In the coming weeks, the Houston Foresight blog will feature guest posts from members of the Student Needs 2025+ teams to share insights from their research and the implications of what they found.
Thanks to UH Foresight alum Christopher Manfredi for sharing what his team has learned about students’ Participating needs in 2025.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
-George Washington
Overcoming The Dangerous Servant
At the inception of the United States, even the founding fathers felt government could sometimes be unreasonable. But in the past few years, “unreasonable” has meant the people’s government has come to to a near standstill. Congress has had approval numbers lower than cockroaches and laws go unpassed at unprecedented rates. The country is in the grips of a major stalemate as Democrats and Republicans bicker with no break in t
he impasse in sight.
So what will the students of the future be able to do about this stoppage of the great American democracy? How about this?: Craft your own infrastructure. Enact your own policies. Make government better without….the government to get in your way.
William Eggers in 2006 called this Government 2.0, and Douglas Rushkoff named it the Open Source Democracy. It’s a government in which students and citizens create their own transparency, build their own applications to better their cities, and create groups to tackle huge problems. In 2025+, participation is so much more than voting.
This is the future of NationCraft, a future where citizens do not forget about government…they reimagine government.
What is Nationcraft?
Centered in a tiered system of local, federal, and global issues framing, the students have the ability to craft new governments in a variety of different ways:
– Build technological platforms or civic hacks to better their cities and country
– Engage in issues while in school and find ways to lead fight for global causes
– Volunteer to have their votes and voices heard
– Amplify government transformation through digital activism
– Connect to the city’s information hub
– Engage students with their concerns via social media
This means that students have the ability to shape the government as they see fit with the right access and attitudes to fix issues as they arise. Will they be able to see their ideas shine through? Could they even craft legislation or vote via a cell phone?
What Could Go Wrong? A Nation of Hacks, Corporate Grabs, and The End of Privacy
These new pursuits are not without their dangers to privacy, security, and the economic security of the United States. In order to participate in their governments in this new world, people will have to be willing to have a more open and free space for data and technology to take charge. Will students open up their lives and pocket books to see this new government be able to take shape? Or will something more nefarious make a turn?
There are many pivot points that may slow down this rejuvenation of a nation. For instance, legislation or power grabs among those who fear change or disagree with the hacktivist methods could shut them down.
In another scenario, , corporations may move in to call the shots. People may see corporations as the way out as they may promote a more efficient way to lead societal issues. This could be called the rise of a true oligarch state, Corporate World, where the government has been made obsolete due to inaction or inability to make meaningful decisions.
Public Participation and the Student Needs of the Future
In order for students of the future to be able to participate successfully with their government for the benefit of society, there must be a delicate balance between technological action and the global good. Universities that want to cater to their students must give them access to ways to improve their towns, country, and the world while ensuring their students’ security and ways of life. Students cannot be afraid to want to participate in this new world of government change. This will make certain they see positive outcomes rather than more of the same slow progress.
Universities should be havens of connections, flexible in their pursuits to be places of human action and make sure they are not beholden to masters beyond what their student’s need. Students will want to craft their own future in a new era of government reinvention that they can be an integral part of what has many intriguing possibilities, with every action step, voice heard, or data point reached, a world of fast government acts could sweep slow and large changes that affect every the public in positive directions.
One thing is for sure that the world of participation will include tons of action in building from tools to connections to organizational swells. It’s a block by block NationCraft.
The University of Houston Foresight program is exploring the future of Student Needs 2025 and Beyond for the Lumina Foundation, a leading higher education foundation with a goal of raising higher educational attainment levels from 40% today to 60% in 2025. We are tasked with providing Lumina a view of how student needs are evolving over the next dozen or so years. Put simply, could changes in student needs alter the equation of what higher education will need to providing by 2025 and beyond?
To map the student needs landscape of the future, the Houston Foresight program has assembled a team of two dozen faculty, alums, and students organized around six teams exploring evolving student needs related to living, learning, working, playing, connecting, and participating. We are using Houston’s Framework Foresight process to produce forecasts of student needs and identify the implications and issues they suggest for higher education.
Follow us on Twitter at @houstonfutures and join the conversation at #studentneeds2025.
