World Futures Learning Lab

WFSF has been supported by the UNESCO Participation Program 2012-2013 in developing online learning content and procedures to run three pilot futures courses in Lubumbashi, DR Congo; Cairo, Egypt and Penang, Malaysia. WFSF also received approval under UNESCO Participation Program 2014-2015 to extend our World Futures Learning Lab into a second stage. The pilots for the second stage include projects in Mexico, Haiti and the Philippines.

The courses blend local face-to-face workshops with online learning of futures studies and foresight. The LEALA project focuses especially on the needs of Africa, youth and developing countries and the related challenges. It enables 60-90 young adults in these locations to learn foresight and it aims to provide experiences and skills to allow the participants to potentially seed ideas and support others who hold a forward-looking stance within their local communities. 

Please follow the links to the left for further information from the individual projects.

The objectives and contexr of the project are explained in this article.

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The project develops global blended learning in futures studies, by creating an online teaching and learning environment guided by the needs of the three pilot courses. LEALA will increase the ability of WFSF community members to offer glocal blended learning courses. Consult our Online Pedagogical Resources Database for a selection of text, web and video resources to support those who want to teach and/or learn about futures studies anywhere in the world.
Search our LEALA Online Pedagogical Resources  to find out more about Futures Studies.

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LEALA set out to develop new approaches, tools and resources for tailored futures education in a variety of circumstances and environments. The project is directed to a diverse global audience of learners in developing regions. In the first project cycle of 2012-2013 it enabled 90 young adults to participate in workshops, seminars or short courses. In 2014-2015 an additional 60 participants took part in local projects.

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The Cairo pilot was set up to link into the launch of the Management of African World Heritage Online Masters Course of the Cairo University and the Institute of African Research & Studies. This is a pilot in which the futures content is added to a pre-existing course in another domain. In this pilot the online component consisted of the pre-existing online Masters Course, which was blended with the face-to-face gatherings supported by LEALA. While this online activity runs for a whole academic year, the live activities took place over the course of two days with participants from the course organisation, students, the partner institution, and the national UNESCO commission of Egypt—all experts with a specific focus on world heritage, but with only limited knowledge of the relevance of futures literacy. 

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In Penang the course was co-organised with the urban think-tank, Think City, in collaboration with the Right Livelihood College, with whom the course coordinator has prior relations. This pilot is the only fully-fledged short futures introduction course of the three pilot projects. It relied on live teaching and workshop techniques during two intensive consecutive days of activities. As the LEALA online tools for resource sharing were not yet available during the course preparation and implementation, the teaching materials for this course were supplied online on a dedicated website for the pilot, prior to the live teaching event (http://www.cityfutures.net). The participants were selected from emerging city leaders and project advisors from different parts of Malaysia, and also included participants from the Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan.

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In Katanga, LEALA was interlinked with the development education project Maono, in which workshop techniques and practical creative exercises for the participants were used. The live phase in the DRC was spread over two seven week periods in the summer of 2012 and spring 2013 (for a total of 6 days of workshops as well as individual follow up of participants’ work). The online work was conducted via email with four tasks with reading materials and accompanying questions set out for the participants. The participants were young adults from varying higher education courses.

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