Catalysts for Change - Zones of Future Innovation Project Overview

© 2013 Institute for the Future for Rockefeller Foundation. All rights reserved. SR-1563B
March 2013
Foresight Engine Game Analysis:
Top 25 Zones of
Future Innovation
A project by Institute for the Future and The Rockefeller Foundation
www.iftf.org/our-work/global-landscape/catalysts-for-change/catalysts-zones-of-innovation
Contact: Tessa Finlev, tfinlev@iftf.org

Catalysts for Change Introduction:
From a Map, to a Game, to 25 Future Zones of Innovation
2

© 2013 Institute for the Future for Rockefeller Foundation. All rights reserved. SR-1563B 3
On April 3-5, 2012, the Rockefeller
Foundation collaborated with Institute for
the Future (IFTF) to run a first-of-its-kind
global forecasting game called Catalysts
for Change. The goal of the online game
was to convene people from all over the
world to address the problems of poverty
and specifically to identify innovative
approaches to addressing those
problems.
The game was a follow on global
engagement to the Catalysts for Change:
Paths out of Poverty map that IFTF
created to conceptualize two years of
monthly newsletters on regional
development efforts from the Rockefeller
Foundation’s Searchlight Partners.
What follows is an analysis of the game
output, which contains more than 18,000
micro-forecasts from over 1,600 players
in 79 different countries.

Introduction Table of Contents:
Phase 1 gives a brief overview of the
Catalysts for Change: Paths out of
Poverty map.
Phase 2 provides an overview of the
Catalysts for Change game and launch
event.
Phase 3 dives into the Catalysts for
Change analysis, providing an overview
of the process taken to extract 25 future
zones of innovation from 18,000+ micro-
forecasts from around the world.

Catalysts for Change:
Paths out of Poverty Map
Introduction | Phase 1, the Map
explore the the online map:
www.searchlightcatalysts.org
5
The Catalysts for Change map
identifies four key catalysts: new
evidence, new capacities, new
rules, and new stories. For each of
these catalysts, the map highlights
several action zones and a core
challenge, as well as signals of
innovation and change drawn from
the Searchlight newsletters.

explore the the online map: www.searchlightcatalysts.org
6
Introduction | Phase 1, the Map

1600+ players
79 countries
18,000+ micro-contributions
Catalysts for Change
48-hour micro-forecasting game | April 3–5, 2012
7
Introduction | Phase 2, the Game

Game Launch Event
San Francisco | April 3, 2012
Panelists (from right to left): hosted by the Rockefeller Foundation
President Dr. Judith Rodin; game designer Jane McGonigal; Deputy
Innovation Officer, city of San Francisco Shannon Spanhake; co-
founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Mitch Kapor.
Introduction | Phase 2, the Game Launch
8
IFTF convened a face-to-face
gathering of approximately 75
thought leaders and social
activists from Silicon Valley
and the San Francisco Bay
Area to engage in a
conversation on the future of
global development. The event
was streamed to the web,
allowing game players from
around the world to join the
conversation virtually and pose
questions to the Rockefeller
Foundation’s president, Dr.
Judith Rodin, and her panel.

Game Analysis, 25 Zones of Future Innovation:
from 18,000+ to 300+ micro-forecasts
9
18,000 +
Introduction | Phase 3, Game Analysis

• The entire set of 18,000+ cards was analyzed using four
different filtering systems in order to identify dynamic
opportunities to build resilience and growth with equity
from within the game:
– Catalysts for Change Action Zones from the original
map
• Innovative Tracking; Participatory Maps and Models; Alternative
Indexes; User-Generated Media; Smart Communities; Up-
skilled Workers; Resilient Cities; New Water Ecologies;
Reinvention of Governance; Regional Coordination; Public-
Private States; Virtual Nations; Post-industrial Farming; Pro-
poor Innovation; Next-generation Women; Leapfrog Energy
– Connection to to resilience and equitable growth,
along with a set of issues associated with cities,
health, livelihoods, and ecosystems.
– Word frequency analysis to look at the most used
and least used words throughout gameplay.
– Filtered by region, extracting innovative
opportunities based on what regions the cards were
played from.
• Each of these filtering methods led to a subset of cards
that were read through by multiple IFTF researchers who
pulled out the most interesting and innovative ideas. This
process generated a list of just over 300 cards.
10
Game Analysis
from 18,000+ to 300+

Word frequency word cloud of the four analysis filters, generated with Tagxedo

300 +
Game Analysis, 25 Zones of Future Innovation:
from 300+ micro-forecasts to 25 future innovations

• The subset of 300+ cards were scored according to
how well they met selection criteria previously defined
by IFTF and the Rockefeller Foundation. The full set
of cards were scored by six IFTF researchers and
three international game guides from the Catalysts for
Change game located in India, Mexico, and Nigeria.
This ranking system was used as a guide to ensure
the most consistently innovative ideas were included
in the final analysis.
• During a 2-day internal workshop IFTF researchers,
along with the Rockefeller Foundation, clustered the
top innovative cards in order to pull the big stories.
The top 25 future zones of innovation were born out of
these clusters.
Game Analysis
from 300+ to 25

• These ideas focus specifically and directly on the innovative by
…suggesting an area of practice receiving little or no attention at present
• pushing the boundaries of an existing practice in new directions
• combining two or more areas of practice in a novel way
• leveraging new technology or science to reframe a problem or practice
• engaging expertise from nontraditional or unexpected sources and
disciplines with previously untapped potential for development impact
• suggesting new, innovative ways to finance poverty alleviation projects
• creating new kinds of calls to action to participate in poverty alleviation
• using natural, human, man-made, and financial resources in new, creative,
or unique ways
• creating new platforms, tools, and interfaces for engaging diverse
populations with poverty alleviation efforts
14© 2013 Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 United States License. SR-1563B
Top Innovation Selection Criteria: innovation
Game Analysis
from 300+ to 25

These ideas not only focus on the innovative but also on ways to
promote more future proof strategies by…
• becoming more important as a result of future social, economic, scientific,
or environmental developments
• having the potential to be self-sustaining
• potentially having large-scale unexpected impacts
• considering inclusive design principles into the design
• being potentially implementable across diverse regions, cultures, and
demographics
• empowering communities to solve their own problems in new ways
• promoting self-regulation of development systems, communities, or
organizations
• involving new categories of communities or people that are overlooked
15© 2013 Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share-Alike 3.0 United States License. SR-1563B
Top Innovation Selection Criteria: future proof
Game Analysis
from 300+ to 25

Game Analysis, 25 Zones of Future Innovation
16
25

Each of the 25 future zones of innovation has 4 components:
• A description of the future innovation
• A brief description of what the players said
• A dynamic map view of the most relevant cards played from around the world
during the game
• Signals to help bring these future zones of innovation to life. Game guides from
Mexico and Nigeria provided local signals of innovation, adding to the global
perspective of the analysis.
A signal is typically a small or local innovation or disruption that has the potential
to grow in scale and geographic distribution. A signal can be a new product, a new
practice, a new market strategy, a new policy, or new technology. It can be an
event, a local trend, or an organization. In short, it is something that catches our
attention at one scale and in one locale and points to larger implications for other
locales or even globally.
25

March 2013
Foresight Engine Game Analysis:
25 Zones of
Future Innovation
Contact: Tessa Finlev, tfinlev@iftf.org

Catalysts for Change - Zones of Future Innovation Project Overview

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