Resource Library — Dubai Future Foundation

Insights Hub

Book & Play Club

We are featuring these books to inspire you to read, reflect, and engage with the ideas shaping our collective future. Each title has been selected for its ability to challenge assumptions, spark imagination, and provoke dialogue about what lies ahead. As part of this growing initiative, we invite you to join our newly launched Book & Play Club, debuting at the 2025 Edition of the Dubai Future Forum – a space for readers, thinkers, and changemakers to connect directly with authors, game creators and fellow futurists. Together, we’ll explore the stories, research, and games that help us understand the forces transforming our world.

We are excited to share that starting January 2026, we will be gathering every two months for a new community book circle – each session featuring a Q&A session with an author. If you would like to stay updated on book selections, meeting details, and upcoming announcements, sign up for updates here.

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Books

Maggie Jackson’s Uncertain is a guide to thriving in chaotic times by turning not-knowing into an advantage. Blending science with real-world stories—from labs to AI—she shows how embracing doubt sharpens thinking, fuels creativity and teamwork, and builds resilience. Uncertainty isn’t a flaw; it’s a trainable skill for clarity and innovation

Breaking Bias is your invitation to embark on a journey that will radically change your experience and show you how you can help reshape our world. It’s a comprehensive and readable guide for anyone who wants to understand and unlearn conscious and unconscious biases.

This book demystifies the process of Futures Thinking into a language that’s practical and useful for both designers and strategists. You’ll learn about Strategic Foresight for using ideas about the future to anticipate and prepare for change; explore Speculative Design to deal with the relationship between science, technology, and humans; and Design Fiction to explore and critique possible futures.

A chilling dual-voice thriller set in Gallup, New Mexico, where a serial killer preys on Native victims while hiding behind a façade of normalcy. As the body count rises, embattled detective and forensic photographer Rita Todacheene—haunted by the ghosts of the dead and distrusted by her colleagues—must decide whether to walk away from police work or confront the killer only she can stop.

Adam Kahane shows that true collaboration isn’t about harmony or agreement but about working with those we may dislike, distrust, or oppose. Drawing on experiences tackling democracy, jobs, and climate change, he offers a new model of collaboration—one that embraces conflict, experimentation, and genuine co-creation to achieve what matters most.

Set off West Africa’s coast after the Atlantic’s deadly rise, survivors crowd into five towering high-rises where the elite rule from above and the poor languish below the waves. But in the depths, those once left to drown have been revived by an ancient power—and they are coming back for revenge.

Synthesizing Futures is a methodology by Futurity Studio, which provides the tools to help actively co-create our futures. Its unique approach tackles futures from a truly multidisciplinary lens, encompassing business, strategy, design, science, and engineering that is reflected in the combined decades of experience in innovation, deep tech analysis, and design.

Any approach that helps people, not just futurists, take a pause and look beyond surface trends to recognize deeper patterns is already a step forward for human thinking. When it also shows how to turn those patterns into potential disruptive innovations through a logical and structured method, it becomes a way to gain confidence and overcome resistance.

Games

Buzzing Futures is an interactive discussion game that explores the future of ecosystems through pollinators, blending storytelling, systems thinking, and play to inspire reflection on biodiversity, food security, and sustainability.

Storytelling card game designed to help players imagine and articulate multiple futures. It emphasizes creativity, dialogue, and critical reflection on the role of technology and values in shaping the world to come

The Participatory Futures Global Swarm is a collaborative collective of futurists, researchers, designers, pracademics, and enthusiasts focused on crafting more inclusive, imaginative, and impactful participatory futures engagements.

A speculative design toolkit to spark imagination and provoke values-driven transitions towards sustainable futures.

AfroRithms from the Future is a cooperative design, exploration, and storytelling game that centers Black and Indigenous perspectives.

Are you a futurist, trends explorer, foresight specialist? Explore our Foresight Games Showcase! Created by 4CF The Futures Literacy Company in cooperation with the Global Futures Society (GFS) for the Dubai Future Forum 2024. It’s a beautifully human-illustrated, interesting way to explore alternative perspectives and engage in critical reflection, even for seasoned futurists.

Fast Forward to 2028 is a 30 – 40 min cooperative game for 2-5 people about time travelers making decisions that will determine the trajectory of the future.

A Card Game for exploring AI Future. The game encourages players to develop both positive and negative future scenarios and challenges assumptions

PODCASTS

Dubai Future Forum 2024 Rewind

Sessions: Day 1

Sessions: Day 2

Podcasts

Recorded live at the Dubai Future Forum 2024, these podcasts feature honest and thoughtful conversations with speakers and guests who shared their ideas about the future.

Podcasts By

Podcast by Luke Robert Mason as he speaks with leading scientists, technologists, artists, and philosophers shaping our possible tomorrows. From bold predictions to critical questions, this podcast dives into the ideas that could redefine our future
🎙️ The episodes below were recorded live at the Dubai Future Forum 2024.