First published in SOIF MD Cat Tully’s Substack page.
We are excited to introduce The Exchange – a shared transformative foresight intergenerational exchange programme between older and younger practitioners to build solidarity and hold cross-generational spaces for learning and sharing. This initiative emerges in response to growing global tensions and the need for collective capability to navigate transition.
Why
SOIF is launching an intergenerational exchange network for people who identify as being part of a foresight for transformation community. We believe that intergenerational exchange generates new perspectives, and that insights from past system transformations have vital relevance for the moment of change we are in. These can be re-energised and carried forward by futures-informed activists.
We are living through a critical inflection point. A cohort of seasoned foresight and systems transformation practitioners have retired. Much of their work aimed at academic or business audiences is documented. But their most powerful, less-visible work—often unpaid, marginal, or informal—remains undocumented. As with so much important systems transformation practice, these stories have often been conducted under the radar, making their insights vulnerable to being lost.
We risk reinventing the wheel just when we most need insights from those who lived through and shaped cultural and power shifts in previous decades, including the 1960s and 1980s. Their hard-won wisdom can speak directly to the turbulence we face today.
So we ask:
- What are the lessons from the past on using foresight as a tool for powerful brokering of futures?
- How can the field be prepared for the turbulence ahead?
- What qualities, capabilities and values are required at moments of inflection?
- Can intergenerational learning within the foresight for transformation community help us meet this moment?
This programme puts SOIF’s field and movement building approach in direct service of this goal. Our strategy is to empower communities and individuals across the world to tap into the transformative power of foresight, supporting a network of people who use foresight systemically and effectively. Intergenerational solidarity and exchange are core to SOIF’s work—fundamental to creating collaborative coalitions that shape the futures we need. This initiative aligns with another priority this year: codifying our community’s collective foresight learning into a distributed web-based book, Playing with Time.
The Proposal
The Exchange – A shared Transformative Foresight Intergenerational Exchange programme between older and younger practitioners to experiment with building solidarity and holding cross-generational spaces for learning and sharing in the face of growing global tension.
Who could be involved and criteria
We are seeking participants who demonstrate:
- Curiosity and excitement about the opportunity to explore what might emerge in a peer-based, non-hierarchical exchange
- A commitment to capturing and sharing learnings
- A movement-building mindset, aligned with the urgency of the moment
There are two key roles:
- Legacy Holders: Senior foresight for transformation leads, now at least semi-retired, who worked in the field in the previous century. They are ready to share, listen, and co-create a generational legacy.
- Edgeriders: The younger partners—emerging foresight leaders with bold ambition and a commitment to service-based leadership for the field.
We aim for a diverse cohort, united by a commitment to mutual learning, openness to emergence, and high ambition for the programme.
Programme Design Principles
The programme will be co-designed and evolve with its participants. However, some foundational design elements include:
- A pilot cohort of five Legacy Holders and five Edgeriders willing to shape and test the programme
- Structured as working pairs, selected based on shared purpose and cross-generational complementarity
- Encouragement of regular exchanges, with learning captured and shared publicly in ways that will be tested and shaped by the group
- Development of light-touch collective infrastructure to support:
- Regular insight sharing
- Capturing provocations and questions
- Exploring effective communication formats
Primarily virtual, the programme will aim for at least one opportunity for in-person gathering.
Phase 1 will span 12 months:
- Launch and co-creation
- Exchange and activity within the cohort
- Disseminating insights, connecting beyond the cohort and shaping Phase 2
Phase 2 could evolve into an ongoing programme or community, potentially linked to the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners (NGFP) network.
This is a living initiative. The pilot cohort will collaboratively explore key questions such as:
- Power & Reciprocity: How do we ensure mutual exchange rather than extraction? (Co-ownership, decentralised storyholding, offers and asks)
- Selection Process: How should we match people—by geography, theme, or energy?
- Documentation & Visibility: How will learning be captured without being extractive? (Mutual journals? Story cards? Public vs private ownership?)
- Support: What role should SOIF play—anchor, host, backbone? What other partners could support the programme?
Call to action
We will launch the programme at the SOIF2025 Retreat and plan to convene the first pilot group of ten participants in September 2025. An update will be provided at the 2025 Dubai Futures Forum, and insights from the pilot will be shared at a side meeting at the 2026 UN General Assembly week, marking the midpoint on the way to the 2028 review of the UN Declaration on Future Generations.
Our invitation to you
- Share your reflections—on the programme’s purpose, its value, or its design. Are there other initiatives doing something similar?
- Let us know if you’re interested. How would you like to be involved?