POUNAMU – What if?

POUNAMU – What if?

POUNAMU – What if? New Zealanders invited to join online game to create a better future for this country

Ki te kahore he whakakitenga ka ngaro te iwi

What if, in 2022, everyone in New Zealand could use science as easily as they can use a computer now? What would you create? Who would you work with? What would you invest in? What problems would you solve? What would you help to change?

These are questions posed in Pounamu, an online, idea-generating game running alongside the Transit of Venus Forum. It is set in 2022, in a New Zealand where everyone is smart about science and technology. Participants play by posting micro-forecasts (140 characters) of future possibilities and building on, or reshaping other players’ ideas.

On 7 and 8 June people from all over New Zealand are invited to create a better future for New Zealand by joining in the online game in the future world of Pounamu to find thousands of answers to the question:

How do we treasure and build on what we already have - land, people, knowledge and connections - with new tools, new capacities, new connections and new ways of thinking to generate prosperity for all?

Participants can play from anywhere with an internet connection. They can play using their own name or as an avatar. They can play for five minutes and share one idea, or play for the whole game and post hundreds of possible futures. Players gain points and move up the game leader-board by posting ideas that generate further discussion, contributing ‘super-interesting’ ideas to the game and winning awards. People can sign up at www.Pounamu.gen.nz.

The game will run alongside the Transit of Venus Forum sessions. Questions and ideas from the forum discussions will be fed into the online conversation. Ideas, challenges and future possibilities from the game conversation will be fed back to the forum.

The forum will also be webcast live, so people can watch the Forum proceedings and play the game at the same time, wherever they are located on 7 and 8 June. Find out more about the webcast.

Pounamu provides an opportunity for all New Zealanders to contribute to the conversation and for a wide range of different understandings and knowledge to be brought together to imagine futures for New Zealand. There is particular encouragement for younger New Zealanders to add their voices to the discussion.

“The discussion at the Transit of Venus Forum will be an important contribution to shaping a better future for New Zealand, but not everyone can come to Gisborne to be part of the discussion,” said Professor Shaun Hendy, Deputy Director of the MacDiarmid Institute. Professor Hendy worked closely with Professor Sir Paul Callaghan and has been part of the team carrying Sir Paul’s vision for the Transit of Venus Forum forward.

“We wanted to take the conversation out beyond the physical walls of the Forum and involve all New Zealanders in looking ahead to our shared future, using science as our touchstone.”

Pounamu will consider the same big questions that are being discussed in the Forum:

• how we make a living without harming the New Zealand environment;
• how we ensure prosperity for all;
• how we ensure that New Zealand is a place where talent wants to live.

The difference is that participants will work together in the 2022 world of Pounamu, pooling their collective knowledge and creativity to explore possibilities, spotlight unexpected challenges and reveal new paths forward.

The game provides the opportunity for us to explore what we could do, for ourselves and others, if New Zealand was the most science literate country in the world. It allows everyone to imagine their answers to the question, “If in 2022, everyone in New Zealand was smart about science, what could you do to make New Zealand a place where YOU and other talented people like you want to live?”

Dr Stephanie Pride, from StratEDGY Strategic Foresight has partnered with the MacDiarmid Institute and UNESCO to sponsor Pounamu and will be managing the game at the Forum. “We always have to be grounded in the facts and the data, but sometimes the best way to imagine creative responses, shift our thinking, rekindle optimism and move towards action is by gaming and having fun.

“Some of the possible futures we face, globally and for New Zealand, are grim and some approaches to thinking about the future heap desperate news on top of bad. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed and disempowered. Fear and anxiety shut down parts of our brains. Gaming can open them up again.”

ENDS

© Scoop Media