LEARNING DAYS
This year, the Dubai Future Forum’s signature learning experience expands into two full days – 17 & 20 November – dedicated to building the mindsets and skillsets needed to navigate an uncertain future. Through a dynamic mix of hands-on workshops, interactive labs, and collaborative sessions, participants will explore how to apply strategic foresight in practice – from scenario design and systems thinking to anticipatory governance and future literacy. Designed for futurists, policymakers, researchers, and change-makers, Learning Days 2025 focuses on learning through doing, fostering peer exchange, and encouraging cross-sector collaboration.
Building on the momentum of the first day, Learning Day 2 on 20 November focuses on translating foresight into action through immersive exercises and practice-based sessions. Participants will engage in hands-on workshops, scenario labs, and creative provocations that challenge conventional thinking about systems, power, and inclusion. The day explores how futures methods can inform strategy and innovation across domains – from artificial intelligence and planetary governance to resilient urban design and social transformation. It invites participants to move from analysis to experimentation, testing new models for collaboration, policy, and design that bridge long-term vision with near-term impact. Learning Day 2 embodies the Dubai Future Forum’s commitment to “futures in practice,” offering an environment where ideas evolve into tangible frameworks for equitable, adaptive, and sustainable futures.
Spaces for these sessions are limited. Registration is required. Details on how to register will be published soon.
DFA AUDITORIUM,
EMIRATES TOWERS
09:30 – 12:30
Designing Tomorrow Together:
How Should We Rethink Power,
Systems, and Inclusion?
Facilitator
Navin Haram
Facilitator
Hannah-Sophie Wahle
Facilitator
Jimena Califa
14:00 – 17:00
Radical Change Waves: What Does It Take to Build Lasting Futures?
Facilitator
Julienne DeVita
Liminal
Facilitator
Eric Popiel
Strategic Workforce and
Foresight Specialist
OUTDOOR GARDEN,
DUBAI FUTURE LABS
09:30 – 12:30
Rewilding the Boardroom:
How Might Business Change if Nature
had a Voice and a Vote?
Step into Dubai’s first Living Boardroom, where nature claims its rightful role as shareholder, cofounder, and decision-maker. In this immersive workshop, you’ll learn and experience how to bring nature’s intelligence from people leading nature-centred progress about how to bring the intelligence of nature into the organisations of the future, and how we might work together to help nature-centred organisations thrive on our planet.
Facilitator
Andres Roberts
Facilitator
Adib Dada
Facilitator
Tariq Al Olaimy
3BL Associates
Facilitator
Leena Al Olaimy
Diversity on Board
14:00 – 17:00
The Futures Within:
Are you Ready for a Playful Journey
into Personal Foresight?
Facilitator
Mathias Behn
Bjørnhof
Bjørnhof
ANITICIPATE
Facilitator
Darwin Antipolo
pxd labs
3D CLASSROOM,
DUBAI FUTURE ACADEMY
09:30 – 12:30
New Lenses for the Age of AI: How Can Futurists and Others Think
Differently – and Better?
This workshop will explore how AI is changing the process of sense making broadly and the field of foresight in particular. It will explore various lenses from different fields that can be used to make sense of AI and anticipate how it may drive transformation – complex adaptive systems, the commons and polarity management. It will then ask what specific implications each lens, and all the lenses together, have for the future of the foresight profession.
Facilitator
Dexter Docherty
Facilitator
Karolina Schütt
Facilitator
Dr Aaron Maniam
University of Oxford
Facilitator
Leonardo Quattrucci
Centre for Future Generations
14:00 – 17:00
Building a Star Alliance
in Futures Studies: From Quality Standards to a Global Masters
This expert meeting explores how to strengthen the quality and collaboration within the rapidly expanding field of futures studies. Bringing together leading practitioners and institutions, it aims to develop a “Star Alliance” model for the field – enhancing global and regional networks, improving teaching standards, fostering certification pathways, and connecting online and in-person learning through these networks and key partners.
Facilitator
Dr Sohail Inayatullah
UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies
MBRCGI,
EMIRATES TOWERS
09:30 – 12:30
From Theory to Practice:
Co-creating Future Ready Urban Strategies
Join DM’s Future Foresight team in a hands-on workshop to explore the future of cities. Using the interactive Scenario Vignettes methodology, participants will co-create strategies to tackle complex urban challenges. This session offers a unique opportunity to apply foresight tools, challenge assumptions, and contribute to building more resilient urban environments. Discover how strategic foresight is shaping Dubai’s next chapter and walk away with practical tools to apply in your own organization.
