Over 80% of people living in Canada reside in cities. The decisions that municipal leaders make today will impact so many of us, yet in the current environment of constrained financial resources, many cities struggle to incorporate futures thinking into their decision making processes.

To build the capacity of Canadian municipal staff to apply strategic foresight tools, Creative Futures launched a national foresight capacity-building program called Open Scan. Open Scan invited municipal staff to learn, share and discuss emerging changes, and their implications.

Open Scan was initiated as part of a Special Award received from the Next Generation Foresight Practitioner Fellow program. The program is designed to accelerate the transformative potential of the next generation of changemakers envisioning inclusive and equitable futures globally.

Our Approach:

• A foresight capacity-building program for municipal innovators exploring Canadian cities in 2040.

• Designed and facilitated four virtual interactive sessions over the course of two months to identify emerging disruptions and understand the range of their impacts.

• Synthesized signals of change into summary report available for other municipal innovators.

Results:

Based on the success of the inaugural Open Scan cohort, Creative Futures has launched new training programs for city building innovators. Learn more.