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WAWGTDWATF - The Future of Futures
58 Plays1 year ago
In the fourth episode of the podcast "WAWGTDWATF," host Rose Genele chats with futurist Rafeeq Bosch who shares insights from his extensive background in future studies and technology consultant, emphasizing the evolving landscape of the Canadian public sector. He highlights significant trends such as labor disputes driven by rising living costs, the challenges of technological adoption, and the diminishing aspirational quality of public sector careers. Bosch elaborates on the implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, particularly how emerging technologies like AI can transform societies, especially in developing economies. He advocates for fostering a collective futures consciousness and encourages individuals to connect with others who share an interest in futures thinking.
Keep up with Rafeeq Bosch on LinkedIn
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Transcript
Introduction to Rafik Bosch
00:00:22
Speaker
Today, our guest is Rafik Bosch, a futurist. Rafik, thanks so much for being here. Thanks, Rose. I'm excited. It's a privilege to join you today. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. So to start off, can you just introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background?
00:00:42
Speaker
Sure, I'm a futurist based out of Vancouver here in Canada. I do future studies or research related to future studies. I've been doing that probably since 2008 or so. in my That's sort of in my one life, in my day job life, I'm a technology advisor working in the tech industry. And so yeah, we moved to Canada about 10 years ago. I'm originally from South Africa here with my family and we're loving it out here in Vancouver.
00:01:11
Speaker
Awesome. So what sparked your interest in future trends, futurists work or futures thinking?
Journey into Future Studies
00:01:20
Speaker
I think my first foray into this field of future studies or strategic foresight was when I did my master's degree in future studies back in South Africa in Stellenbosch. That was the sort of 2008 period. I was deep into my career as a technology advisor, technology consultant. Just through my network, one of my colleagues, former colleagues that I'd worked with, I mentioned that they were doing this master's program from the University of Stellenbosch, which is in Cape Town in South Africa.
00:01:50
Speaker
at the Institute for Futures Research and I could tell that it was a very exciting program in in terms of how it was energizing my friend, my colleague um and he was quite keen for me to explore it as well and the rest as they say is history. I joined that program in about 2008, graduated in 2011 and then About six years later, the Institute started allowing PhD programs in future studies. And so that's that's sort of where I, that was kind of the next logical step. I have tried to bring a strategic foresight also into my consulting work. So at my previous job, one of the things I did was to try to birth a strategic foresight consulting practice. I think I learned a lot in that process. I don't think I fully succeeded there, but I definitely did learn a lot. And so that also informs
00:02:42
Speaker
Uh, some of my ideas about how the, how to bring the field of future studies out of academia and, you know, more into organizations into daily life. So yeah, that's, that's sort of been my, my journey into the field. That's interesting. And I would, I would love to hear some of those insights. Another question that I want to ask and that I like to ask my guests is around trends and signals.
Challenges in Canadian Public Sector
00:03:04
Speaker
When you are looking at the public sector, what are some of the most significant trends or signals that you're seeing right now?
00:03:12
Speaker
I'm going to keep my comments confined sort of to the Canadian public sector. I have spent the last two years trying to build up consulting within that sector and service clients within that sector. And it is really, especially in the Canadian context, I think incredibly, incredibly significant. It's generally a significant sector, but more so in Canada. I also think there's sort of a couple of horizons that I want to make comments on, right? So when I think about sort of the near term, what are some of the trends and dynamics within the industry that I see now. I'll talk a little bit about the midterm and then sort of the longer range 10, 20 years up. So I think the the the most obvious present pressure that is within, that I see unfolding within the public sector is all these labor disputes that seem to be affecting regulated industries not just public sector, but definitely regulated industries. And I think that that has got significance for the public sector, because I think these disputes, these these pressures have to do with salary pressures, as the cost of living under stress right now, especially in Canada, and you have the public sector being such a large employer, then there is going to be this, I think, just increasing pressure, I think, in the labour environment within the public sector that isn't something I pay attention to.
