Jane McGonigal Interview on Futurist Thinking on Coursera
BCNM alum Jane McGonigal is instructing a Coursera course on handling life after Covid-19 through the Institute for the Future. The new class focuses on helping indivuals and corporations build resilance to address future challenges in the wake of the pandemic and to develop future-minded thinking skills. The course also addresses post-pandemic community building. She was recently interviewed for the Coursera blog about the course, which is called Life After COVID-19: Get Ready for our Post-Pandemic Future. McGonigal is a game designer, author, and speaker who earned her PhD in performance and theater studies from Berkeley. She is also the director of the Institute of the Future, through which the course is being offered.
From the interview:
What was the motivation for creating this course and why is it so relevant to this moment in time, when we’re continuing to wrestle with a global pandemic?
Over the past year, so many of us have felt locked up in one way or another. We’ve been living smaller lives. We’ve stayed inside. We’ve stayed apart. We’ve had to protect ourselves, literally and metaphorically.
Hopefully, things are beginning to change. COVID-19 vaccines are becoming more available. Numbers are going down in many places around the world. It’s not over, but many are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a desire to open the door to our post-pandemic lives and find out what’s on the other side.
This is where futures thinking can play an important role.
Read the full interview here!