Announcing the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Awards for 2021
We are delighted to announce the winners and awardees for NGFP Awards 2021.
About the 2021 awards
The Next Generation Foresight Practitioners (NGFP) awards is an initiative by SOIF. The Awards seek to identify, support and showcase global, innovative practice in Strategic Foresight. They foster connections and collaborations between pockets of innovative practice and build links across a new generation of foresight practitioners.
We have had a fantastic set of applications this year. The Main Award winners are a group of four inspiring young women. Three 23-year-olds have won the Walkabout prizes, and we received applications from 40 different countries with 48 awardees.
Please join us in congratulating the fellows and all the applicants this year.
Main Award
This year the Joseph Jaworski Main was awarded to Maria Razquin, Paula Jimeno, Ane Eguiazabal and Olatz Ibarretxe for their ongoing work at The Future Game helping young people discover their power to imagine alternative futures and activate impactful initiatives collectively in a playful learning experience. With the USD 10,000 award, they hope to unleash youth potential, building digital and physical connections and create new meaningful learning content. They will be supported by quarterly mentoring and professional support and a team member will be invited to attend SOIF's Annual Strategic Foresight retreat.
This year there are five Funded Special Awards. The awardees each receive USD 2,500 to amplify their futures focused projects. In addition, 23 future-alert activists are recognised as NGFP Fellows for their work in a particular sector or geography.
Main AwardsWalkabout Prizes
Returning for the second year, the Walkabout prizes are designed for 18-25-year-olds. All Walkabout prizes were awarded to 23-year-olds. Kushal Sohal from the UK aims to pilot a Futures Literacy Laboratory with young people to facilitate conversations on the futures of masculinity. From Nigeria, Fisayo Oyewale's project, the Farmers futures program (FFP), seeks to give farmers the agency over their future, co-creating solutions around emerging issues. Koen Vegter from the Netherlands aims to build a platform and train people to have the skills and tools that organisations and people incorporate foresight into their daily work.
All our Fellows will be supported through the peer-to-peer NGFP Sensing Network, mentoring from international foresight thinkers, training webinars and meet-ups.
Walkabout PrizesYoung Voices
For the first time, NGFP Awards, in collaboration with Teach the Future, announced the Young Voices award to showcase the voices of 12–17-year-olds. The first-place winner who will receive USD 1000, three admirable young individuals receive USD 500 prize. Six others are recognised for their ideas and efforts in building a better future.
Finally, we would like to extend our gratitude and appreciation to all our 2021 judges and to Omidyar Network, Humanity United, Teach the Future and Elrha for their support of the NGFP Programme. Without their help, it would not be possible to make the awards a reality.
If you'd like to get in touch, find out more about collaborating with the Sensing Network, and explore how to support the Awards in 2021, then please contact us
Young VoicesOur NGFP2021 Winners and Awardees
Main Award
Maria Razquin, Paula Jimeno, Ane Eguiazabal and Olatz Ibarretxe from The Future Game
Winner, 2021
SpainMaria, Paula, Ane and Olatz win the Main Award for their ongoing work at The Future Game, a future forecasting and social innovation platform that lives in Discord and Twitch. Inspired by the UN's SDGs, the platform helps young people discover their own power to imagine alternative futures and activate impactful initiatives collectively through a playful learning experience and impact entertainment. They hope to unleash youth potential with the prize, build digital and physical connections, and create meaningful learning content.

Amala Mhaiskar and Srishti Roshan from Sustainable Food Futures in India (SFFI)
Team Award 2021
IndiaAmala and Srishti created the speculative recipe book on Sustainable Food Futures in India. Their proposal builds on this work to create an online platform to engage the community and to translate the recipe book into exhibits and workshops. They hope to create a locally driven global food future that combines indigenous food traditions with new food technology.

Anna Titova
Education Award 2021
RussiaInformation coming soon...

