Get a certificate in proven methodologies to build futures forecasting skills, convene futures conversations, and develop future-ready strategies to help you and your stakeholders thrive in an uncertain future.
IFTF Foresight Essentials is a one-of-a-kind course designed to help people develop their skills in the art and science of foresight. As a participant, you'll learn to make sense of the constant stream of news and information; develop a more confident perspective on the next decade for your sector; transform your foresight into actionable insights; and create your own experiments in future making. After the training, you'll be prepared with the skills and mindset to better anticipate the future and make smarter decisions in the present.
Studies have shown that generating emotional responses is far richer — and more effective — in strategic thinking and decision-making than pure rational analysis. So how do you build future worlds that people can “pre-experience,” in order to make better decision today? Led by award-winning design futurists, this course will guide you step-by-step on how to build future worlds, design scenes from the future, create artifacts, and more.
In times of high uncertainty, one essential foresight method helps us capture and communicate extreme complexity — alternative futures scenarios. Scenarios allow us to pre-experience not one, but multiple futures, so we can better anticipate opportunities, risks, and coming changes. Dive deep into our Jim Dator-inspired alt futures scenario method with IFTF senior researchers and learn how to build more surprising, actionable, and plausible scenarios.
IFTF’s Three Horizons of AI — can help ready you for the AI-powered future. With IFTF as your guide, you’ll learn techniques for interpreting the extraordinary pace of change in AI today, while developing practical, long-term perspectives for you and your organization or community.
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IFTF delivers time-tested, practical, highly engaging foresight learning experiences. For over five decades, our staff has worked with leaders in the private, public, and non-profit sectors to help build future-ready organizations and communities.
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IFTF Foresight Awareness for Philanthropy is a 90-minute, introductory-level online learning experience to jumpstart your process of using strategic foresight within your philanthropic organization.
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Foresight is the ability to think effectively about how the future might be different, so you can prepare for anything and start to make changes in your own life and in society. IFTF Fast Futures is a 90-minute, introductory-level online learning experience that will jump start your imagination and build your creative forecasting muscles.
Are you looking for an introductory, self-paced, self-guided futures-thinking immersion — one where you can take your time and work on more personal futures projects? This course, led by IFTF researcher and best-selling author Jane McGonigal, is packed with curated essential futurist readings, fundamentals of foresight, custom video content, and peer-reviewed assignments — all online on the proven skills-building Coursera learning platform.
COVID-19 is a roller-coaster ride we will all be on for years to come. With the skills you build in this self-paced online course, such as learning to spot the four patterns of change that occur during any period of crisis or major disruption, you will be better able to see the ups and downs coming before you get there. And you'll feel more in control of what happens next, as you learn to use the Institute for the Future's post-pandemic Toolkit for Transformation.