00:04:31
Speaker
In the more medium term, the other thing that I sort of see public sector struggling with, and this is again not through the things I've encountered in my consulting work, the pace of technology and the the pace of sophisticated technology is accelerating. So we see a lot of AI, cloud, technology adoption escalating in general, but what I see I would characterize the public sector clients that I've come across either worked with directly or trying to sell technology projects to is that there is this historical lack of underinvestment. And so the ticket to entry to get value out of these new technologies, the public sector entities generally don't have, you know, haven't made that investment. For example, in the context of AI or generative AI, the price for entry there is good quality data and the
00:05:21
Speaker
data governance and data management of these vast sources of data in public sector entities just historically hasn't happened. And so these technologies, benefits of them seem increasingly out of reach for public sector organizations. On the longer timescale, I think I'm back to the people sort of factor when it comes to things on the horizon for the public sector. I think there was an era in Canada ah where working in the public sector was very aspirational and people like you know maybe I'm just romanticizing a little bit but you know there was really it was an aspirational kind of thing to do it informs I would say Canadian culture and cultural mindset quite a lot and I say this now as an outsider but an outsider is obviously
00:06:07
Speaker
like perspective, the immigrants' perspective of the public sector in Canada compared to, say, maybe in South Africa. We can talk about that. So, against that backdrop, I think what is happening though is that aspirational quality is diminishing. And so you are going to get a situation where there are a lot of lifetime, lifelong career public sector employees who are going to age out of the system through retirement and that replacement ah cohort is just simply not there. This is tied back to the idea that I mentioned before that the public sector is not a sector compared to any commercial industry. And as we're moving through economic trends where cost of living is kind of escalating, almost having a generational problem that is unfolding.
00:06:52
Speaker
So that's a little bit longer range and a trend and so on that I pick up on in terms of the public sector. You know, that's a very public sector centric point of view as well. Of course, the labor market, for example, that serves the public. sector It's the same labor market here in Canada that serve in the commercial sector. So there are all these interacting dynamics. But I think those are the some of the you know comments that I would say are particularly relevant for the public sector. Does that make sense?
00:07:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that I would agree with, you know, historically there being that mindset where working in public center sector or working for government was, was very desirable and yeah there was a lot of stability and you know, you could get a, you know, a great paying job with, with benefits and the whole nine. And I think that I too have at least started to pick up on signals where that perspective has shifted or is shifting yeah to some degree. I mean, I think.
00:07:47
Speaker
working, I would say, again, in any of the government agencies or even in government itself would have or used to have the meaning in the work. It wasn't just a profit motive. And, you know, yes, people had day to day livelihood questions and things that they were grappling with. But Generally, Canada was a country where the broad middle class and so on, all of that stuff worked out. I think what's happened in the world in Canada and by extension public sector is affected by the same thing. As polarization has increased within the political sphere and the political agenda requires larger changes as there are shifts in political power, the ability of a civil service
00:08:31
Speaker
to run these sustained long range projects and deliver the value that comes out of them or deliver the services that those things are kind of based on becomes harder. And so there's sort of this dysfunction structurally that creeps into public sector. It is different in Canada where, which I would say is an economy is a mature economy. It is developed. It's not necessarily a progressive economy. Still a lot of secondary economy resource-based intensive type stuff going on.
00:09:01
Speaker
you know, ah cook compared to elsewhere in the world. But I think that this creeping dysfunction within the public sector arising from political polarization is a different kind of problem than what you may see in a in a country that where the economy is still emerging or more so still developing. And those have got more, you know, those challenges have got more to do with maturity and and an understanding of within the more mature economy, the role of the public sector.
00:09:31
Speaker
I think Canada is through those maturity curves, for better or worse, and but now there are different dynamics for doubling the public sector, which need to be grappled with. Wow, that feels like a lot. Yeah, it's it's ah a fair bit to chew on, but that's that's the the point of this podcast. We want people to to think and to stretch their minds and to really consider what our future or futures might look like or could look like. Talk to me about the the fourth industrial revolution.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
00:10:02
Speaker
What what is that and and and how is that relevant to the conversation of of futures?
00:10:07
Speaker
Right. Okay. Again, we've gone from a huge topic to a mega huge topic. So the fourth industrial revolution, I think I'll answer this from the perspective of an academic now has been has been in in academic discourse since about 2013. There's a researcher called Kargaman producing research around something called industry 4.0.
00:10:30
Speaker
And then in about 2016, the World Economic Forum, personal heads at it, Charles Schwab, at their annual conference, spoke about this was the first time this term fourth industrial revolution comes about.
00:10:43
Speaker
So to kind of boil it down out of the academic world and into real life, the Fourth Industrial Revolution really is about that societal transformation that that is triggered by new and advancing digital technologies, the sort of poster child for the Fourth Industrial Revolution as artificial intelligence.
00:11:02
Speaker
But you also want to think about other technologies like cloud computing, robotics, internet of things. So it is really just, it's also good maybe to think about it in terms of the third industrial revolution, which had to do with ah the introduction of computerization ah into manufacturing and industrial operations around the world. So that's why this is interplay between fourth industrial revolution.
