Houston Foresight Turns 50

“We are still here,” cried special guest Morpheus at the UH Foresight 50^th Anniversary Celebration from May 1-3.

Higher education has not been kind to foresight programs. Ours is the first grad program dedicated to foresight to make it to 50 years. Many have come and gone over the years, and we had our own near-death-experience in the mid-2000s. We won’t dwell on the lack of foresight in higher ed here … rather let’s celebrate a phenomenal Spring Gathering.

We rented a proper conference venue for this one and for the first time asked people to pay a registration fee. Previous events held on campus were free (except for travel expenses). The larger venue enabled us to run as many as six sessions at a time. By comparison, we had Gatherings in the past with six sessions total!

The conference itself was organized in three parts:

• Friday morning honored the past 50 years by focusing on the history of the program.
• Friday afternoon focused on the present with the various activities of the Foresight Activation Lab.
• Saturday was themed around the next 50 years by focusing on the future of the field and futurists.

Friday morning featured a plenary kickoff by long-time Program Chair Peter Bishop and closed with an engaging panel discussion featuring “wise elders” Paul Fama, Terry Grim, Ken Hamik, Mary Jane Naquin, Lisa and Tim Sullivan and MCd by Garry Golden. In between, sessions focused on futures storytelling, futures books, movies, and games as well as a curated artifact museum.

Friday afternoon’s Lab session featured a combination of client partner sessions sharing collaborations, including the UNDP, Knowledge Works, Envision Greenbay, and APF. There was also an alumni refresher on the HAT (Houston Archetype Technique) as well as student nominees and award winners sharing their prize-winning works.

Saturday’s future day was a wide-open multi-track festival. Adam Cowart ran a continuous day-long (actually started on Friday afternoon) “Futures of Futures” session, including a somatic futures session and another on crafting futures artifacts. The results from this 1.5 day inquiry were presented as the closing plenary. Alongside this session were several experiential futures exhibitions by Design Futures students, as well as topical sessions on futures tools, future futurists, and the future of the field.

There was also an informal hello in the now infamous “Suite 702” that got things rolling on Thursday evening (and each evening thereafter). Friday evening featured a “Planetary Party” activity led by Hauson Le, in which participants were in fall costume regalia. Saturday night featured a plated dinner followed by an awards ceremony that honored graduates as well as nominees for the APF Student Recognition Awards, and winners of the Houston Foresight Awards.

Thanks to the conference planning team: Juli Rush (Chair), Kiran Carpenter, Ashley Chiarelli, Andy Hines, April Koury, and Nicci Obert.

Wow, right? The energy was crackling. It was a truly festive atmosphere that suggested the spirit of Houston Foresight is alive and well and ready for the next 50 years. – Andy Hines