What are the possibilities for the future in a post-pandemic world?

An Opportunity for Fresh Perspectives

While the world grapples with the current unfolding crisis, as futurists we know how important it is to also be thinking about the next horizon and beyond. This can help ensure that the decisions we make today do not simply lay the foundation for a new set of problems over the horizon. Equally, understanding the types of future that might emerge post-crisis can help us plan and prepare for those possibilities as we reshape our strategies today. Finally, such future insights might help us spot, train for, and adapt to the new opportunities, risks, and challenges that could arise as a post-pandemic world unfolds.

A Global Collaboration

In response to the need for future perspectives, Fast Future wanted to create this fast track book, which draws on the expertise, insight, ambition, and vision of twenty five future thinkers from around the world. The goal is to provide individuals, leaders, and organizations with foresight, insight, challenge, visionary thinking, and navigational guidance on what lies ahead.

Scenarios for A Post-Pandemic Future

The common goal of this group of writers is to provide provocations that will take the public discourse beyond the current debate. The aim is to acknowledge their importance and think about how we can create a safer and more sustainable world beyond reproduction numbers, testing strategies, personal protective equipment, lockdown policies, vaccination, and economic support. As many have said, a crisis is an ideal time to reset our thinking, refocus our strategies and policies, and try new ideas designed to lay the foundation for the next the future and what comes after that. A future that the authors believe can be fairer, more inclusive, more transparent, and more sustainable for all.

Four Core Themes

The concise, insightful, and action enabling ideas and provocations in this book are presented as an exploration of possible scenarios and development paths across four key domains that we believe should be if interest politicians, business leaders, civil society activities, and most importantly, the ordinary citizens of this planet:

Critical shifts – exploring the developments taking place across every aspect of our collective thinking as a result of the pandemic experience.

Society and Social Policy – examining the implications and opportunities for the fabric and infrastructure of society  as we look to tackle both the existing persistent challenges and the new ones that have arisen through the crisis, framing an agenda for what could be developed in what many commentators are calling  the future “new normal”.

Government and Economy – assessing how governments are and should be grappling with the challenges and consequences of balancing health and economic protection and recovery during and post-pandemic.

Business and Technology – outlining the possible implications, opportunities, and choices for business and our use of technology. Exploring how we might solve critical questions posed by the pandemic and lay the foundation for the future across health, education, social structures, commerce, and the design of our organizations.

Contents

To help readers explore the many issues and opportunities on the post-pandemic global change agenda, the four sections of the book cover the following underlying topics:

INTRODUCTION

Aftershocks and Opportunities – Scenarios for a Post-Pandemic Future By Rohit Talwar, Steve Wells, and Alexandra Whittington

PART 1: CRITICAL SHIFTS AND SCENARIOS

Navigating A New Landscape – Rohit Talwar, Alexandra Whittington, and Steve Wells – Futurists, Fast Future, UK / USA

A New Planetary Narrative- Sohail Inayatullah, UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies at USIM, Malaysia

A Laboratory for the Future – Liselotte Lyngsø, futurist and Managing Partner of Future Navigator, Denmark

World War Contagion—Strategies in the Fight Against Our Common Enemy – Miranda Mantey, researcher, foresight practitioner, and strategist at ATB Financial, Canada

Five Ways Our Post-Lockdown World Could Change for the Better – Sheila Moorcroft, futurist and director of Realising Your Future, UK

The Pandemic and the Medical Enlightenment – Jerry Edling, broadcaster, editor, and writer for KNX Los Angeles, USA

Does the Proverbial Cloud Created by the Pandemic of 2020 Have a Silver Lining? – Paul Plant, independent strategy consultant and Chief Listening Officer of Radicle Consulting, UK

The Case for New Progressive, Socially Focused Economic Initiatives – Dr Bruce Lloyd, Emeritus Professor of Strategic Management at London South Bank University, UK

PART 2: SOCIETY AND SOCIAL POLICY

Retroshock: A Return to Roots – Eleanor “Nell” Watson, Technology researcher, ethicist and reformer, and an AI Faculty member at Singularity University, Belgium

Policing the New Normal – Katherine Van Gurp (CEO) and Mike Richmond (Foresight Advisor), Australia New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency

This IS a Drill—Preparing for the Next Pandemic – Morgan D. Kauffman, is a futurist, systems modeler, and data scientist, USA

Preparing for a New Way of Being – Julia Paulette Hollenbery, therapist, teacher, and author, UK

The Generation Zoom Classroom – Sylvia Gallusser, futurist and researcher at Silicon Humanism, USA

When the Future was Bright – Joe Tankersley, futurist, author, and former leader of Walt Disney Imagineering’s foresight group, USA

The Post Pandemic Home – Alexandra Whittington, global futurist and foresight director at Fast Future, USA

PART 3: GOVERNMENT AND ECONOMY

Post-Pandemic Government – A Futurist Perspective – Rohit Talwar, Alexandra Whittington, and Steve Wells – Futurists, Fast Future, UK / USA

More Aware, More Agile, More Alive – David W. Wood, futurist, Chair of London Futurists, and Principal of Delta Wisdom, UK

Using the Crisis to Remake Government for the Future – Geoff Mulgan, Professor of Collective Intelligence, Public Policy, and Social Innovation at University College London, UK

The Great Separation – Bronwyn Williams, futurist, economist, and trend analyst and a partner at Flux Trends and Apollo 42, South Africa

Which Way America? Four Alternative Futures – Leland Shupp, foresight and design led company growth strategist and principal at Lee Shupp Consulting, USA

Reshaping the Economic Agenda – Rohit Talwar, Alexandra Whittington, and Steve Wells – Futurists, Fast Future, UK / USA

PART 4: BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY

Snapback—Don’t Expect a Post-Pandemic Remote Working Boom – Tom Cheesewright, applied futurist working with governments and global 500 companies, UK

Transformative Re-Structuring – Alida Draudt, foresight strategist, Strategy Director at AKQA, and an Adjunct Professor at California College of the Arts, USA

Navigating the Post-Pandemic Economy—Doing Business at the Speed of Change – Rob Caldera, foresight and change practitioner and owner and managing principal of Future|Shift Consulting, USA

The Rise of Personal Digital Twins – Roberto Saracco, freelance consultant, writer on technology innovation, co-chair of the IEEE Digital Reality Initiative, USA

The Next Futures of Organizations, Work, and the Workplace – Rohit Talwar, Alexandra Whittington, and Steve Wells – Futurists, Fast Future, UK / USA

CONCLUSION

The Change Agenda for a Post-Pandemic World – Rohit Talwar, Alexandra Whittington, and Steve Wells – Futurists, Fast Future, UK / USA