00:11:26
Speaker
and in industry 4.0 or 3.0 or so on. But I think people are broadly familiar with this idea of the Industrial Revolution, which started in the UK in the 1800s. It shows that you know the human civilizations move out of agrarian economies of farming and livestock and all of this kind of stuff.
00:11:45
Speaker
more into production-based economies and factories and so on. And that initial Industrial Revolution, of course, the poster child of that one, was the steam engine. So the first Industrial Revolution was all about manufacturing industry through steam. This stuff is on my mind because in, I think it was 2017 when I started my, like this is my research area, I'm quite interested in how the fourth Industrial Revolution can help emerging economies sort of change their destiny and change their future trajectories around their position on the sort of lead table of global economies. I wrote an article for for an industry paper in 2017 about what is the fourth industrial revolution in for Africa. And I think that work sort of was the seed that grew into my PhD research, which I'm just sort of at the tail end of now. In fact, I'm hoping to hear about my oral defense in the next couple of weeks.
00:12:44
Speaker
um But the interesting thing or what's important to understand about fourth industrial revolution is is really the lessons of the third industrial revolution. If you think about the societal transformation that came about in places like India, Vietnam, the societal structure of a country like India, which is massive, like that's a billion people, ah was greatly redefined by things that came along or came in the box or that they put into the box.
00:13:13
Speaker
in the third industrial revolution, things like outsourcing and offshore software development and call centers and all of that kind of stuff. These things didn't really exist in a meaningful way in the 70s.
00:13:24
Speaker
But you could see as their global impact started happening, the sort of emergence of a middle class within Indian society. And again, the India we have today in 2024 is really intrinsically defined by those impacts into you know into the society. And so what is interesting for me is if an industrial revolution can transform a society in that way, then anytime a new one comes around,
00:13:50
Speaker
Uh, you know, it's an opportunity as a futurist to think about, well, at a society level or on trajectory A, uh, if there's ways to adopt these new technologies or even influence the development of them, uh, that to me is really the interesting point. I mean, India or Philippines or Vietnam didn't have any role to play actually in the third industrial revolution. Computers were being invented in the U S and you know, manufacturing has been set up in Europe and things like that.
00:14:20
Speaker
So the idea to use, I don't know whether it's language compatibility, labor market dynamics, that ingenuity I think is an opportunity that was presented and grasped to a greater or lesser extent by some countries different to others. And then the other important point about how these revolutions evolve is to make sure that ah recognize local conditions, right? Again, history is littered with stories in Africa of trying to import ah medical technology and things from the West, say, into Africa, and it's just been incompatible with the cultural milieu there, so there's an opportunity to adapt. If I think about how cell phone technology expanded in Africa and the Middle East because of a lack of
00:15:09
Speaker
historical infrastructure investment in fixed-line technology. That's the correlation that that you make there. These are transformative capabilities and very interesting to see the kinds of applications that are developed. You may have heard of Impeza in Kenya, which is a mobile payments technology. Pay-as-you-go as as a cell phone is the thing that's invented in ah in a setting where people are largely unbanked. These things were never going to come out of societies that had a different financial setting in anyway. So lots of interesting facets and dimensions to the fourth industrial revolution. And yeah, my lens on it really is what opportunities does it present for countries to change their destiny?
00:15:52
Speaker
Yes. And my fault question was going to perhaps be that exactly with you know increasing polarization and you economic inequality, how can governments in emerging economies balance the need for adoption of rapid technological advancement with ensuring social stability and um you know ensuring that they're included in in the narrative and in the growth This point I just made about um how cell phone technology spread in the emerging world compared to and some of the novel things that came along with that spread that were never going to come out of the more traditional technology rich markets. There's similar dynamics unfolding when we think about AI and cloud computing and so on, you know, with these fourth industrial revolution oriented technologies. I'll just call out a couple of examples here, but you know, there are
00:16:47
Speaker
There are some terms and things that I came across it with new to me, things like frugal innovation, which is really figuring out, you know, there are many innovation methodologies. But again, depending on where those methodologies are born and executed, they will make assumptions about abundance or scarcity within the environment. And so frugal innovation is one of these approaches to innovation. It's it's a field that is being advanced to think about, yeah, how can we but remain competitive in an innovation sense as an economy or as an industry when resources are scarce, right? That's the concept of frugality. Maybe the other one that folks are much more familiar with
00:17:25
Speaker
is an economic model called around the circular economy, which is more a way of thinking about the economic life of a society in a less wasteful sense and a less of a consumptive sense and this sort of following more natural cycles of production and and waste regeneration and this this kind of stuff. So those alternative mindsets around economy or innovation or whatever, I think those that's the opportunity space for emerging economy either governments or policy makers or industry leaders. Those are the opportunities, the kinds of opportunities to capture. Actually not just to capture them, but to develop them even, right? To advance them and to make those ideas more competing than the current dominant economic narrative around maximizing and zero sum gains in this kind of stuff.
