Written by Laura Pouru

The themes of futures literacy and futures thinking were strongly present at the this year’s Dare to Learn -learning festival, held on September 18th-19th in Helsinki.

Dare to Learn is the biggest learning festival in Northern Europe. It is a two-day learning festival that brings together learning enthusiasts around the globe to explore the new world of lifelong learning. The program consists of keynotes, hands-on-workshops, fireside chats, etc. different types of sessions.

Markku Wilenius was one of the invited keynote speakers of the festival. Markku asked the audience of 650 listeners if they are aware of whose image of the future they are using and challenged them to reclaim their future. He also explained why we need futures literacy in the complex 21st century world and how futures literacy consists of cognitive, emotional and active skills.

After Markku’s keynote we ran a workshop on imagining sustainable futures together with Tulevaisuuskoulu – The School of Future. In the  2-hour-workshop 30 participants got first a brief theoretical introduction to futures thinking by Otto Tähkäpää and Laura Pouru and then explored alternative futures on time travel led by Teija Peura and Ilpo Rybatzki.  The workshop was based on creative, playful futures thinking methods that Tulevaisuuskoulu has developed for exploring futures with children, but also the grown-up participants found them fun and inspiring.