Cherie Minniecon
Peacebuilding Award (Funded) 2021
AustraliaCherie is a Yorta Yorta woman and a descendant of a stolen generation survivor in Australia. She explores futures processes and practices that consider the role of culture, systematic violence, conflict, survivance and trauma. Her proposal seeks to develop a participatory narrative foresight methodology and to launch a futures focused podcast that engages a broad range of people to creatively explore futures thinking, practice and visions in a way that tickles the imagination, evokes curiosity and enables action.

Clarice Garcia
South America Award 2021
BrazilClarice is a researcher, designer and facilitator. Her work aims to solve the contradiction between sustainability and fashion in a way that integrate consumers’ voices and cultural aspects into fashion futures initiatives. Her proposal aims to facilitate connections and dialogues between fashion activists and young futurists and to take her toolkit to countries with poor access to technology and the Internet.

Dexter Docherty and Kushal Sohal
Culture and Identity Award 2021
Canada, United KingdomDexter and Kushal’s project explores toxic masculinity and what it might mean to be a feminist man in the future, applying feminist theory to policy development. They plan to deliver a Futures Literacy Lab focused on the “Futures of Masculinity” exploring their broader policy and far-reaching relevance for intergenerational issues.

Elias Mouawad
MENA Award (Funded) 2021
LebanonElias has been exploring the use of alternate reality as a tool to help decision-makers engage with uncertain and unexpected events. He led the design of a simulation for Beirut that explore future risks, challenges and gaps in infrastructure, governance and policy. His proposal seeks to explore the futures of identity and the social contract in fragile contexts and what can be applied to support strategic planning and community interventions.

Elizabeth Possee Corthell
Community Award 2021
United StatesLiz is a strategist, service designer, and futurist. Her project aims to establish a futures thinking lab in Mad*Pow’s Centre for Health Experience Design. The lab aims to create new experiences for the community, like workshops where we focus on crafting compelling visions of an equitable future of healthcare and to use these to create change.

Evy Peña
Forced Labour Award (Funded) 2021
MexicoEvy champions migrants’ rights through her transnational narrative work. Through survivor-focused storytelling, leadership development, and strategic communications, she ensures that migrant women are at the forefront of advocacy around labor migration. As Communications and Development Director at Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Evy aims to change the systems that facilitate forced labor, building worker-centered communications campaigns, notably around international trade agreements

Irene Coletto
Europe Award 2021
ItalyIrene has been working with foresight and graphic facilitation as part of the Prot(A)ction project run by Forwardto that is building a "community of practice" of service operators that work against human trafficking in the Piemonte region of Italy. Her proposal seeks to address a lack of young voices and diversity in futures work across Italy with the aim of spreading futures literacy and a sense of agency and common purpose.

Jessica Thornton and Heather Russek from Creative Futures
North America Award 2021
CanadaJessica and Heather have been using participatory foresight to explore labour markets and the skills and occupations needed in Canadian cities over the next 10-15 years. They now plan to launch a national foresight club to build the capacity of Canadian municipal staff and to develop a series of futures literacy modules for municipal audiences.

Karl Satinitigan
Entrepreneur Award 2021
The PhillipinesKarl has been working to promote futures thinking among startup founders and social entrepreneurs, especially as they help transition the Philippines into a circular economy. His project aims to translate futures thinking tools so that they are truly accessible to community-based entrepreneurs and people's organizations

Lee Zhong Han
Social Innovation Award 2021
SingaporeLee has led social enterprises that reduced food wastage and provided training for youth involvement in social and environmental issues. Building on his experiences with the #WeTellStories Community, a non-profit project that uses storytelling to advocate for various causes, Lee hopes to build the capability of civil society to use foresight methods.

Ludwig Bengtsson
Environment Award (Funded) 2021
SwedenLudwig works on climate politics. He started with activism—at the UNCOPs as a youth delegate and through CSOs. Later, he joined a group of researchers at Lund University working on speculative futures and artistic practices. He's created a fictional museum of the fossil era, a travel guide to a decarbonised city and a sound walk set in an urban future. His proposal is focused on crafting a desirable future for Swedish forests.

