The Houston Foresight program was once again well represented at the WFS/APF annual conference held this year in Washington DC from July 22-24. Congratulations to Julie Steele and the new team at WFS for simply pulling this conference off, given that they took over only a few months before the conference. As usual, I spent more time focusing on APF matters, an doing a lot of catching up with old friends.
WFS Best of Houston
Our 16th “Best of Houston” session was another great success. The students shared the highlights of their projects as well as commenting on their experiences as foresight students. This year’s session featured four students:katie johan eric ciara 1

 
APF Activities
The APF had its sold-out Pro Development Day at the Hillyer Art Space in the artsy Adams Morgan neighborhood. [Apologies to anyone who was unable to get in – the room was packed to capacity]. It was a very lively mix of advice, talks, and group discussions. My personal favorite was a two-hour reflection by Hawaii futurist Jim Dator on his career as a futurist.
The 2016 APF Most Significant Futures Works Awards were announced on Saturday evening. I have been involved with running this program since its inception and I think it’s really important to recognize good foresight work. I am very pleased to note that our own Professor Emeritus Oliver Markley has become a two-time winner of the MSFW award. He won a prize for editing the “Symposium on Intuition in Futures Work,” an article collection published in the Journal of Futures Studies. The full list of winners is below:
Category 1 Advance The Methodology And Practice Of Foresight And Futures Studies (Note: All three are equal winners….no “places”

  • Scenario Exploration System; Laurent Bontoux (JRC), Daniel Bengtsson (former JRC), Aaron B. Rosa (HRCFS), John A. Sweeney (HRCFS/CPPFS)
  • Symposium on Intuition in Futures Work, Edited by Oliver Markley, Article collection, Journal of Futures Studies, Sept. 2015.
  • What Works, by Sohail Inayatullah

Category 2 Analyze a Significant Future Issue

  • The Future of Protein. The Protein Challenge 2040: Shaping the Future of Food. Forum for the Future, Report, 2014.

Category 3:  Illuminate the Future Through Literary Or Artistic Works

  • Humans Need Not Apply, by CGP Grey, Video

 
We did not have any winners at the APF Student Recognition competition this year. It suggests increasingly tough competition. Last year, our students swept the individual graduate school category, and I thought this year entries were quite on par. So, it’s like we’ll have to up our game for next year!
In Other News….
Dr. Hines gave the pre-conference Master class “Introduction to Foresight,” which is a terrific opportunity to introduce people to the future, and how we teach the future at Houston Foresight. He also presented the final version of the APF Foresight Competency Model. He and the team worked on it for much of the last year, and it was great to see it come to fruition. – Andy Hines