Epaminondas is the UNESCO Chair on Futures Research Hellas and the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Special Secretariat for Foresight at the Presidency of the Greek government.
Interviewed by: Peter Hayward
More about Epaminondas
Resources
-The International Certified Future Strategist program: https://www.certifiedfuturestrategist.com
-The Special Secretariat for Foresight, Presidency of the Government: https://foresight.gov.grlin
-The Scenario Exploration System (SES): https://knowledge4policy.ec.europa.eu/foresight/tool/scenario-exploration-system-ses_en
- China 2025: DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.20941.72164
-China 2030: DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.24028.28802
-SES China 2030: https://www.futures.gr/en/2019/02/01/serious-game-ses-china-2030/
Harman Fan: http://www.infinitefutures.com/tools/sbharman.shtml
The Thing from The Future: http://situationlab.org/project/the-thing-from-the-future/
Thing from the Future Minecraft Edition: https://jfsdigital.org/2022/01/26/testing-the-thing-from-the-future-minecraft-education-edition-with-secondary-education-students/
Teach The Future: https://www.teachthefuture.org
World Futures Studies Federation:https://wfsf.org
Transcript
Peter Hayward: Hello and welcome to Futurepod. I'm Peter Hayward. Futurepod gathers voices from the international field of Futures and Foresight. Through a series of interviews the founders of the field and the emerging leaders share their stories, tools, and experiences. Please visit futurepod.org for further information about this podcast series. Today, our guest is, Epaminondas Christophilopoulos. Nondas holds the UNSECO chair on Futures Research, hosted by the Foundation for Research and Technology, Hellas, and is Chief Scientific advisor to the Special Secretariat for Foresight at the Presidency of the Government. He has been working in the field of futures research since 2010, designing and implementing a variety of projects on topics, such as future of innovation, technology, work, urban farming, and China to mention a few. He published monographs and peer reviewed articles in the main futures journals, chapters in several books. And he's also adapted in Greek, the book Playing with the Future for teachers and students. In collaboration within UNESCO he is supporting the concept of future's literacy and designs experiential workshops for students and organizational executives. Welcome to Futurepod nonas.
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Hello, Peter. It's my pleasure to be with you.
Peter Hayward: Great Nondas. So the first question on Futurepod is the story question. So what is the Nondas story? How did you become a member of the Futures and Foresight community?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Wow. I think, maybe the story goes back when I was a student, a young student in primary or secondary school. My father was a police officer, so we have been moving around the country for every one or two years. So I was moving around Greece, North and South. So, I think I developed this kind of capacity, which I realized only a few years, to see things with a different angle. Living in different communities, in different places. So, I realized after some years with my psychotherapist, that was something that really affected my at that life. But I started let's say my adult life starting as a physicist, as many people in the foresight community. And actually focused more on prophetic physics and pollution at the end of my years in the university. I wanted to be an environmentalist. I think it was also very popular at that time. Did my Masters on Environmental Impact Assessment and actually I started working in the field, in environment, but then moved to something completely different that was Technology Transfer.
So for a big part of my early years, I was doing technology transfer, working with startups and researchers and spinoffs. And after I did this and I lost my interest I started again traveling, not in the country but globally. So I set up a unit doing international research policy and I was coordinating projects all around the world. So not Australia but Latin America, Africa, Asia. And I did this and then I think it was a moment when it was in the beginning of the Global Financial Crisis that also hit Greece. Of course I had heard about Foresight before and I was doing some little things in Foresight, but now that I'm looking back at those things, it was really bullshit. So nothing to do with real foresight. But I had, now a friend, at that time it was just someone I knew. He went to the States just to get some new ideas. I mean, the financial crisis created the very, very sad atmosphere. Everybody was looking for a way out or for new ideas so she traveled to the USA and by luck I think she was in a WFS conference and she met Jerome Glenn. And she came back and then she invited a group of people of different kind of companies or organizations to set up a Millenium Project node in Greece. So this is how it started. So we have been a group of 15, 20 people that have been invited in that meeting. But at the end of the day, it was only myself and this friend, Stavros, that actually we have been working together since that time. So it was like this. It was a love for foresight. I started reading. I did an excellent executive course, the International Certified Future Strategist. The main company behind this program is Kairos Futures, which is a futures consultancy in Stockholm in Sweden. And I just started to dig deeper and deeper in the field. I still have a very big love of learning, all the time, new tools, new methods. Not because I'm curious, but because this gives you the tools to design and deliver different things to clients. If you know tools and methods you can design the right project for a client no matter what is the resources that are available.
