Insights · September 20th, 2022
Loes Damhof presents at TEDxYouth@Groningen on ‘Futures Literacy: shaping your present by reimagining futures’.
The future does not exist, we can only imagine it. By expanding how we imagine futures, we can see the present differently and learn how to embrace uncertainty. Loes Damhof is a 21st Century Skills teacher at the Communication & Multimedia Design program at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences in Groningen and responsible for the learning path: the skills, knowledge and attitude that you need as a student to keep you going in an uncertain future.
That thing that does not exist – The Future – has a profound impact on how we think, on what we do, and how we act in the present. It has a profound impact on our sense of agency.
Loes Damhof
About Loes Damhof
Loes Damhof was elected as Lecturer of the Year of all higher education in The Netherlands in 2016, and decided to spend the attached prestigious Comenis Award on developing Futures Literacy pilots. In 2018, she received the UNESCO Chair on Futures Literacy in Higher Education for her work on researching the impact of Futures Literacy and the design principles of Futures Literacy interventions. In addition to her research and teaching practices, she consults and trains staff of global organizations such as FutureWomenX, UNESCO, UNFCCC, ClimateKIC, FORMS, UN, Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies and Oxfam in multidisciplinary projects. As a Futures Literacy Expert, she designs, develops and facilitates so-called Futures Literacy Labs: collective intelligence knowledge creation processes across the globe that challenge and raise fundamental questions on leadership, migration, climate change and technology. She is a Future Fellow at Hawkwood College and a steering committee member of the Futures Oriented Museum Synergies.
