Category: Events

Update 2: Here is the link to the slides are at https://bit.ly/BTdriversEN in English and https://bit.ly/BTdriversFR in French.

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Update: Part 2 of Steffen’s presentation will be tomorrow [July 19, 12:30 to 3:30 pm, DMS Room 4165].

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Next FSN meeting is on July 6 [12:30 – 3:30 pm, Room 7170 at Telfer School of Management] on ‘Canada beyond 150’ by Dr. Steffen Christensen [bio]. He is Canada’s most knowledgeable and insightful public sector futurist. Try to make it for his talk on the future of work.

Next FSN meeting is June 25 [12 – 3 pm, Room 7170 at Telfer School of Management] on “The Evolution of DNA” by Larry Moran.

Abstract: What’s in Your Genome?
Your genome consists of 23 pieces of DNA containing 3.2 billion base pairs. The order, or sequence, of these bases is what determines the function of your genome. Scientists have been working hard for the past 50 years in order to figure out what’s in your genome. We now have some pretty good answers to this question. We will talk about how many genes you have and the functions of other important stretches of DNA. In my opinion, the best available evidence indicates that 90% of your genome is useless junk!
This conclusion is controversial. A great many scientists disagree. The reasons for the controversy will lead us into a discussion of evolution and why the Dawkins’ view of selfish genes is wrong. We’ll also talk about other explanations for why the idea of junk DNA is so strongly resisted by some scientists and why the popular press has misrepresented the scientific literature in an attempt to discredit junk DNA.

About: Laurence (Larry) A. Moran is a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. His main interests these days are molecular evolution and science education. He is the author of a popular undergraduate textbook of biochemistry and numerous articles on his blog “Sandwalk.” (sandwalk.blogspot.com/)

Next FSN meeting is May 25, 12 pm in DMS 7170. Alan Emory [link to bio] on Mapping a safe future for Canada in the face of inevitable severe global warming impacts.

Abstract
Based on the present behaviour of the nations of the world and their de facto commitment to at least some measure of the Paris Agreements, the world will be subjected to high levels of atmospheric greenhouse gases likely reaching between 700 and 1600ppm CO 2 and temperature increases of between 5 0 C and 11 0 C over the next several hundred years. This will result in severe and unavoidable global warming impacts sufficient to potentially destabilize global civil society, but will also leave Canada in a relatively benign, but vastly changed climate. With potentially billions of climate refugees world-wide, Canada and Siberia will be the two main safe climate havens for the world population. Following a description of these inevitable changes and impacts, as well as a short outline of some options for both industry and government, the workshop will develop a series of mechanisms to cope with the changed environmental, social, economic, and political environments. One unlikely option can be addressed as well – a globally directed emergency measure to transition rapidly away from using fossil fuels and a rapid reduction of atmospheric CO 2 to pre-industrial levels of about 280ppm that would avoid the calamitous global warming impacts.
The workshop approach will use global climate change scenarios that have been predicted by the scientific community as the basis from which to develop safe routes to a secure future for Canada in the face of intense pressure to provide the world with freshwater, agricultural potential, favourable climatic conditions, stable government, and a vastly increased infrastructure to handle something on the order of a billion or more people within 300 years. Break out groups will have the opportunity to map realistic and implementable action plans and events leading to solutions in the environment of a super wicked problem.

P.S. Summary of future events:

Date	Time	Location	Topic
May 25	12-4 pm	DMS 7170	Alan Emery on Mapping a safe future for Canada in the face of inevitable severe global warming impacts
June 22	12-3 pm	DMS 7170/4165	Steffen Christensen
June 29	12-2 pm	DMS 7170/4165	Tentatively booked Larry Moran + FSN discussion of priorities for 2018

 

 

Next FSN meeting is May 4, 12 pm in DMS 7170.

Tony Patterson, Editor of Silicon Valley North, lead a discussion on the Central Canada Technology corridor. Tony is an experienced high technology journalist ; and is /or was the Editor of Silicon Valley North.

P.S. Summary of future events:

Date	Time	Location	Topic
May 4	12-2 pm	DMS 7170	Tony Patterson Editor of Silicon Valley North  will lead a discussion on the Central Canada Technology corridor
May 25	12-4 pm	DMS 7170	Alan Emory on Canada’s Adaptation to Climate Change
June 29	12-2 pm	DMS 4165	Speaker TBD + FSN discussion of priorities for 2018

Update: Here are the slides – Cryptography 30 Jan.

Hello,

The next FSN meeting will be next TUESDAY [Jan. 30 at 12 pm in DMS 7170] by Peter Chapman on Cryptography – here is the abstract of the presentation:

Abstract Crytpo presentation

If you will be outside Ottawa and would like to connect via Skype please contact me at: SValiyani@gmail.com; I may be able to arrange a connection.

Regards,
Sameer

Update: Here are the slides – Cyber Security by David Harries

ROOM CHANGE: Please note the room change to DMS 7170.

Hello,

The next FSN meeting will be next Friday [Dec. 15 at 12 pm in DMS 4165 7170] by David Harries on Cyber security.

The presenter recommends everyone review following documents prior to the meeting to help get some context for the presentation:

Narrative mapping of cyberspace by David Harries

XLI CICA note for Pugwash website

If you will be outside Ottawa and would like to connect via Skype please contact me at: SValiyani@gmail.com; I may be able to arrange a connection.