So this is what I did. And although I started mostly as a practitioner, so I think my foresight career is mainly focused on providing services and running projects for clients. But then gradually I also moved to the academic field writing papers and publishing. I don't know why? Maybe it's also attractive to see your name published in a journal. I don't know if it was because I love the community or because I like to see my big name published. I did this and you know the one thing brings the other. I was very honored to be awarded with the UNESCO chair in the country. And that was a great door opener. The field in Greece doesn't exist. Nobody really knows about Foresight or Future Studies. So the UNESCO name was really a door opener. Gave the importance and the branding so people were keen to sit and hear what is about this field and what they can do and what they can get. So that was important, not only for myself, but I think that was also a catalyst to do things in the country because the majority of the project that I was running was outside Greece. So that was also an opportunity to start doing things in Greece, publishing in Greece and so people and the community start to hear about foresight and future studies. But yeah this is more or less my story
Peter Hayward: That story. It's not a surprisingly different story for a whole lot of us that you've came to Foresight from another field and then found a place to stay and a place to play. And then you moved into the academic and the theoretical basis of the field. But I think what is unique for you is that you've actually cracked what for many foresight people is a really hard place to land Foresight by getting your chance to bring foresight into government. And that's I can say having done quite a few interviews is actually quite a singular achievement. I'd like you to talk a bit more about that as part of your story.
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Yeah. Actually, this is also a nice story because you expect that someone might know someone in the government, or maybe I was pushing things in the government but that was not the case. I was actually having my holidays in my village in the very south of the country. I was laying on the beach and I got a phone call by someone I've never heard. And he was explaining that the government is thinking of setting up a Foresight office in the Prime Minister's office. So obviously I thought it was like a practical joke and although I received a couple more phone calls by the same person I was very politely actually declining. ..He came practically from nowhere and then at some point he set up an actual meeting in the Prime Minister's office. And then I realized that was a serious case. So we set up this first meeting in the Prime Minister's office with the people that were actually setting up this initiative. So from that moment we started to work very seriously and it took us several months for the first step that was an advisory team. And then another year for setting up something more official that was the Special Secretariat.
Peter Hayward: We've all been watching the Greek government from the GFC and all of the travails that have gone through the Greek political system since the GFC and all the turmoil and the debt crisis. When was this happening in Greece that there was a government and which government was it that actually made the overtures towards you and Foresight?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: It's actually the current government. It's from the center right party which is the New Democracy party and with the current prime minister. I think it was just a group of people very close to the Prime Minister that were actually young people that were reading International news. I was also having a very strong appearance in the national newspapers letting people understanding what is Foresight. I was writing articles about what is Foresight or what they can do about Mega Trends and all this, I think created the right atmosphere. But it was actually the people in the Prime Minister office that took this initiative. I did, I did nothing.
Peter Hayward: You were there. You weren't hiding under a bush. You were out in the media and you were doing your public education and they found out about you. For many bitter and twisted ex futures and foresight practitioners like me, we would say that politicians have a natural antipathy towards Foresight because they can't think beyond the next election cycle. So how do you respond to a cynic like me that says that politicians just can't get Foresight?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: But this is true. It doesn't mean that the government that approved and created this Secretariat can support everything we do. They understand and I understand what you said and really this is the case also in our government. I don't think any government around the world can have this kind of very long-term perspective. But I prefer to see the glass half full. Because I think the most important thing that we are doing is that we help the people in the government to change a bit the mindset. I don't see great value in the reports that we are delivering because I have seen many reports, excellent reports, scenario studies delivered around to policy makers around the world and there is no impact. So I believe that our main impact is that we try to change the mindset of some people. And I think we have done this in some extent. Congratulations.
Peter Hayward: I might just pivot to the second question because I'm gonna presume that something about the way that you either explain the field or demonstrate the usefulness of foresight was behind the people in government finding you interesting. In the second question I encourage the guest to talk about a framework or a philosophy or an approach that while there's many things that you do and many tools that you use, one that you think is central to the work that you do and to explain the use of that to the listeners. So what do you want to explain and talk to them about?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: I would say a very quick story about the foresight work we did in China for the European Commission. So the first study was about investigating the evolution of the innovation landscape in China towards 2025. And I was still in the very first years in my foresight career. So I was very creative but still very naive. And we really did a very nice report according to my knowledge and my stance at that time. And we delivered this scenario study and then I realized that was the end. I don't think anybody did anything with that report. It took me some time but I realized that, and I see now this problem everywhere, especially in the academic part of our foresight world. We might focus too much on the tools and the methods to be correct, on how we apply these tools and methods, but then we reach a point that we lose the nature of our work which is actually to change the mindset of people. People can get tired, can lose their interest because we need to run a Delphi with three rounds because otherwise the Delphi will not be valid and things like that.
