This document summarizes the findings of a horizon scanning exercise called "Spot the Future" conducted in Armenia, Egypt, and Georgia. It engaged 128 social innovators and activists mostly aged 21-30. Their projects focused on environmental issues, education, urban planning, gender issues, and more. Participants felt challenged by top-down approaches and a lack of collaboration. However, they were motivated by altruism and found value in sharing resources and cooperating with peers. The document concludes that these young changemakers represent new agents of change and that supporting democratic technologies, cooperation, and alternative funding models could help interfaces with institutions be more effective.

1. S P O T T I N G T H E F U T U R E
H O R I Z O N S C A N N I N G I N A R M E N I A , E G Y P T A N D G E O R G I A
Alberto Cottica, Inga Popovaite, Noemi Salantiu
30 July 2014
Photo: Medhin Paolos

2. D ATA A N D F I N D I N G S
PA R T O N E

3. P U R P O S E
• Spot The Future (STF) is a foresight
exercise on Armenia, Egypt and Georgia.
It engages social innovators, hackers,
activists and other would-be changemakers,
mostly from the fringes of the economy and
society, based on the premise that societal
novelty starts at the edge.
• Its objective is to gain insight about near-
future dynamics impacting post-2015
Development Goals, building on the
engagement of over 3 million people in the
UNDG World We Want consultations.

4. M E T H O D S & D ATA
• Edgeryders and UNDP collected and
analyzed ethnographic data by fostering
an online conversation in March-June 2014.
It built upon the World We Want
consultation processes.
• The dataset consists of 161 posts and 782
comments from 128 individuals from 22
countries. We targeted social innovators,
activists, changemakers.
• Preliminary results were validated during a
focus group discussion that took place in
late June 2014, involving 8 participants.

5. M A S S I V E O N L I N E
E T H N O G R A P H Y
• Ethnographic coding was applied to 161
posts and 782 comments on the
Edgeryders platform. Coding is a standard
ethnographic technique. It consists of
reading all contributions and assigning
relevant keywords to snippets of texts.
• Keywords become then second-order data,
and can be analysed in various ways.
• 243 tags in 6 categories were identified
as recurring all along the STF
conversation.

6. H O W I S I T D O N E ?
• Seed a conversation through high-quality
content that is relevant to the theme. Start with
people “at the edge” and traverse the social
graph through social media.
• Grow your conversation by community
management, respectful interaction and
connecting people to each other.
• Harvest it by ethnographic software, built into
the Edgeryders platform.
• People select themselves to participate. This
ensures enthusiasm and eliminates researcher
selection bias (the “usual suspects” effect).

7. N O T T H E U S U A L
S U S P E C T S
• Participants in STF were mostly 21-30
years old; socially active; and
community-oriented.
• Diverse professional identities:
architects, designers, researchers,
documentary film makers, engineers,
yoga instructors…
• Not afraid to step in and take initiatives.
• Most were not “usual suspects”
UNDP works with.

8. C O M M I T T E D T O A C T I O N
T H E PA R T I C I PA N T S ’ P R O J E C T S A N D T H E I R K E Y W O R D S B Y C O U N T RY
E N V I R O N M E N T,
A LT E R N AT I V E E C O N O M Y,
I N C L U S I O N ,
E M P O W E R M E N T,
I N F O R M A L E D U C AT I O N
E N V I R O N M E N T, U R B A N
P L A N N I N G , G E N D E R
I S S U E S , E D U C AT I O N ,
C O M M U N I T Y
D E V E L O P M E N T,
S O L I D A R I T Y, M E D I A
E N V I R O N M E N T, U R B A N
P L A N N I N G , G E N D E R
I S S U E S , I C T, R O A D
S A F E T Y, S O L I D A R I T Y,
M E D I A