Marcela Capaja
Technology and Security Award (Funded) 2021
PolandMarcela has been working as a champion for futures thinking and youth leadership in security through her work, including a participatory futures game, Young Leaders Programme, and INTERPOL Global Horizon Scan. Her project focuses on launching a Youth Security Futures Forum, a platform that helps youth voices to shape the future global security agenda.

Marguerite Coetzee
Humanitarian Award 2021
South AfricaMarguerite has a rich experience in visual storytelling. Her project seeks to address the alienation, disorientation, and displacement of people on the African continent and of African descent. She hopes to build a community of empowered agents of change – to revolutionise and democratise the imaginings, lived realities, and origins of African futures.

Nicole Kahn Parreño
Asia Award 2021
The PhilippinesNicole has been championing futures work in the Philippines including through the Philippine Futures Thinking Society (PhilFutures), the Center for Engaged Foresight (CEF), and the Association of Professional Futurists (APF). Her project aims to strengthen indigenous and community foresight by developing decolonized Filipino futures through Hiraya Foresight, working with rural communities to bring their voices into the conversation

Plearn Janvatanavit, Paricha Duangtaweesub and Kanravee Kittayarak from TIJ Justice Innovation Unit
Policy (government) Award 2021
ThailandKanravee, Paricha and Plearn have a dream of empowering their community of social justice changemakers in Thailand. They have been using foresight to explore justice interventions that can support vulnerable groups through hosting participatory workshops for multi sector leaders. As the first justice innovation group that uses a futures thinking approach in Thailand, they now seek to build on this work by creating a strong community of practitioners that makes for a more participatory justice future for all.

Randy Lubin
Innovative Methods Award 2021
United StatesRandy is a game designer and entrepreneur working to create positive futures through games and technology. Through his studio, Leveraged Play, he has designed and run foresight games that explore the future of artificial intelligence, elections, web monetization, and much more. He also runs Story Synth, an open-source game design platform, which he plans to expand to empower foresight practitioners to create, run, and share participatory games at scale.

Reinhold Mangundu
Development Award 2021
NamibiaReinhold has been participating in and leading participatory games to explore how Namibia can meet the challenge of the Sustainable Development Goals, working with 500 young people in Namibia. He is aiming to build on this work through workshops, and bringing these approaches to more students and learners through a simplified and translated manual.

Rodrigo Mota
Policy (International) Award 2021
BrazilRodrigo co-created the WFP Youth Network – a global, diverse, self-organized platform for youth advocacy and humanitarian action at the United Nations World Food Programme. His project focuses on co-creating scenarios and story-like narratives for the future of humanitarian action. His work with different organizations and countries helps to “connect the dots” in understanding how to make a difference in the world through action and purpose.

Samuel Egbedeyi
Africa Award 2021
NigeriaOver the years, Samuel has learned the soft and hard skills required to drive a lasting change in Africa. His project is focused on adapting a modern rainwater recovery mechanism to help tackle the problem of potable water scarcity in Nigeria. His goal is to increase the percentage of Nigerians who have access to safe drinking water from less than 20% to over 50% by 2030.

Trishia Nashtaran
Cities Award 2021
BangladeshTrishia is a feminist organizer and a foresight strategist working in gender-based discrimination in the workplace. Her foresight initiative, Third Space Feminism, has been exploring the potential of women-centric digital spaces in co-creating gender-inclusive and sustainable futures in a patriarchal society. Her proposal is focused on the creation of inclusive toilets in Bangladesh and working to enable others to co-design an inclusive future for themselves, their communities, and their workplaces.

Yelena Muzykina
Education Award 2021
KazakhstanYelena is a lecturer and trainer, consultant working in Kazakhstan. Her project is focused on expanding futures literacy in Kazakhstan. She is working to compile a Russian manual for futures studies to address language barriers that limit uptake across society. She also hopes to develop a new course that meets the needs of civil servants and promotes futures literacy in Kazakhstan and across central Asia.
Walkabout Prizes

Fisayo Oyewale
Winner, 2021
NigeriaFisayo works to identify the gaps and opportunities the agro-sector presents to different actors, with a special interest in rural communities. Her project, Farmers futures program (FFP) seeks to give farmers the agency over their future, by co-creating solutions around emerging issues, offering training on financially sustainable agro-enterprise while also opening up younger people to local possibilities.