I don't have any problem changing the rules or changing the methods. And I don't mind being, academically correct or right because at the end of the day our main job is to deliver a service to the client and this is to help them see the world in the future through different eyes. And you have to provide something that will let them engage very deeply in the process and also enjoy the process and also have an impact on them. So I started slowly. And the thing with the Serious Games is something that I started looking at and not only this but also different methods. I focused quite a lot studying different methods and tools; how to engage with people more. And I studied many kind of different games. So in the next project I had in China, because we had another study again, I spent a lot of time, to see how I can engage with policy makers so they can really feel the scenarios, smell the scenarios. And at that time I met with colleagues in the JRC. They had developed an amazing Serious game for scenario exploration. It's the Scenario Exploration System. So we have worked together and we delivered the version of the game based on our second report in China.
So what we did is that at the end of the project we set up a huge room with policy makers like the President of the Chinese Academy of Science and Technology. So they were really high level people and we set up tables with boards and role playing games. So the people actually played the scenarios of and enjoyed, and also they actually practically explored different futures. So the impact of our work, at least this is what I felt, it was greater. So from that time this is my focus. Let the people, let the participants, let the client engage in the process. Ask them to participate in the workshops and design workshops that are fun, not only produce results, but are also fun. And, so people can really gain something and explore the future and change their mindset of how they see the world. So this is my philosophy.
Peter Hayward: Are there other games that you've found particularly useful to work with senior groups?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: I have created also myself more than, I don't know, 15, 20 different games or, game like methods and tools. And I have focused in some of them that I use very often because I see great value in different parts of the foresight process. So for example the Scenario Exploration System is an amazing game and I'm using this in different projects for people after I finish the work and produce the scenarios, to engage with the broader community and invite people to play the game and explore the scenarios. But I use also other games. For example, The Thing from the Future, I use it almost every time in the beginning of a process because I found it very useful for opening the minds of the people very quickly. And no matter what I'm going to do later or what is the context of the workshop. This game helps the participants to open their minds very quickly.
We have created also a version of this game in Minecraft. So we have used it with students in the virtual environment. I'm using different kind of tools or the Harman Fan method, which is not a game, but still its very fun if you apply it in workshops.
Peter Hayward: It's an excellent process to let people tell their own story of the future. And as a practitioner, talking to other practitioners if somebody's interested in exploring how they might bring games into their practice, are there any particular places or resources that you would encourage them to follow up with?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: What I ‘ve found very useful, especially in the beginning, but I I'm still trying to do, I'm really following up with conferences. When I see a conference I am trying to be on the sessions that actually present new tools , methods , games, because I found things interesting and I really enjoy to meet the colleagues and get ideas about this kind of new approaches. So conferences are really, a very important knowledge place for me. And of course areas like the World Futures Studies Federation forum, I'm really getting a lot of things from the conversations there. But it's mainly following colleagues also in LinkedIn. You can find everything now online. But of course, having a firsthand practical experience of a method or tool is more important.
And this approach is actually because I started as a practitioner, and then I moved to the academic field. This is actually the main handicap, or I don't know if it is a handicap or is a necessity from what I see in the private consultancies. I think they are using the same tools and methods and the same design in the vast majority of the projects. And I think they have lost a bit of the momentum, the new trends in the field. On the other side, I understand that they have to make good use of their resources. They need to have some profit. So if they spend too much time of creating or designing a new method or a new tool for a client that will not be very cost efficient. But I think they should be more active in participating at least in some conferences, getting some new ideas.
Peter Hayward: Yeah, thanks Nondas.
