IFTF Foresight Talk: Automated Horizon Scanning to Monitor Changing Systems with Wigdan Seedahmed

How can organizations effectively scan and understand the horizon in fast-paced, rapidly evolving environments? More so, how can this be done without an entire team of people dedicated to ongoing research?

Wigdan Seedahmed, Product Management Consultant at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), has spent the last handful of years tackling this issue by building an automated horizon scanner. Her innovative tool was first used by UNDP Sudan to mainly answer the questions: "What's next after mapping and identifying signals of change?", "What comes next after building future scenarios?", and "How do we operationalize foresight?". This involves addressing key challenges faced by the UNDP and partners at country office level. A localized version is being used by UNDP Egypt (launching publicly in October) to mainstream innovation in UNDP's work and reap the benefits of using innovative tools to tackle country office challenges, such as resilient programmatic response and intervention design, data lags, high costs of data collection, and conflicting data sources.

Tessa Finlev, IFTF Affiliate and Organizational Futurist, joined Wigdan in conversation, on Sept 26, 2024, to will demo the tool and explore how the automated horizon scanner works, how it's currently being used, and other potentially exciting use cases!

About the speaker:

Wigdan Seedahmed brings over 12 years of international development and strategic management experience across Sub-Saharan Africa, MENA, Europe, and Central Asia. With expertise in innovation management, project implementation, stakeholder engagement, and digital-oriented solutions, she has led diverse teams in international organizations, social enterprises, the private sector, and non-profits. Wigdan holds a master’s degree in international affairs from Sciences Po Paris and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. Originally from Sudan, Wigdan now resides in Stockholm, Sweden. For more information, explore her portfolio: https://sites.google.com/view/...