depth of consideration of the theme?
  • What assumptions were identified and how might those assumptions have shaped the conversation in Canberra?
  • What vested interests were identified and what anticipated responses are likely from those groups?

The report will also be offered to the Prime Minister following the summit in Canberra and each theme will be offered to the chairs.

The future of… You

Jun 12, 2011

Futurist Marcus Barber will be joining ABC’s Vicki Kerrigan in Darwin for the first of an ongoing discussion about the future this Wednesday. Each week on Wednesday afternoon’s, Vicki and Marcus will discuss the future of something, how we prepare for the future, what the future looks like for some industries and other related futures…

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Innovation in Manufacturing – there really IS a Future! But action needs to happen NOW!

May 25, 2011

The panel session at the National Manufacturing Week 2011 went well though with four of us on the panel, time was quite compressed. Some really good thoughts from Phillip Chindamo from AIG, Damon Cantwell from Deloitte and Erol Harvey from Minifab, delightfully chaired by Sandra George from SEBN at the City of Greater Dandenong. Rather…

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Building on Innovation for a vibrant and sustainable future – a focus for future manufacturing

May 23, 2011

On Thursday I’ll be part of the panel that wraps up the National Manufacturing Week 2011 in Melbourne at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre under the theme of Meeting the challenges of the next generation of manufacturing with a focus on Innovation and Sustainability. It should be an interesting chat as we consider what…

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What Australia Can learn from Finland’s Education System

May 1, 2011

There’s lots to like about borrowing ideas from other areas especially where those ideas can lead to a significant positive shift. In the link below, Zaid Ali Alsagoff an educational blogging specialist highlights why the Finnish Education system stands as a potential model to embrace. And whilst there are examples of this type of thinking…

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The role of Environmental Scanning in planning departments

Apr 13, 2011

Environmental Scanning (ES) is the process of paying attention to the world in which you operate in order to identify and gain a sense of potential signals of change in how your world is developing. When discussing the idea of ‘change’ we need to be clear – a potential signal of change is likely to…

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What Victoria can learn from Western Australia’s weather

Mar 19, 2011

When it comes to water management, there’s something of potential value that Victoria could learn from Western Australia’s weather given discussions about new dams If you have almost 60 days straight of above 30 degree days with pretty much no rain, how do you fill the dam? Well you don’t but you’ve put all of…

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What natural disasters tell us about societies

Mar 16, 2011

The natural disasters we’ve seen recently around the world have shown us much about the communities in which they’ve occurred. The images emerging from Japan, New Zealand and Australia as they’ve faced earthquakes, tsumanis, floods and fires stands on stark contrast to the mainstream media stories that suggests people of the world are not willing…

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What to do when phone lines go down

Mar 6, 2011

Hi everyone – a quick note to let you know that our phones lines have been down for a while now and we are working on getting them fixed. Our apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused you. In the meantime, try using either our 1800 number where you can leave a message only…

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Can GM Foods feed the world?

Feb 28, 2011

ABC journalist Adam Stephen interviews Marcus Barber on the subject of GM foods and whether they might be more widely embraced as part of the global food requirements   The interview (about 3& 1/2 mins) is available in MP3 format here and a link to the shorter web article is here.  Some key points –…

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A Vision for Australian Manufacturing

Feb 16, 2011

South East Business Networks, the City of Greater Dandenong’s longest running business development program, is an exceptional avenue for learning about issues to do with Manufacturing. This week they provided one ‘out of the box’ with an excellent presentation by Professor Goran Roos, a worldclass expert on Manufacturing and currently South Australia’s Thinker in Residence.…

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