Third question Nondas in terms of the futures that are most meaningful to you is as you are now. What you are sensing, what you are interested in, what you are following up on. The futures that are getting your attention, they might be futures that you are giving attention to because you are excited by them, or they might be futures that you've got attention to because you're actually quite concerned about them, but what are the futures that you are paying particular attention to?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Yeah that's another interesting question. You can read in the news and in the magazines about the Mega Trends, about the global challenges, but I think all this it's more like a hype. I don't think they're really getting into the deeper things and it's more like a popular reading for the global community. I'm really concerned also on a national level, but also the global level, of how society is changing and how the values are changing, and the way we understand the world, and I think this is a very deep challenge. It's also related with the way we deliver education during our school years. I don't think it has changed a lot. I think it's practically the same way we received education when I was a school boy or even in the beginning of the century. Okay. Maybe the books are different, but the way we deliver is the same.. And now the challenges are quite different. The way that the information is delivered or the access we have in information. We thought that internet and the social media will liberate us. But then after 10, 15 years we realized that maybe we are going in the different direction.
Peter Hayward: We're in a different cage now from the cage we were in before.
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Exactly. Exactly. And then at that time in the past we knew at least, we understood who was the one that was manipulating or who was the mogul that was owning the media and was actually supporting the one government or the other. Now things are more tricky. Fake news are everywhere. And the challenge for the society and for the citizen are enormous. And I think this is going to be the biggest challenge because this is going to affect all the aspects of life. How we understand the world. How we deal with the global challenges. How we can reach a consensus. It's very difficult nowadays to reach a consensus. You start from a very different basis. If we are in a time that we cannot agree on basic things like if earth is flat or it's a sphere. We start from so different starting points, how we can reach a consensus?
And this is only an example. We see what is happening in the COVID era with vaccines or discussions about climate change. At some point we managed to reach consensus. You in Australia, you and globally, we had a big problem with the ozone and the global ozone hole. That was actually the ultraviolet radiation. And at that point 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we managed to reach a consensus , we actually addressed the problem and we were really successful as a humanity. And now there is no problem with the ozone hole but look what we are doing now with climate crisis? We can hardly agree on anything and all the agreements are very light to bring any outcome.
Peter Hayward: So Nondas I'll give you a future's concept. I think you've explained your Probable Future of values that we're actually getting further away from consensus. We're getting further away from finding, common areas of agreement. But of course one of the tools of our field of course, is to work on what we call Preferred Futures. So in that space, what might be the beginnings, the suggestions of a future that would be more preferable in that space of society and human values?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Well I truly believe in humans. And I think if you see our history we are always moving to a better place. If we are looking back in a thousand years ago or even a hundred years ago of course we have new challenges now, but we had new challenges many times in the past. So as I'm an optimist. I hope, and I believe we will find a way to go to the Preferable Future. And for this Preferable Future, I think we have the tools now. We have the technology so we can address all these problems if we manage to find the consensus and agree as a humanity where we want to go. I would like to be optimist and I think eventually we will reach this place that will find this consensus. We will use technology to help ourselves. I'm not a technology enthusiast in terms that I don’t believe that technology alone will solve anything. I'm not imagining a techno utopian place. But I think we can use technology in a great extent to address health issues, environmental issues. Most of the solutions are already out there. What we miss is a consensus and policies to use these technologies.
Peter Hayward: You did your work creating the book Playing with the Future, for Greek educators and students. I don't want to put all the responsibility on the generations coming after us, but do you believe that the generations coming after people of, I'll say my age, offer part of what you are talking about to create the Preferred Future? That the generations coming after us are actually more disposed to to tackle some of these issues?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Actually, I don't give any responsibility to the young generations. I think we bear all the responsibility and it's up to us to create this environment, this society for them to develop in a way that they have the tools and the methods to address these challenges. And actually to be honest, I think this is one of the great values that is not maybe easily understood by, not by us, the foresight practitioners, but by the outsiders, that foresight is actually also offering a great platform for reaching consensus, for discussion, for helping people come together and understand the future let's say in a better way to find the consensus of how we can see the future together. So I think foresight can offer a lot towards this direction. And this is why I think initiatives like Teach the Future and books like this can actually help educators and students to see the world in a different way.
Peter Hayward: Yeah. Robert Jungk and his studies back in the sixties he made a point. Most people want peaceful futures. They want more equitable futures. It's actually not that complex in terms of what people want from the future. Of course, what Jungk then found was that while people wanted these futures they did not expect these futures. There was almost a point of bifurcation between the futures that people expected and the futures that people wished for.
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Actually we are running a project right now together with JRC and Wendy Schultz is also involved and we are running a project to hear the voices of the European citizens. It's a project that is actually organized by the joint research center, it's a European initiative. And what you hear from the people, young and old, women and men is actually this, they're looking for social consensus, they would like to see a community that we care for each other. So these are the priorities. No matter which country or what age. And then you realize that we have to do something to create this future. We all wish for the same thing. So what is wrong?
