Back to Urgent Optimism: How to Turn Foresight into Action
Institute for the Future

Urgent Optimism: How to Turn Foresight into Action

When you get better at thinking about the future, you get better at changing the future. This course will help you take all of the foresight skills you’ve developed so far and apply them to making real positive change in your life, in your work, and in the world around you. You’ll learn how to create and share “preferred futures”, which are highly persuasive, compelling visions of the changes you want to make real. You’ll use your preferred future to identify obstacles, recruit allies, collect resources, and plan action to make your vision real. You’ll also practice making “artifacts” from the future, which are creative representations of how everyday life might be different in the future. Artifacts can inspire others to join you in your quest to make a preferred future real. Leading futurists from the Institute for the Future will share with you their favorite future artifacts – and walk you through the entire creative process it took to make them. Every action we take today changes the future. This course will help you identify and take the actions that make the BIGGEST, most strategic impacts on the most urgent challenges you and society face. Many thanks to the Enlight Foundation and the Enlight Collaborative, which provided a grant to support the creation of this course.

Status: Persuasive Communication
Status: Creative Thinking
BeginnerCourse11 hours

Featured reviews

AZ

5.0Reviewed Jul 18, 2021

This course is the best of the conclusions in this specialization. I would never regret taking this course

DW

5.0Reviewed Aug 26, 2022

Terrific - practical, interesting, well structured, and highly engaging. Definitely recommend!

NK

5.0Reviewed May 9, 2020

Incredibly important class if you want to be a futurist or an entrepreneur, or even if you want to understand the future. 100% recommend this, you are not wasting time, rather you will be gaining it.

BB

5.0Reviewed Dec 25, 2020

Great Course by all standards. Prepares one for what is yet to come

JC

5.0Reviewed Dec 4, 2020

Worth taking it. Applicable skills in other fields; transferrable soft skills in any job.

RG

4.0Reviewed Jun 30, 2020

It´s interesting, the professor gives useful tools, i think they could make it shorter, there's repeating parts that could be avoid, also I haven't got my diploma.

SM

5.0Reviewed Jun 4, 2020

The whole specialisation is a necessary foundation step to get into critical thinking about what the future might bring and how we can start to influence it. Lots of food for thoughts, and ACTION!

PM

5.0Reviewed Jan 26, 2023

I loved this courese and learnt so much. The tools are practical, well explained and demonstrated and I can't wait to put them to use in my work

KG

4.0Reviewed May 8, 2020

Excellent case studies presented. The skills taught and tools used are relevant to bringing changes and identifying futures

ZC

5.0Reviewed Apr 10, 2020

I found it really useful and interesting. A lot of practical tools and tips for my current work

VD

5.0Reviewed Feb 5, 2021

This entire specialization is awesome! I enjoyed every minute! Thank you!

DK

5.0Reviewed Apr 11, 2020

Brought all the previous learnings together and learned lots of tools to carry the concepts forward.

All reviews

Showing: 20 of 63

Nathan Kohl
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Reviewed May 9, 2020
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Reviewed Jun 5, 2020
Dr. Joseph Nyamwange
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5.0
Reviewed Oct 15, 2022
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5.0
Reviewed Jun 21, 2021
Andrea Kuhfuss
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Reviewed Jul 16, 2023
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Reviewed Jan 26, 2023
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5.0
Reviewed Jul 19, 2021
カワカミDavi
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Danielle Kayal
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Fernando Mejía Rondón
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Zahara Chetty
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Reviewed Apr 11, 2020
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Reviewed Aug 27, 2022
John Anthony Go Co
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Reviewed Feb 2, 2024