APF Oceania Fireside Chat - Creating Better Extreme Heat Governance Futures by James Balzer

The central topic for our first Fireside Chat is “Creating Better Extreme Heat Governance Futures - Lessons From Using Futures & Foresight to Diagnose and Overcome Governance Dysfunctions In Urban Heat Management”. Taking the lead on this topic will be regional APF member James Balzer.

About James Balzer:

James is focused on enabling civil society and governments to achieve longer-term governance practices in pursuit of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He is interested in how futures and foresight methodologies can facilitate better ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ governance practices that can identify systemic governance dysfunctions, and overcome these dysfunctions for the long term. Specific tools he focuses on include government technology

(GovTech) and entrepreneurial governance practices, often termed ‘agile governance’.

James has 3.5 years of experience in Federal and State Public Service in Australia, and 3 years of social enterprise experience across Timor-Leste, Malawi, ASEAN and Australia. He continues to advise sustainable development think tanks and acts in leading roles across various steering committees and working groups. These include leading a Global Foresight project as part of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers program and being a Next Generation Foresight Practitioner Fellow with the School of International Futures.

About APF Oceania Fireside Chat

Over the past 2 months, Steve Tighe, APF Oceania Regional Director, has spoken to about half of the APF members in Oceania to gain their thoughts on what the APF could do to deliver greater value. Feedback from members in the Oceania region about how the APF could deliver greater value centred around 4 key areas – The 4 Cs:

• Community (Networking, connection to other regional members. Time zone-friendly events were obviously a big theme)
• Capability (Skills development)
• Communication (Advocacy, Access to publications, Opportunities to publish)
• Collaboration (Opportunities to work with / learn from others)

The purpose of the Fireside Chat is KNOWLEDGE SHARING & TRANSFER. Such a concept directly targets the COMMUNITY and CAPABILITY value offerings sought by Oceania members.

Each session would commence at 6.30 pm AEST (8.30 pm in New Zealand) and go for approx. 45 mins.

The Chat would include a 20-minute presentation on a particular topic, followed by a 25-minute group discussion. In terms of the 20-minute presentation, each presenter would cover three broad areas around a particular topic:

1. WHAT I KNOW (knowledge transfer about the TOPIC under discussion - E.g., Extreme Heat Governance Futures, Scenario Planning, etc.).
2. WHAT I DID (knowledge transfer about the PROCESS, TOOLS & TECHNIQUES applied during the futures exercise/project).
3. WHAT I WISH I KNEW THEN... (knowledge transfer about experiences/challenges/learnings from the exercise).

The aim is for the presentation to be short and snappy – an entrée if you like, for the second half of the session, where all attendees would be invited to have their say and share their knowledge/experiences. The goal is to establish a relaxed learning environment.

This structure based on knowledge transfer around 3 distinct areas (What I know, what I did, what I wish…), ensures that attendees don’t have to be fascinated with the particular topic under discussion, to extract value and to be personally engaged.