9. E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S :
C O M M U N I T Y- B U I LT R I N G
R O A D R A M P S
• The citizens of the Al-Mu’tamidiya community in
Cairo built four ramps to access the ring road
from their neighborhood.
• Formally illegal, they were built to government
specifications. Their cost is estimated at 25% of
what the government would have spent to do
the same work.
• Construction happened at the time of the
revolution, when the security apparatus was
busy in Tahrir Square. The post-revolution
government decided to accept the ramps as a
citizen-funded improvement and built a police
station nearby.
“ T H E P E O P L E O F A L - M U ’ TA M I D I YA N E E D E D T O
B U I L D T H I S E X I T F R O M A L O N G T I M E A G O A N D
W H E N T H E C H A N C E O P E N E D F O R
C O N S T R U C T I N G I T T H E Y T O O K T H E C H A N C E
D U R I N G T H E T E M P O R A RY C O L L A P S E O F L O C A L
A U T H O R I T I E S . ”

10. E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S :
C A R P O O L I N G I N
A R M E N I A
• A young woman created a Facebook group
(Carpool Հայաստան) to coordinate on
sharing rides. This happened in July 2013, in
response to an increase of public transport
prices in Yerevan.
• A massive response from society drove the
city authorities to reverse the price increase –
but the level of trust in strangers had
increased for good.
• Carpooling Armenia is now internationalizing.
In the course of STF a collaboration between
it and an Egyptian entrepreneur was started.
“ T H E M O S T A M A Z I N G WA S T H AT I N 2 D AY S
M O R E T H A N 6 0 0 0 P E O P L E W E R E I N V O LV E D I N
T H E I N I T I AT I V E . I T WA S L I K E A V I R U S . N E A R LY
N O O N E WA N T E D T O U S E P U B L I C T R A N S P O RT,
B E C A U S E T H E R E WA S B E T T E R O P T I O N . A L L O U R
S O C I E T Y WA S I N V O LV E D "

11. E X A M P L E P R O J E C T S :
G I R L S W H O C O D E I N
T B I L I S I
• JumpStart Georgia noticed that
participation to hackathons in Georgia is
overwhelmingly male.
• It responded by providing office space
and encouraging their staff to train young
female professionals on writing code.
• IT specialists work directly with a group of
around 15 women aged 22-35. The
women are mostly journalists and
activists. They learn to code in the
programming language Ruby.
“ C O M P U T E R P R O G R A M M I N G [ … ] I S A L S O A N
E S S E N T I A L S K I L L F O R I D E A L I S T S I N C O U N T R I E S
W H E R E O P E N D ATA A R E S T I L L S C A R C E , A N D
W H E R E I N F O R M AT I O N I S E S S E N T I A L I F O N E I S
T O U N D E R S TA N D S O C I E T Y A N D W O R K T O M A K E
I T B E T T E R . ”
Photo: Jumpstart Georgia

12. S Y S T E M I C
C H A L L E N G E S
• The challenges mentioned in the data
are mostly consistent with MyWorld
2015 survey: environment, education,
poverty, migration, un- or
underemployment, lack of transparency
and corruption in institutions
• Almost no mention of protection from
crime and violence in STF.
• Greater emphasis on urban planning
and environmental issues than in
MyWorld 2015.
MyWorld2015
top 5 choices in
the 3 countries
Spot The Future

13. T O P - D O W N
A P P R O A C H E S
• In their everyday work, changemakers are
challenged by bureaucracy, vertical
hierarchical systems, top-down approaches.
• Problematic relationships with
governmental institutions appear in all
three countries.
• Authorities and donors mistrust grassroots,
experimental initiatives.
• The traditional grant proposal-grant-
project-report is seen as leading to blind
fund chasing and no outcome.
“ A L L O U R R E Q U E S T S F O R M E E T I N G S A N D
F U RT H E R A C T I O N W E R E I G N O R E D . I T ' S T R U E ,
W E N E V E R I N I T I AT E D A P U B L I C P R O T E S T O R A
P E T I T I O N R E G A R D I N G T H E I S S U E , B U T T H AT ' S
E X A C T LY W H AT ' S M O S T F R U S T R AT I N G A B O U T
C O M M U N I C AT I O N , A S A N O R G A N I Z AT I O N O U R
E F F O RT S A L O N E A R E N E V E R E N O U G H . ”

14. D E A L I N G W I T H T O P -
D O W N A P P R O A C H E S
• Support each other, sharing human and
other resources.
• Lobby for more flexible and alternative
sources of funding – or try crowdfunding
(in Egypt it plugs into religious institutions
like zakaa and sadaka).
• Break down projects in small chunks and
target small, independent donors.
• Get training in project management – also
informally, by simply sharing experiences.

