Finding your Place in the Future: Becoming a Wavemaker
March 21, 2022
Who is a wavemaker?
It’s someone who demonstrates curiosity and interest in skillsets and networks needed to build a thriving future for all of us. It can be anyone who adopts the mindsets necessary to drive change and the courage to try. It can be you.
Humans have a unique ability to think about and plan for our futures. In fact, even though it may be imperfect and imprecise at times, this ability is really our superpower. But it’s not foolproof, and that means adopting approaches that chip away at some of the uncertainties it comes with.
What makes it such a difficult superpower to perfect is oftentimes technology. When technology is driving our future, predicting it becomes even more difficult because of the blindspots it can introduce. Across all industries, we’re seeing leaders, experts and policy makers underestimate how quickly things are changing and the unexpected impact technology continues to have on the way we live and work.
So what is it about technology that causes us to so consistently miss the mark when imagining our future? Often, it’s the convergence of technologies along with the rate of change that together create a perfect storm of unpredictability. But that doesn’t mean planning for the future is impossible. Understanding the 6Ds framework and the growth cycle of digital technologies is crucial. It’s a framework put forward by Peter Diamandis, the Executive Founder and Director of Singularity University. This growth cycle of digital technologies happens in six steps, which together constitute his 6Ds of Exponentials: digitization, deception, disruption, demonetization, dematerialization and democratization. Understanding these steps helps you develop an understanding of and appreciation for the tools needed to begin to identify blindspots that are clouding our future—because you can’t plan for a future that you can’t imagine.
In the Wavemakers program students are challenged to think about how they can harness their future-planning superpower to become effective leaders, despite these blindspots. Ultimately, it’s about adopting the right mindsets and embracing seemingly oppositional polarities in our thinking. Ideas like building our core while taking the time to explore ideas at the edge; having the courage to fall when failing isn’t an option; knowing when to take the time to plan versus trying new things with experimentation; towing the line between being an intrapreneur and an entrepreneur and knowing when to lean more toward one or the other; and understanding how scarcity and abundance can actually work hand-in-hand to benefit us and those around us.
Becoming a Wavemaker means recognizing blindspots as opportunities and harnessing your superpower to develop capabilities that can shape the future you want to see. Because with the right tools and mindsets, anyone can be a Wavemaker.
How can you use the 6Ds framework to imagine the future of work and education and how they will be impacted by disruptive and innovative technologies? What mindsets will you need to cultivate to be able to flourish in the future?
About Wavemakers
The Wavemakers program is a first-of-its-kind work-integrated learning program that leverages cutting-edge, accessible virtual reality technology and forward-thinking speakers. Wavemakers provides post-secondary students from diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives with the opportunity to come together, develop and cultivate future-proof skills, and build long-lasting connections with industry leaders, to help their transition into the workplace. It’s about providing meaningful opportunities to a diverse community of future leaders who can tackle today’s big challenges with even bigger and bolder ideas that will carry us into a more positive and inclusive tomorrow.