00:18:15
Speaker
My point is that the opportunity exists there. There are plenty of seeds that are there and these these ideas are not going to advance in the traditional emerged economy settings because those are systems that are seeking to reinforce the status quo, right? they and And that's not a value judgment. That's just a comment on a few of said systems thinking you'll understand that that's what systems tend to do. They tend to preserve themselves.
00:18:38
Speaker
it's not a moral It's not a moral question, it's just a survival question. Fair, very fair. Thanks for for clarifying. To jump to another you know big concept, big idea, since that's been the the trend for
Importance of Future Studies Communities
00:18:52
Speaker
us today. um What is the concept of futurist communities and what are your thoughts on that? I'll go back here, Rose, to maybe some of what you found so intriguing at the start when I was talking about the lessons I learned trying to build out a strategic foresight for solving practice.
00:19:08
Speaker
I think one of the things that I learned is that, you know, my journey into future studies has mostly to do with an academic sort of a trajectory. So that one of the lessons that I learned is that there's a lot of science and developed thinking around this stuff that if you haven't been on an academic journey, it doesn't immediately obvious. So I think that's kind of point one. But the paired point around that is that there's actually nothing arcane or you know specific about there's something sort of inherent in the human experience that ponders these questions about the future and improving one's destiny and lot and whatever the case is. So there's a common impulse here.
00:19:50
Speaker
And there's like a science that isn't well, isn't widely spread. Like I would say even something like economics or psychology is spread more widely than what technology has spread more widely than some of the future studies are still in a very early stage, you know, as ah as a field in terms of how much, how widely known its concepts are. But there's this body in society and and something in the human experience. Maybe another way to explain it is every time I encounter a futurist, We tell remarkably similar stories about how transformative and and and how future studies gave the language to things that we always felt inherently you know in ourselves.
00:20:30
Speaker
and spoken about this term before called hidden futurist, right? There are actually, like I call myself a futurist and I make that claim because, oh, I've done some studying and this, I think ah my worldview is actually a little different than that is that there are many people who are, who have the same impulses that I had that make this stuff resonate so much for me. So those are the hidden futurists, right? I think there might be a hidden futurist. Spoiler a alert, I think everybody's a hidden futurist. Oh, there you go. Okay. Yes.
00:20:57
Speaker
So I think, and that's just sort of my, like I said, my worldview, but we still have this work to do to give people this language within which to express these inherent impulses. So futurist communities for me is really this idea about understanding, you know, where, where are the people that have already kind of found their way into this language, forming that community and growing that community. So.
00:21:26
Speaker
If I say to you one of the, again, I'm going to try and answer your question that you're intrigued about. I think one of the things that I learned through my experiences trying to do the Forsythe Consulting practice development was there's still more work to be done to teach and to open up access to these concepts.
00:21:45
Speaker
then there is work to be done to monetize and advise it, right? And so for me, continuing and completing the academic journey, getting to a point where I can be qualified to teach future studies is probably a more impactful way. Yes, it's ah it'll be a longer range thing because teaching is more a multi-generational kind of pursuit than monetizing something which is to create like in my mind, sort of the profitable economy. and And that has got a different set of motives associated with it, I think, when it's teaching. So, you know, in the realm of making choices between these things and where to put one's attention, I think that's one of the sort of nuances and ideas that I picked up. Of course, we live in a plural world.
00:22:28
Speaker
it's not it's either and right It's not about just doing the one thing and to the exclusion of the other. There's going to have to be an element over all of them. I think we had a very interesting conversation on LinkedIn with a bunch of other futurists about how we as professionals, futurists, try to advance our our work. But all of that stuff goes into the box around discourse within the futurist community.
00:22:51
Speaker
shifting the tide this way or that way. But yeah, i you know it's really just that group of people, hopefully expanding group of people that is finding and using this language about shifting shifting the sort of default narrative about the future.
