The Open Futures Initiative
Expanding Who Shapes the Future.
Education systems and civic institutions are navigating fiscal constraints, deepening polarization, and declining public trust. Under sustained pressure, systems tend to close.
Strategy narrows. Participation contracts. Decisions move into smaller circles.
The Open Futures Initiative (OFI) exists to help communities open systems rather than close them.
What is the Open Futures Initiative?
The Open Futures Initiative provides immersive, in-person leadership simulations grounded in Open System principles and informed by CIE’s inclusive design practice.
These experiences create a structured space for leaders to practice widening participation, sharing responsibility, and keeping decision-making open under pressure.
In a simulation, participants:
Open Systems Simulations
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Step into challenges drawn from their own communities
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Surface differing perspectives and navigate trade-offs
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Practice shared decision-making amid complexity
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Refine the leadership moves that widen participation and share responsibility
Simulations are not designed to produce finished plans. They build leaders’ capacity to design inclusive processes where power is shared and decisions remain open — even when complexity, urgency, or conflict threaten to narrow them.
Bring an Open Futures simulation to your community.
Email Dr. Michael De Sousa - Director of the Open Futures Initiative