Developing the Caribbean Digital Ecosystem with Futures Thinking Anuskha Varsha Sonai [Video]

Hello everyone, My name is Anuskha Sonai and I’m a serial social entrepreneur based in Suriname. We use creativity and digital technology to transform companies, youth and women.

Our purpose is to integrate social good and profitable business practice. For us this social enterprise approach is necessary to create a strong and sustainable future for the Caribbean.

That’s why we evolved from a single for-profit digital marketing agency into a cluster of for-profit and nonprofit entities that reinforce each other’s work.
At our core we are futures thinkers, who use strategic foresight to prepare ourselves and our clients for the many scenarios of change in the age of the digital economy.

For the last 7 years I have been working on developing the digital entrepreneurship ecosystem in Suriname and the rest of the Caribbean. Hence, a great part of the work that I do is identified as public and civic contributions. I realized this much better when I recently won the Anthony N. Sabga award for Excellence, as the first person outside the English speaking Caribbean and the first person from Suriname.

One of the most consistent events in my journey of becoming a serial entrepreneur in an industry that is not so well developed yet in our part of the world, has been the general
Lack of awareness and understanding How one can create social impact and run a successful commercial business too.
how can you be a long term thinker and also enjoy short term benefits (profit, quality of life in the sense of living your best life).

While we have been able to pivot our strategy and evolve from a single for profit agency into a cluster of for-profit and nonprofit entities that reinforce each other’s work, we see many traditional companies struggling to offer their employees purposeful work and to pivot to more contemporary ways of doing business. Additionally many stakeholders are not able to adapt and change the status quo.

This repeatedly made me think: is there a model or methodology that describes our approach?

That’s when I was introduced to Futures Thinking and Strategic Foresight.

In this era of rapid and accelerating change, it is impossible to achieve true innovation without developing long-term thinking and uncovering
alternative future possibilities.
Most of the popular innovation tools and concepts used today were created when things were simpler and companies could operate with linear thinking.
Today, the world is much more complex and moving at a
rapid pace, causing them to become outdated. Gone are the days of practicing incremental innovation in order to simply strengthen core competencies or gain strategic advantage in an already crowded market.

Savvy thought leaders are setting the new tone of
what is now being recognized as a fundamental
paradigm shift in the way we approach innovation,
embracing a move toward exponential and
transformational change.

When companies instill foresight and futures
thinking into their innovation culture, they are
better equipped to see the possibilities and
opportunities that are on the horizon, and seize
them today.

It is clear that leading organizations in these volatile and complex times require new approaches and mindsets. Today’s business leaders must remain focused on what’s next.
In order to gain greater visibility about the future, what is needed is not a better crystal ball, but an instrument for building resilience, adaptability, and opportunity through recognition of emerging patterns. Futures thinking is that instrument, and strategic foresight provides the framework.

The phases in the Natural Foresight
Approach, developed by Kedge LLC. consists of 4 phases (discover, explore, map, and create) which can be used together or independently in any order, depending on the situation and goals.

Discover: Challenge Old Ways of Thinking
Explore: Scan the External Environment
Map: Develop Future Scenarios and Innovations
CREATE: Design and Execute for Value-Added Results

We need to recognize that band-aid approaches will not work, we need a road map for updating our organizational and personal operating systems for success in a new era.

Creating a culture of future thinkers means everyone must be empowered with the tools to understand and create the future for themselves and their communities, embracing not only lifelong learning, but unlearning and relearning as well.

We need to use strategic foresight to stop
planning for the future and start creating it!