00:23:08
Speaker
give a couple of examples but just mobilizing that to people. This comment I make about the default future like you know futurists obsess about crazy little things like the concept of predictions right so we go whenever people ask for predictions because that sort of implies or suggests that the future is something pre-written and predetermined and if only like there's a way you can develop some special knowledge about something actually a strategic foresight in the future studies mentality around the future is very different it's more a space of possibilities and and multiple coexisting potential realities and choosing and shaping an agency those were the new things i discovered about the future as i entered this field before i also thought time travel and all of that stuff was
00:23:55
Speaker
you know, really what, again, interesting ideas, but not the only kinds of ways to think about the future, right? Yeah. And when you talk about predictions or or predicting, I think what I've learned, at least a tool that the strategic foresight practitioners or community uses is something called signals. And that's probably the the leading indicator for predictions, so to speak, right? yeah I have a debate with this one futurist friend of mine who's more a provocative kind of a person and who deliberately, as a futurist, goes out there and makes predictions just to rile everybody up. The issue with something like predictions is is is that it locks in this mindset of there is only a singular future.
00:24:38
Speaker
And so part of changing the language away from predictions is I think to broaden up people's ideas that signals from the future is, I mean, that that that is a very real thing. Forecasts and things can be made, trend projections are real things that are mathematically sound mechanisms and techniques to understand you know how things unfold, probabilities, statistics, that kind of stuff.
00:25:01
Speaker
So what are you most optimistic about when it comes to the future? yeah that is That's a great question.
Embracing Change and Future Opportunities
00:25:08
Speaker
i I think I maybe want to just preface it by saying that in a general sense, I'm very optimistic about the future. I think as much as there might be all kinds of worrying signals, that optimism really just is informed by, I think my philosophy about agency and the ability to have alternatives and things. I think I'm generally in an optimistic space.
00:25:30
Speaker
When it comes to, I guess, specifics, Rose, I think I'm going to say what I see as an accelerating pace of change, I think most people get this in the context of technology, things seem to be changing faster, and new tech is coming out faster than ever, but even in other facets of life, what the accelerating pace of change represents to me is a chance for disruption is a chance to unmake those social systems that maybe aren't doing as well for humanity as they traditionally have. And it's a chance to sort of reconcile the systems we have that make up our society with the reality of the society.
00:26:07
Speaker
of the society that we're living in. If you think about, you'll hear this from medical professionals that the systems that drive the science the field of medicine were conceived in a colonial era. That doesn't mean that it's all bad, but I think you know some of the obvious limitations about the systems like that is that You know, that's just a one perspective. It doesn't create space for alternative approaches to health care and Medicaid. So all this acceleration, I think, raises the likelihood for disruption. And like I said, an opportunity to unmake some of those systems which aren't serving us as well as they used to, if I can put it that way.
00:26:48
Speaker
Very fair. And as a, as a general question, I know that we've spoken about various things, the, you know, the fourth industrial revolution, futures communities, um, you know, predictions and signals and many other things. How would you say as an individual that's at home or in their car, listening to this, um, this episode right now, how can they prepare for some of the changes that you've discussed? Yeah. So a couple of things going off in my head as I, as I think about that.
00:27:17
Speaker
We spoke earlier on about um this concept of future consciousness and so I think that maybe the first idea to impress on anyone listening is be alive to this notion that there's almost an inherent futures consciousness that lives in all of us but that needs to be awakened and and so I'd start there. I'd encourage people to develop some curiosity about the field of futures or strategic foresight. It's not so widely known as I would like it to be certainly and so the more people become curious and want to research and dig in and understand more about it I think that that starts to be like a brick in the wall of greater aggregate futures consciousness in our societies and our communities
00:28:01
Speaker
And I actually think that's the other thing is I would recommend people to do I'm again just reflecting on my own journey is seek out other maybe use this term before hidden futurists there are literally futurists all over at varying degrees of you know progress in in a journey, I think, in terms of futures consciousness. So find and connect with those people, because I think, yes, there is obviously something that happens at the individual level, but you know collective action and community action is really, I think, where societal change gets triggered from. ah Building community around futures consciousness is an unimportant point.
00:28:39
Speaker
You know, don't lose heart, don't lose faith. Sometimes it can feel like progress is very slow, but even slow progress is something that is is to be valued. And so just stick with it. Even 15 years in, I'm delighted every time I discover this somebody or encounter somebody in my travels who like yourself is curious and and wanting to understand more about foresight and the future and so on. So those are the moments that carry you from one point to the next in the journey.
00:29:06
Speaker
That's awesome.
Connect with Rafik Bosch
00:29:07
Speaker
Perhaps my last question is, where can we learn more about your work and stay up to date with what you are doing? So I have some of my research and some of my public talks and things posted on my LinkedIn profile. Anybody who searches my name, Rafik Bosch, futurist, will come up ah so you can find some of the content there. Awesome. Thanks so much, Rafik. Rose, it's been so much fun. i I really think this is a wonderful project and glad to be able to be a part of it. And I'm looking forward to the future episodes. Amazing.