In a world marked by rapid change, uncertainty, and simultaneous crises, envisioning the future has gone from being an abstract exercise to becoming an essential skill.Rosa Alegria, one of Latin America’s most renowned futurists, spoke about this challenge in an interview with Conexão Bett.

As Executive Director of Teach the Future Brasil, an initiative linked to the global Teach the Future movement, she discussed how education can contribute to building more sustainable, desirable, and conscious futures.

According to Rosa, futurism is an interdisciplinary field that analyzes ongoing changes and possible scenarios to guide decision-making in the present. Rather than simply predicting what will happen, it is about understanding trends, identifying patterns, and using tools that enable people to actively participate in shaping the future.

“It is a science that studies the future and can be applied to management and education; it requires systems thinking to understand where the world is headed,” he explains. “It’s not enough to simply observe these changes: we need to equip ourselves with the knowledge and tools to create the futures we desire.”

This field of knowledge has gained international prominence in recent decades. In 2012, UNESCO created the program Futures Literacyprogram, recognizing the ability to imagine and reflect on the future as a fundamental competency for individuals and societies. The goal is to foster an understanding of how the images we project of tomorrow influence decisions and behaviors in the present.

For Rosa Alegria, this skill has become even more urgent given the pace of contemporary change. While in the past it was possible to plan for the future based on relatively linear processes, today’s landscape is marked by technological acceleration, rapid social transformations, and interconnected global crises. “We have entered a period of great acceleration, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Changes are no longer linear and continuous. They are complex, sometimes chaotic, and discontinuous,” she says.

In this context, looking only to the past is not enough to solve today’s challenges. She argues that, although history offers important experiences and lessons, true innovation arises in the realm of what does not yet exist. “It is on the horizon of the imagination that we create something new. If we remain stuck only in what has already happened, we will not find answers to the problems of the present,” she points out.

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Skills for Building the Future

According to the futurist, one of the main contributions of this new approach to education in the teaching process of the future is to help students develop skills that will enable them to imagine and build better futures. Among these, three forms of thinking are considered essential: critical, creative, and anticipatory.

Critical thinking allows us to question established narratives and assess which paths truly contribute to a more just and sustainable future. Creative thinking, on the other hand, is directly linked to imagination—the uniquely human ability to conceive mental images of what does not yet exist and transform them into ideas and solutions. “The future is a mental image that is born in your mind and will become an idea,” he says.

Finally, forward thinking involves the ability to analyze trends and reflect on the possible consequences of decisions made today.

Although it is still not widely taught in schools, “the future” is already beginning to gain ground in some educational initiatives across the country. “In Brazil, I can cite three examples of schools that already include ‘the future’ as a subject in their curriculum: Estilo de Aprender and FourC Bilingual, both located in São Paulo, and Marly Cury in Rio de Janeiro,” he points out.

Study: “From Futurophobia to Futurotopia”

The discussion also addresses a challenge revealed by recent research. A study conducted by Teach the Future Brasil involving 689 young people between the ages of 18 and 28 from different regions of Brazil, ethnic backgrounds, genders, and economic circumstances found that 62% of them feel afraid of their own future.

For Rosa, this data reveals a troubling shift in the way younger generations view the future.

“For many young people, the future is no longer a source of hope but has become a source of pressure and threat,” she notes. According to her, this feeling is linked to factors such as social inequality, global instability, and the sense of constant pressure to perform and be productive.

At the same time, the survey indicates that young people want to participate more actively in decisions that affect their future. According to the futurist, expanding intergenerational dialogue and including students in discussions about the future is essential to strengthening the leading role of the younger generations.

Rosa Alegria at Bett Brasil 2026

Rosa is one of the confirmed speakers at the 31st edition of Bett Brasil, Latin America’s largest event on Innovation and Technology in Education, which takes place May 5–8 at Expo Center Norte in São Paulo. She will participate in the panel “The Role of Schools in Building Sustainable Futures” on May 6 at 1:00 p.m. in the Basic Education auditorium. You can register here.

“The central question that educators and school administrators need to ask is: What kind of future are we helping to shape? Even when we don’t explicitly talk about the future, we are conveying a certain vision of it, and schools can either foster hope, inspiration, and a sense of purpose or reinforce fear and insecurity,” he says.

For the expert, preparing students for tomorrow does not necessarily depend on large investments or sophisticated technologies. Often, it starts with something simpler: making room for questions, listening, imagination, and reflection on each individual’s role in building a better world. “If we want students to be prepared for tomorrow, we need to start teaching the future today,” concludes Rosa.

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