Lumen Wirltuti:Warltati 2025 - Flipbook - Page 18
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True to that ethos, the new SA Futures Agency, launched in May
and housed in CBD innovation hub Lot Fourteen, is committed to
bringing “joy, colour, humanity, warmth and accessibility” to the
futures and foresight scene.
Since antiquity, humans have
sought to foretell the future –
from casting runes to reading
entrails. Now, two prominent
alumni futurists tell Lumen,
the future is ours to imagine
and create.
To underscore that point, Ariella’s start-up partner is artist
Stavroula Adameitis, of powerhouse fashion and textile brand
Frida Las Vegas, and the agency’s logo and website is awash with
neon hues.
“Navigating the future could not be more serious – and we can
be serious, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be approached with loving
and joyful resolve,” Ariella says. “What are our values? What do we
want the future to look like? What do we believe is possible? The
answers to these questions will impact our vote, our choices, what
we are prepared to pay for.’’
By Jackie Tracy
At a time when pop culture is predicting a future that’s more
Blade Runner or Black Mirror than Jetsons, Professor Ariella
Helfgott is in the hope business – with a caveat.
A critical aspect of foresight is that the future is not fixed
or predetermined, it’s all in play, and we are facing significant
uncertainty, which can be a challenge to the human brain,
according to neuroscience.
“I believe in the Stockdale Paradox – we need to face brutal
realities yet maintain our commitment to creating positive futures –
and hold on to unwavering hope,” the foresight expert and
founding Director of the SA Futures Agency says.
“We all have blind spots, that’s why foresight is a participation
sport,” Ariella says. “That means bringing together people with
Casting the runes
really diverse world views, lived experience and subject-matter
expertise – scientists and storytellers, entrepreneurs and elders,
frontline workers and futurists, policymakers and passionate youth
– each contributing unique experiences, insights, and dreams about
what’s possible.”
“Dystopian nihilism and toxic positivity are both cop-outs
that lead to a lack of action to shape a better future.’’
Amid the dizzying velocity and scale of change we are
experiencing – from our climate to geopolitics and the rise of
artificial intelligence – the need to predict and plan for future
generations rather than the next financial year or electoral cycle
has never been more pressing.
She believes South Australia is uniquely placed to build
successful outcomes from significant global trends. It’s a key
reason she launched the Agency, alongside her other roles,
including Professor at the University of Adelaide, and Program
Director of Foresight and Decision-Making for the One Basin
CRC, supporting Australia’s Murray-Darling Basin, as well as
her role at the World Energy Council.
With metropolitan Adelaide’s population projected to hit two
million by 2051, far beyond the wildest dreams of Colonel William
Light, housing affordability and infrastructure are critical parts of
the equation, along with sustainability.
There’s no crystal ball gazing for Ariella, a mathematician with a
penchant for probability, whose foresight capabilities were nurtured
at the University of Adelaide (PhD Electrical Engineering, 2015),
put to work simulating complex situations at the Department
of Defence, honed at the universities of Oxford, Utrecht and
Wageningen, and augmented in both big business and government.
“On the global energy transition, we are a unique leader.
We are far ahead of the curve,” she says. “We have a green
reindustrialisation roadmap. We have mineral deposits that are
significant to the transition, with demand projected to increase.
Copper is massive. Humanity needs to mine as much copper in
the next 20 years as we’ve mined in our entire history to have
30 per cent penetration of electric vehicles.’’
She draws on the power of the compass – navigation, rather than
prediction. She is rigorous about qualitative and quantitative data,
systematic and rigorous scenario mapping, and hard questions.
But that’s not to say she doesn’t like a little colour and movement.
Ariella says all the regions of South Australia have important
parts to play in taking up future economic development
opportunities and our ability to respond to global trends.
“I see no reason for the future to be cast in corporate black, navy
and grey,” she says over breakfast on North Terrace, bright-eyed
despite a 5am phone hook-up with the World Energy Council,
a 100-year-old global network of more than 3,000 organisations
across 100 countries of which she is the Director of Foresight
and Strategic Learning.
“In one inspiring scenario, we will have thriving regional hubs,
where South Australia is not just a city state. There are new energy
jobs, mining, minerals processing, advanced manufacturing and
space development. There’s an entire supply chain from the SouthEast with Construction 4.0 changing the future of housing.
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