Peter Hayward: so what is wrong?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know, really? I don't know. I don't know. It is capitalism? I don't know. We have to change the system. I don't know. I have no idea. I'm not an expert in this part.
Peter Hayward: Yeah, some of our colleagues believe that the nature of economics, profit exchange, venture, enterprise is one of those things that is a brake on us actually creating sustainable and equitable futures. That we need to really get outside of this very, very narrow corporate paradigm that the market and the corporate paradigm is the only possible future that we have to choose from.
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Yeah, I cannot disagree. Um, yeah. Definitely we have a role to play and of course we are not that powerful. We are just a group of academics or practitioners in the field but we can play a role. We can talk about these things we can bring longtermism into the scene. And this is very important. We tend to forget. We tend to focus on short term profits but this is a mindset. Again, that we need to change and we cannot do it alone. We need people. We need the arts. I really, this is something I would like to say. I really believe that art can help and we can use art in foresight and help people change their mindsets and how they see the world and how we can change our values. In society Art was always playing a role in this. And I see that we again we turn to Art for this, but I think this cooperation should be stronger. We can change society through Art and we can change the values through Art.
Peter Hayward: Do you think that the use of art sits centrally alongside this notion of Future's Literacy?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Definitely, definitely. I have been trying. We run a workshop with some colleagues in Middlesex University and we use drama techniques to run a workshop. So it was a Future's Literacy workshop totally based on drama techniques. But I'm also collaborating with colleagues in the film festival. We are now trying to organize a modern art exhibition focused on future challenges. This is something that I explore. I'm not an expert. I'm still in the very first steps, but I definitely see the value. It is very clear that we need to change our values as a society. And we need these kind of methods and art or, other role models that they can help us in this process.
Peter Hayward: Thanks, Nondas.
Fourth question is the communication question. So what does Nondas say to explain to people what Nondas does when they don't understand what it is that Nondas does?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: I was hoping you will not have time for this question because I don't have any answer. I found it, totally, totally impossible to explain very quickly what I'm doing. I see my kids and they're not young. They're 18 and 16. So I see that my kids also, when they ask them, what is the job of your father? I mean, they have been in conferences, they have been in workshops, but they just say, “I don't know exactly what he's doing”. So it's, it's very hard. I don't know. I mean, I'm trying to say different things to different people, actually trying to find the right communication channel. So if they are corporate people I'm trying to focus more on the scenario planning or the strategy outcome of a foresight process or maybe of how you can create a creative culture inside the company. But still I have to explain, uh, I, I haven't found a way to very easily and very quickly explain what I'm doing and your help will be totally appreciated.
Peter Hayward: No, I just wonder, is there, have you noticed any things different post COVID? Cause COVID was one of those things that, any future's work run in the last 30 to 40 years has talked about a scenario of the next infectious disease, something more serious than SARS, more serious than swine flu. And it's been in every set of scenarios and every set of scenario cards and every, every wild card. And yet we've just gone through it. We've just gone through two years of an unimagined future for many businesses, governments, but coming out of that has anything shifted,? Is anything different in terms of the ability to talk about the need and the use of the stuff that we do?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Definitely for us. I think also in Europe, at least from what I hear from the colleagues, but also here in Greece that was a great help, a catalyst for what we are doing. People start to realize that they need to think in a different way. And even if they haven't heard about Foresight what I see in the discussions with people is that they start to understand that stability - that was something that everybody was looking in the past, -they start to realize that stability is something that we will not see again in the future. And we just have to accept that uncertainty is going to be the reality. And these are in discussions, not related to foresight, but still people are starting to realize that uncertainty is something that we should accept.
We have delivered last week a scenario study that we, we did at the government. And actually we did this study with our colleagues in USA, with the. Uh, the National Intelligence University university. Yes. Thank you, Peter. So we did this study, but before we had this workshop, I did studied many foresight studies about Ukraine and Russia before the war. Even during the last 15 years. So I realized that in many studies, there was a scenario with Russian invasion in Ukraine. So the problem was that policy makers have been receiving this scenario studies, but they actually didn't know what to do or how to read them, or what does it mean? And also what we did is that we saw also Foresight studies done in Russia. They (these studies) have been explaining that the world is changing and is changing in a very bad way for Russia: “ we need to take action and energy is our main asset, and we are losing this asset because they're (Europe) moving towards renewable energy sources”.
