Megatrends Project Update Q4 2012

Linking Citizens. Spreading Knowledge.

4th Quarterly UpdateOctober - December 2012

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4th Quarterly Update • October-December 2012

Guns and RosesEast Africa Future DayNairobi, KenyaNovember 12, 2012futurechallenges.tumblr.com

Nairobi Future Day (November 11, 2012): The Bertelsmann Stiftung, the Bertelsmann Foundation and Society for International Development, with support from the Rockefeller Foundation, hosted the second event of a series of “Future Days”, which serve as forums to debate and prepare for some of the biggest global challenges. The purpose of the event was to discuss East Africa’s future in terms of security, the environment and regional integration.

Rockefeller Foundation Associate Director Evan Michelson kicked off the day with information on the Rockefeller Foundation’s Searchlight Initiative. Senior Project Manager Tom Fries and Project Manager Anneliese Guess gave an overview of the Stiftung’s FutureChallenges.org website and the Megatrends project, focusing on the chapters on Security and Biodiversity and Ecology, as they relate to the East African Community (EAC). A video created for the Future Day was then shown. It included interviews from residents living in different areas of the EAC speaking about how the EAC impacts (or does not affect) their lives. Many residents were excited about the opportunities that the EAC offers in terms of open borders, including easier cross-border transit and

One of the afternoon breakout discussions on the future of ecology and the environment in the East Africa Community. (Photo by Nicole Kleimann.)

Following the video, a panel discussion further discussed whether an integrated East Africa better responds to ecological and security challenges. This panel was moderated by Julie Gichuru from Citizen TV and Omar Mohammed from BBC Media Action. Panelists include Abdullahi Boru, an analyst at the International Crisis Group; Patrick Maingi, Chief Economist at the National Environmental Management Agency; and Nanjira Sambula, a New Media Strategist and Consultant. (cont. page 2)

by Anneliese Guess

4th Quarterly Update • October-December 2012

Global Governance

Demographic Change and Migration

Economic Globalization

Security

Natural Resources and Biodiversity

Climate Change and Biodiversity

4th Quarterly Update • October-December 2012

Looking back at 2012

Aiden Eyakuze, Programme Director at Society for International Development opened the second half of the day by inviting participants to visualize how East Africa will look in 2030. After this exercise, small breakout groups discussed their ideas about the future of East Africa in the context of either security or the environment. The small groups each presented their main solutions to potential problems the EAC may face in the future. The final panel to sum up the day’s discussions, was moderated by Omar Mohammed of BBC Media Action and included Dr. Ibrahim Farah from the University of Nairobi and Magode Ikuya from Molo Integrated Agrifarming Initiative.

Participants’ ideas will be posted on FutureChallenges.org. A live blog from the day is available at futurechallenges.tumblr.com.

More than 100 participants from the private and public sector attended the event.

The video shown at the East Africa Future Day is available at: http://bit.ly/U8qURw.

“My greatest hope is to have an East Africanregime integrated through sharing of common ideas, market, currency, policies an even language, where people are bonded by common similarities, where people are judged by their characters and not countries.”

Shem Otina, age 22, Kenya

Here are some of the great accomplishments of the Megatrends team in 2012:

• Won the Hamburg Social Media Week Prize for Internal Communication

• Future Day #1 in Berlin, Germany• Future Day #2 in Nairobi, Kenya• Global Economic Symposium

in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil• Publication of Megatrends in

Interaction and rollout events including at University of Houston, Galludet University, and the State Department

• Increase in FutureChallenges.org traffic by 473 percent

• Increase in social media presence• Publication of first Future Challenges Reader (pictured at right)

As part of our cooperation with the Rockefeller Foundation, FutureChallenges.org regularly posts content from the Rockefeller Searchlight Process. Here were the most popular Searchlight Posts in 2012:

1. Growth of the Brazilian Middle Class; a Tale of Things to Come2. Programs to Combat Malnutrition in India3. Two Innovative Ways of Improving Education: A Nigerian Case Study4. E-Waste Management in Tier II Cities in India5. Splitting Dhaka Model or Mistake6. Moringa for Water Treatment

We look forward to reading and posting Searchlight content in 2013!

Top Searchlight Posts

A question and answer session with the morning’s panelists. (Photo by Nicole Kleimann)

Visit us online at: www.futurechallenges.org www.bfna.org

For further information on Future Challenges and the Megatrends Project, contactJonathan Stevens • Director, Global Futures Project • +1 202 384 1994 • [email protected]

Anneliese Guess • Project Manager, International Relations • +1 202 384 1995 • [email protected]

October-December Site Visitor Stats In the month of October, FutureChallenges.org had 27,665 visitors. November had the highest number of visitors in the site’s history at 28,126 visitors. As of December 6, 2012, there have been 6,614 visitors, indicating it will follow the strong numbers of the two previous months.

During the months of October, November and December 2012, the origin of visitors to www.futurechallenges.org was the US (15.6%),followed by India (10.9%), the United Kingdom (6.4%), Germany, (5.0%), the Philippines (4.8%), and Pakistan (3.4%).

The number one search word that brought visitors to this site was “globalization” (or “globalisation”) at 12.7%; 73.9% of visitors were brought to the site through search engines.