Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education Leads Futures Training in Pakistan

Karachi: Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education (DIHE) along with AGAHI, the country partner of the Millennium-Project, a Global Futures Studies & Research participatory think-tank conducted a two-day leadership session on Futures Thinking and Strategy Development; the working sessions were designed and delivered by Professor Sohail Inayatullah, UNESCO Chair of Futures Studies. Dadabhoy Institute of Higher Education organized one of the first of its kind futures sessions in Pakistan focused on Karachi Futures’. Inviting leaders from business, politics, media, civil society and academia.

 The objectives of the designed sessions were to explore future methodologies which could help alleviate the multitude issues the city faces. The participants were engaged in various futures methods and were asked to apply them on the city, these included the futures triangle, and causal layered analysis, macro and micro scenarios, visioning and back-casting.

The sessions were designed to help the participants understand and develop a familiarity with methods used to develop preferred, probable and possible futures; particularly changes in societal values and other critical drivers – impacting the future and to help enhance the effectiveness to deliver desired visions.

Puruesh Chaudhary Founder and President AGAHI, said “the recently launched, Pakistan State of Future Index, gives a sense of how decisions in the country need to be made; Karachi being the financial hub needs a new metaphor and working with DiHE; we feel that this is the platform which can create the momentum where citizenry participation is at the heart of all decision-making in the city.

The sessions were attended by journalists, Afshan Subhoi, Mubashir Zaidi, Sohaib Jamali, Syed Naeemuddin; Academicians Dr. Aadil Nakhoda, Dr. Saad Ahmed Khan, Dr. Arsalan Khan, Dr Saad Liaquat, Entrepreneurs Abid Butt, Roger Dawood Bayat, Amir Jahangir while civil society was represented by Syed FaizanYasir, Salman Javed, Lt-General (Retd.) Farooq Agha, Shazia Ismat Zaidi, HabibUllah Dadabhoy amongst others.