15. C O L L A B O R AT I O N
I S H A R D
• Individuals and organisations
trying to affect change perceive
each other as competitors.
• Duplication of effort is a constant
threat.
“ W H AT I F I N D L A C K I N G I S P E O P L E TA L K I N G
W I T H E A C H O T H E R , N O T J U S T A B O U T E A C H
O T H E R . ”

16. C O L L A B O R AT I O N
I S T H E WAY T O G O
• “Cooperation” is by far the tag
recurring most often.
• Appreciation was repeatedly
expressed for the “neutral ground”
provided by STF workshops.
• Bi-weekly meetings started among a
group of Georgian participants.
• There is a hunger for peer-to-peer
collaboration.

17. F I N D I N G
M O T I VAT I O N
• Changemakers and activists perceive
themselves and their peers as indifferent
and skeptical. They report struggling to
motivate themselves and others.
• This is explained by perceived
powerlessness (“I can’t change anything”)
and social mistrust (“people are too selfish/
conservative”).
• However, most participants are able to
motivate themselves into action. Their
main motivations are altruism and necessity.
“ L E T ' S B U I L D A P L AT F O R M T O D O C U M E N T T H AT
I N P U T I N A P U B L I C S PA C E A N D M O N I T O R T H E
G R E E N S PA C E T H AT E X I S T S ! I T I S O U R C I T Y.
L E T ' S TA K E B A C K O W N E R S H I P O F I T ! ”

18. V E C T O R S O F C H A N G E
PA R T T W O

19. N E W P L AY E R S I N
T H E G A M E
• Young changemakers are on the move to
achieve positive change. Most of them are
newcomers and many fly below the radar of
institutions. They are a new agent for change and
can be expected to have an impact.
• While broadly consistent with post-2015
development goals, their agenda has its own
priorities, such as the management of public
spaces. We expect to see them rise in the political
agenda.
• Policy implications: give these newcomers space
to take ownership of the issues they care about;
refocus tried-and-true approaches towards issues
that they don’t.

20. C O O P E R AT I O N
A N D S WA R M I N G
• Peer-to-peer cooperation is perceived as the
main for their initiatives to grow. They don’t
try to scale by recruitment; rather they share
resources, mobilising each other on the issues
they care about.
• We expect to see “swarming” behaviour:
almost instant redeployment of manpower and
other resources (such as social media traction)
from issue to issue, from campaign to
campaign. This can be very effective.
• Policy implications: provide safe spaces for
changemakers to learn to cooperate, also
internationally. Avoid zero-sum game setups.

21. I N T E R FA C I N G W I T H
I N S T I T U T I O N S
• The traditional grant cycle model is perceived
as distorsive and obsolete. Changemakers
struggle to fit innovative activities within the frame
of hierarchical relationships and administration-
oriented approaches.
• Policy implications (mitigation): provide training
on grant application writing, project
management and evaluation. This should allow
some initiatives to “fit in” without losing
coherence.
• Policy implications (radical): test and deploy
new forms to support grassroot, innovative
initiatives. Ask for help in designing them. We
know it’s hard!

22. D E M O C R AT I C
T E C H N O L O G I E S
• In their struggle for effective action, young
changemakers use a mix of DIY approaches,
open source software and open data. Geodata
in particular are seen as a tool to convey
information and support advocacy on issues from
carpooling to harassment.
• We expect to see a fast spread of democratic
technologies such as open source software, open
hardware, DIY, cheap drones.
• Policy implications: support and promote open
data policies; support and promote all
democratic technologies. Try to refrain from
hyper-regulating them, or the business models that
they enable (eg. Uber-like businesses).

23. C O N TA C T
Edgeryders LBG
Find out more at http://
company.edgeryders.eu
Or write to alberto@edgeryders.eu
Photo credits: Leonid Mujiri (unless
otherwise indicated)
This work is property of UNDP and licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.