So all the pieces were there. So the main problem, this is why I'm coming again and again, on the mindset part, because the information is there. Sometimes we don't need a huge scenario study of, I don't know, of some hundreds of thousands of euros to run interviews and workshops. I mean, for many things the information is there. What we need is to change the way we read this information and how we react, which is not, it's not easy. I understand that you cannot invest resources on preparatory activities because in most of the cases you might spend resources to something that will not happen maybe in the next 10 years. So it's not easy to take this decision. But still, if you have this kind of mindset, you will be more keen to react in a quicker way to these new threats and new challenges and black swans or things that are happening around us all the time.
Peter Hayward: So last question. You're the first Greek practitioner, academic pracademic, whatever you wanna call it that we've had on Futurepod. So do you want to maybe tell the listeners about the Futures and Foresights scene in Greece?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Oh, thanks Peter. It is actually a very small scene. We have started working with my colleague in Thessaloniki, as I said 15 years ago. And we have been running different workshops for many years. Nobody else was actually in the field. In the last years I started to see more people appearing but we really have a big problem when we need resources, because we cannot find people to help us. People that have the knowledge and know the methods. And actually this is what we are actually doing and it's very, very exciting because we are actually now in the process of setting up, a Master's Degree in Foresight in the Open University in Greece. Yes. That will be an amazing, I think that will be a flagship moment for the community in Greece. We plan to deliver it next year for the first time and hopefully we're going to have more foresight practitioners coming out every year. But now the scene is practically a handful of people. Most of them are doing Foresight part time. And sometimes I describe Greece as a Caribbean country with the motto “Yo No Se Manana”. So we are only interested about today or tomorrow. So it's very difficult to not only to talk to the government about these things, but also to the private sector. Companies are not interested in Greece to do this long-term planning or discuss these things. They're more interested in surviving and dealing with and addressing the series of crises that are appearing every day.
Peter Hayward: So the crises that Greece has gone through since the GFC that hasn't fundamentally to use your term changed people's mindsets that they need to be more futures focused to at least avoid having things like that?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: It is sad to say but I'm afraid not. They even changed the mindset in the wrong way, they are even more focused now on certainty because the problems of the everyday are greater now or were greater during these past years. So it was even harder to see a more long term future or even take discussions about the future.
Peter Hayward: So I'm interested as an ex academic who taught into a Master's program. There's many ways to put together a Master's course that covers futures and foresight. I'm interested in the sort of philosophy of what the core elements of it are going to be. Obviously the tools are gonna be in there, but there's a whole lot of philosophy, values that go with foresight. And I'm wondering what you are going to introduce as some of the core philosophical values of the course?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Yeah. Um, well, uh, okay. There are things that I can say, uh, and things I cannot say okay.
Yeah That was an exciting process actually to design the Master's degree. We have studied several other Master degrees focusing on foresight. We have a lot of tools. We have a lot of methods inside as I'm coming from this part and I have seen this kind of of handicap in the academic world that they had in many cases they had very little experiences delivering services to actual clients. So there is a lot of hands on work inside the Masters but the main difference maybe in relation with other Master's degrees in Foresight is that we have also a lot of courses related with techno ethics and bioethics and how these kind of challenges are going to change the society. So I think that will be the main difference in our Master's degree. So besides the usual things like foresight methods, the history, futures literacy as a new area that is expanding, we are going to have also quite a lot things related to techno ethics, bioethics, and the new challenges that are appearing in those topics.
Peter Hayward: Are you going to be able to inject some of the games and some of the art into the Master's course?
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Well the program will be offered on the Open University and it's going to be almost totally remote. So I probably will not be able to test in a physical space many of these tools, but we plan to have some gatherings every semester. So yeah, this is the plan to do some real work and to test the tools and the methods with the students.
Peter Hayward: Look, it's been great to meet you and hear about Futures and Foresight in Greece. Congratulations on getting the chance to develop another needed Master's course and also congratulations for getting yourself into the Prime Minister's Office. So on behalf of the Futurepod community, Nondas thanks very much for taking some time out for a chat.
Epaminondas Christophilopoulos: Thank you, Peter. Especially you were so hospitable, uh, host. So it was really fun and I enjoyed the time I spent with you.
Peter Hayward: This has been another production from Futurepod. Futurepod is a not-for-profit venture. We exist through the generosity of our supporters. If you would like to support future pod, go to the Patreon link on our website. Thank you for listening. Remember to follow us on Instagram and Facebook. This is Peter Hayward saying goodbye for now.