Facilitator
Dr Mohammed Ali
14:00 – 17:00
Digital Futures Unplugged: Rethinking Connection, Control, and Choice
Digital technologies increasingly shape every aspect of human life, disrupting the status quo with growing speed. Join the MDDI Futures team to explore possible digital futures – from total immersion in technology to collective retreat from it. Together, we’ll examine how unpredictable human behaviour intersects with innovation and imagine new narratives for more meaningful relationships between people and the tools we create.
Facilitator
Sumana Prasad
Facilitator
Liana Tang
Facilitator
Seema Gail Parkash
Facilitator
Klinsen Soh
CODERS HQ,
EMIRATES TOWERS
09:30 – 12:30
Vision to Velocity: What if the Global South is at Forefront
of Foresight Development?
This workshop offers a live incubation space to co-create a sustainable, collaborative infrastructure for foresight across the Global South. Building on the legacy of Foresight for Development, it will prototype a scalable platform for shared knowledge, collective intelligence, and regional cooperation – advancing decentralized, equitable, and future-oriented governance in alignment with the Dubai Future Forum’s mission to drive systemic global change.
Facilitator
Dr Geci Karuri-Sebina
Southern Africa Node of
the Millennium Project
Facilitator
Dr Olugbenga Adesida
African Innovation Foundation
14:00 – 17:00
The Future Value Dilemma: How Much Future is Too Much?
This workshop explores the ethical tension at the heart of future-oriented policy: the “future value paradox.” As long termism gains influence, how do we balance the wellbeing of present generations with uncertain distant futures? Through immersive exercises blending foresight, behavioural economics, and speculative modelling, participants will expose where our value systems break – and reimagine governance frameworks grounded in justice, realism, and resilience.
Facilitator
Roberto Ottolino
Facilitator
Dr Luca Simeone
ATÖLYE DUBAI HUB,
EMIRATES TOWERS
09:30 – 12:30
Power of Communities: How Can We Co-Create
Innovation That Lasts?
Facilitator
TBC
14:00 – 17:00
Making Futures Work: How Do We Turn Visions into
Roadmaps That Deliver?
Facilitator
Phil Balagatas
HABITAT
CREATORS HQ,
EMIRATES TOWERS
09:30 – 12:30
Tomorrow’s Children, Today’s Voices: An Intergenerational Unconference
Coinciding with World Children’s Day, this youth-led “unconference” brings together adolescents, adults, and renowned futurists Bill Sharpe and Peter Bishop to co-create the futures of childhood. Using a range of foresight tools like UNICEF and DFF’s Future Child Persona Methodology, participants will imagine alternative futures for every child – through intergenerational dialogue, hands-on futuring, and a rare moment where world-leading futurists become keynote listeners.
NEW ECONOMY ACADEMY,
EMIRATES TOWERS
09:30 – 12:30
Foresight in Crisis Management:
Which Lessons from the near future for
the distant future?
This workshop explores how organizations use foresight in crisis management through rapid scenario development. After reviewing real-world case studies, participants will engage in a lean, scenario-driven exercise – acting as a foresight team for a hypothetical organization to create plausible crisis futures in real time. The session offers a practical introduction to techniques for quickly generating scenarios for near-term challenges and decision-making under uncertainty.
Facilitator
Steven Curnin
Facilitator
Benjamin Brooks
BOCA RESTAURANT,
GATE VILLAGE 6, DIFC
11:30 – 14:30
From Lifespan to Healthspan: How Can We Reimagine Aging as an
Opportunity through Foresight?
Longevity is one of the defining opportunities of our century; yet aging is often seen as a burden rather than a catalyst for innovation. This session reframes longevity as a source of creativity and societal transformation, exploring how futures thinking can shape healthier, longer lives. It concludes with a lunch curated by BOCA’s chef, featuring ingredients inspired by the past, present, and future of longevity.
Facilitator
Chloé de Ruffray
Trend Researcher &
Cultural Analyst
Facilitator
Benjamin Brooks
Strategic Innovation and
Foresight Specialist
Host
Omar Shihab
Founder of BOCA Restaurant