The Business & Society course Strategic Foresight taught by Professor Thomas Debass took place June 17-20. Due to the university shifting to distance learning in response to COVID-19, this course adapted to an online format with the support of Student Administrative Assistant Fatoumata Zahara Savane. Below is Fatoumata’s reflection on her experience.
Welcome to the future!
Foresight is critical in all areas of our lives. Whether you are interested in education, healthcare, energy, food and agriculture, or even space, this course was designed to provide students with a set of new methods, tools and practices that allows them to build robust scenario-driven strategies.
Strategic Foresight truly helped students understand how organizations invent the future, how to create a strategy to take action on a trend, and how to develop recommendations and action plans for the “future of x” for an individual, organization, or even a nation. The involvement of distinguished guest-speakers, each evolving in different sectors as foresight strategists provided students with invaluable insights. Indeed, our class had the chance to virtually engage with a strategist writer, the policy analyst and lead for Strategic Foresight for the Center for Space Policy, a former NASA astronaut, the Vice President of Walmart’s Customer Product (eCommerce) division, the Executive Vice President of the Uncommon Partners Lab at Singularity University, the Global Managing Director at Cambridge Industries Ltd., the Leader of Deloitte Health Innovation and Informatics, and the Chair & Professor at the Department of Emerging Technology in Business & Design of Miami University.
Strategic Foresight students worked in teams to map the future of different industries. The above image features part of the “Future of Healthcare” team’s final project.
As all summer courses shifted online due to COVID-19, I worked closely with the Global Experiential Education (G&EE) program staff and Professor Debass to ensure students received the best possible educational experience that exceeded their expectations. It was meaningful to see the program’s commitment to providing their students with the necessary support in achieving their academic goals given new constraints. I also received specialized training from GWSB’s talented Instructional Design team to prepare me for managing the video conference technology needed to facilitate online lectures and virtual guest speaker discussions.
It was an honor to work with Thomas Debass, a respected economist who currently serves as Managing Director of the Office of Global Partnerships at the U.S. Department of State. He has a genuine passion for the future and his students truly had the best instructor to provide a unique foresight experience.
Fatoumata Zahara Savane is a ‘20 MA Applied Economics Candidate at The George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences.
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