Regards,
Sameer

Update 2: Article by Nicole Morgan – Back to the Future as a Futurist (link)

Update: Attached is the presentation, please note the slides were notes for a speech, and Nicole plans to write a long paper on the subject – Cybershock november 24

Also, here is a long paper on the topic which details some of the hypotheses used in presentation – Lose canons in cyberspace

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Hello,

The next FSN meeting will be next Friday [Nov. 24] by Nicole Morgan.

Here is the link to Nicole’s bio and proposed topic of discussion: cybershock

If you will be outside Ottawa and would like to connect via Skype please contact me at: SValiyani@gmail.com; I may be able to arrange a connection.

Regards,
Sameer

Update: Slides of the presentation – Apprehension of Future Uncertainty – 4th Gen foresigh – FSN – Oct 2017

Abstract of the presentation:

Simple Actions – Complex Worlds​ – Unknowable Implications
Framing the Future of Conditions of S​ocial-Economic Identity
Anticipating a Fourth Generation ​of ​Foresight

​The presentation will outline a view of change as Changing Conditions of Change. A concept of ‘Attractor of Efficiency and Governance’ will be presented. Next we will examine the conditions of the Digital Environment​, the emergence of an ‘economy of abundance’ with a corresponding need for an appropriate economic theory. There will be a very brief history of Social-Economic Constraints Framing Identity.

The presentation will conclude with a brief account of emerging implications for a potential epistemology and sense-making for common meaning. This final discussion will argue for the emergence of a Fourth Generation​ for public​ ​policy ​Foresight.​

About the presenter: John Verdon Hon B.A Psych. MA Anthropology

John’s educational background includes a BA in psychology, MA in anthropology, and PhD course work in both sociology and philosophy (degrees not completed). His research and learning is a broad with mastery in a number of domains including foresight, complexity, economics, and technology. He is retired after 25 years as a public servant (15 years as a strategic foresight analyst for National Defence). Currently he is a consultant and writer. He has worked with start-up in Silicon Valley and he is a co-founder of a social enterprise establishing a social-studio for adults on the autism spectrum. He maintains a blog and writes for other organizations. His current project is a book ‘The Wealth of People” – exploring theory and philosophy for flourishing human capital in the 21^st Century.

 

FALL SCHEDULE FSN
DATE	ROOM	SPEAKER/ Topic	TIME
Thursday October 26	DMS 4165	John Verdon -tbc		1200-1400
Friday November 24	DMS 4165	Jack Smith –    Foresight Insight from Hindsight		1200-1400
Friday December 15	DMS 4165	David Harries – Cyber-Security – tbc		1200-1400
Note: times and room assignments are tentative till confirmed on the FSN web site and via regular meeting notices

 

Update: here are the slides Viable System Model

The next FSN meeting will be September 29 [12 – 2 pm, Room DMS 4165], on ‘Bureaucracy and the Viable Systems Model’ by John Coghlan.

About the topic: Bureaucracy and the Viable Systems Model

Many malign bureaucracy. When Weber wrote about bureaucracy in the early 1900s, it was a superior way of organizing labour. Today, it is not. Large bureaucracies face vastly more complex and fast changing environments than in Weber’s time. The very size of many bureaucracies means that they lack resilience and adaptability.

Peter Drucker, management guru, said that: we have modelled organizations on flows of energy but now, we are building them based upon flows of information. Old mechanistic command and control bureaucracy dwindles. New information based organizational architecture, based upon systems, and so biological models, is coming to the fore. These organizations show much more resilience and adaptability and often more productivity, than large bureaucracies.

What would the architecture of an information organization be?  British-Welsh Cybernetician Stafford Beer had one answer. He looked at the most complex information organizing organism in the world: the human nervous system. From there, he built a five system model, each level within the other like Russian dolls: a self-recursive system. Being a system, this organizational model deals with the amplification or attenuation of information according to its own needs and those of the environment, particularly the client.

Although empirical studies lack, some documented evidence points to how effective the VSM is to diagnose corporate problems and to create a more flexible, resilient enterprise.

About the presenter: John Coghlan

John Coghlan has degrees in Russian, French language and literature and communications. He has worked in government and in the private sector as public relations writer, editor, teacher, translator and technical writer.  He has worked in Canada, Italy and Haiti and is fluent in seven languages.

The technical writing brought him to an interest in process improvement through such techniques as the enterprise architecture, then the theory of constraints. He went to Haiti where he worked with a Canadian consultant to open up a non-government organization for improving the quality of life in Petionville, a borough of Port-au-Prince. The organization would use a software platform, based upon sociocracy, for proposing, describing, debating and deciding upon new projects to fund. The organizational architecture we chose was the Viable System Model.

If you will be outside Ottawa and would like to connect via Skype please contact me at:  SValiyani@gmail.com; I may be able to arrange a connection.

Regards,

Sameer Valiyani

613-265-7210

FALL SCHEDULE FSN
DATE	ROOM	SPEAKER/ Topic	TIME
Friday Sept 29	DMS 4165	John Coghlan – Complexity		1200-1400
Thursday October 26	DMS 4165	John Verdon -tbc		1200-1400
Friday November 24	DMS 4165	Jack Smith –    Foresight Insight from Hindsight		1200-1400
Friday December 15	DMS 4165	David Harries – Cyber-Security – tbc		1200-1400
Note: times and room assignments are tentative till confirmed on the FSN web site (www.   )   and via regular meeting notices