Koen Vegter
Winner, 2021
NetherlandsKoen is a foresight practitioner with an academic background in business. His project aims to help the world accelerate towards a more positive future by supporting people and organisations in spotting emerging change and justifying action-taking. He plans to train people in setting up continuous future-scanning and anticipation practices, but also develop a platform that helps people implement Foresight in their organization.

Kushal Sohal
Winner, 2021
United KingdomKushal's focus has been on global citizenship and the potential to liberate ourselves through vulnerability. His project is to run a pilot Futures Literacy Laboratory with young people that facilitate conversations on the futures of masculinity. He plans to publish a research paper and develop a series of multimedia resources to spark public curiosity and social change.
Young Voices

Alice and Ruhan, Finland and Brazil
First place winner, Young Voices
Finland and BrazilPassionate about education, music, theater, and debate.Their project aims to host international online debate championships for youth, focusing on solutions to contemporary global challenges.

Amna, Pakistan
Runner up, Young Voices
PakistanAmna is an international speaker, STEM enthusiast, and an advocate for girls' education and mental health. Her project aims to make every Pakistani girl capable for the future of work. She is currently developing a mental health app for teens, and is also the youngest Pakistani to host an international female-only hackathon.

Arjun and Om, India
Runner up, Young Voices
IndiaArjun and Om have co-founded a non-profit organisation centred around helping Persons with Disabilities by upskilling their communication and helping them secure jobs. Our team is paving the way for a more equal and inclusive world.

Daniele, Maria and Spiros, Singapore
Runner up, Young Voices
SingaporeDaniele and her global team are focused on building a sustainable world. Their team pulls from their different passions drama, technology, and science, to create their video series. The videos are intended to contribute towards kids’ understanding of what climate change is, why we should work together to fight it, and how we can take steps to reverse global warming.

Aishwarya, United States
Top finalist, Young Voices
United StatesAishwarya believes that it is our responsibility to give back to our community, whether it is senior citizens, children with special needs, or the homeless with small acts of kindness. Her project focuses on bridging the gap between rural and urban health care and special needs education.

Andrés, Colombia
Top finalist, Young Voices
ColombiaAndrés, a junior member of the World Futures Studies Federation, is passionate about future studies, caring for the environment and educating other youth. In order to best reach other youth, he utilizes streaming to help educate and create a better future for all. His project is intended to garner an audience of youth and foresight experts.

Deona, United States
Top finalist, Young Voices
United StatesDeona is a coach and competitor in Future Problem Solving Program International, as well as a Teach the Future Youth Intern. Her project will allow global intergenerational collaboration between everyday citizens, field professionals, and foresight experts to solve some of the world’s leading issues.

Laila, United States
Top finalist, Young Voices
United StatesLaila, a multimedia Afro-Arab artist, views art as a means of detangling the complexity of intersectionality while in turn giving space for other creatives of color. Her project intends to challenge Eurocentric curriculum and tone-deaf anti-racist curriculum by centering Black Indiginouse People of Color (BIPOC) voices in relation to their oppression, culture, and joy.

Marina, Brazil
Top finalist, Young Voices
BrazilMarina has a deep interest in climate and environmental sustainability, with a special focus on intersectional education and global studies. Her project aims to roll out a course to talk about the climate crisis, the youth mobilization, and explain everything in a less scientific and more intersectional and accessible way.

Thainá, Brazil
Top finalist, Young Voices
BrazilThainá has always looked out for possible ways to challenge assumptions and create change. She volunteers weekly to help educate youth about Sex education. To resolve the lack of Sex Ed available in Brazil her project aims to decrease the number of teenage pregnancies and to empower and educate the younger generations.
Our 2021 Judges






















































— Omidyar Network