Mā te tumanako
Mā te titiro
Mā te whakarongo
Mā te mahi tahi
Mā te aroha
Ka taea e mātou
Having hope and faith
Looking and searching
Listening and hearing
Working and striving together
All being done with love
We will succeed
Haumi e, Hui e, Tāiki e!
Join, gather, and unite as one!
Where in the world are you tuning in from?
Meet the team
Designer, community strategist, and facilitator based in Aotearoa New Zealand. As Kaiwhakahaere (CEO) of Ako Ōtautahi Learning City Christchurch, Erica applies systems thinking and participatory design to explore how communities thrive amid complex social and environmental change. She facilitates storytelling, scenario-building, and futures thinking workshops, guiding participants of all ages to creatively explore the worlds they want to live in.
Valencia-Dongo
Peruvian design strategist based in Madrid working at the intersection of higher education, community-centered design, and systems change. She leads participatory futures work and narratives across Latin America and Europe helping communities navigate uncertainty. As the Founder of Peru75, she is restoring collective imagination as a civic skill. Contributes to the Longevity Economy Taskforce, an initiative by the World Economic Forum.
By 2070, three billion people may live in places that are no longer safe or viable.
When faced with that reality - what choices exist, and who gets to choose?
Futures thinking is exploring possibilities so we can act differently today.
The future is plural.
There is no single future waiting for us. There are many - shaped by different forces, choices, and people. Our job is to explore them, not predict them.
The future is shaped by choices.
Futures are not inevitable. They emerge from decisions - by governments, communities, and individuals like you. Every choice is a small vote for a particular world.
Small decisions compound.
Where you live, what you adapt to, who you stay close to - these feel ordinary. But over decades, they accumulate into the world we all inhabit together.
A quick glossary for today's adventure
Signals
Early indicators of change - small, present-day events that hint at bigger shifts ahead.
Drivers
The underlying forces shaping the future - climate, technology, demographics, policy, culture.
Scenarios
Plausible storylines of how the future could unfold. Not right or wrong - just different.
Home is already changing for billions of people.
Rising temperatures, extreme weather, and sea-level rise are turning places people have called home for generations into places that are too dangerous, too hot, or too flooded to stay. This isn't a distant scenario. It is already beginning.
When we imagine a better future, we usually imagine it for where we already are.
We design smarter cities for the cities we live in. We build resilient communities for the communities we belong to. We imagine thriving futures for the places we already call home. And that makes sense. It is human to design from where you stand.
But what happens when you are the one forced to move? Suddenly, the future you designed does not include you. You arrive somewhere that was built for someone else, shaped by someone else's imagination of what a good life looks like.
This is why futures thinking must expand beyond my future to ask: whose future are we actually designing? A truly better future is one that works for people who are here, people who will arrive, and people who had no choice but to leave.
Small decisions create long ripples.
Where you choose to live
Individual relocation patterns shape the demand for infrastructure, resources, and belonging in communities.
What you choose to adapt to
Every threshold we accept or resist becomes part of how societies collectively define "liveable."
Who you choose to move with
Community and solidarity are themselves future-shaping forces - belonging doesn't just happen, it's built.
Now - let's build your story from 2070.
You'll make a series of choices. Each one shapes a narrative. Together, our stories become a collective map of possible futures.
The Inherited World
It's 2070. The maps look the same. You still vote in national elections. Between 2041 and 2055, thirty-four countries passed lineage-based residency laws - tying your right to live somewhere to whether your family was already there, already documented, already counted.
Movement is legal, technically. But to relocate you need to prove your utility. Skill quotas. Sponsorship requirements. Family reunification backlogs measured in years.
A world where stability matters most - and belonging is inherited more than chosen.
The Walled World
It's 2070. You were assigned a climate risk score at birth. It factors in your coordinates, your family's displacement history, your region's projected habitability index. It updates every five years.
In 2038, 19 high-income nations signed a climate adaptation agreement - a coordinated decision to protect their own populations first. Outside, where 4.2 billion people live, communities built what they could with what remained.
The walls are not all physical. Most of them are paperwork.
The Reinvented World
It's 2070. Nuuk has a population of 2.3 million. The highlands of Ethiopia are one of the fastest growing regions on earth. These cities emerged fast, messy, and deliberately, after the coastal evacuation waves of the 2040s overwhelmed national systems.
Communities filled the gap. Architects alongside displaced families. Indigenous land stewards sharing knowledge with urban planners from flooded cities. People building neighbourhoods with different assumptions about ownership, water, and who gets a say.
These places carry grief. Most residents lost something to get here. But they were built with intention.
Who are you in 2070?
The Curious Child
You are imaginative, observant, and full of questions. You experience the world through play, school, family, and friendships. Adults make many decisions around you, but you notice more than they think. You care deeply about feeling safe, having fun, and staying connected to the people and places you love.
The Adaptive Teenager
You are growing into your identity and independence. You navigate school, friendships, technology, and big feelings about the future. You're aware of global challenges but also your dreams. You may feel tension between what you want, what your family expects, and what the world demands.
The Resourceful Parent
You balance responsibility, care, and constant decision-making. Your daily life revolves around family wellbeing, stability, and opportunity. You carry memories of the past while planning for others' futures. Risk, safety, cost, and belonging weigh heavily in your choices.
The Reflective Elder
You hold deep lived experience, memory, and perspective. You have witnessed significant change across decades. Home is layered with history, identity, and meaning. You think about legacy, continuity, and younger generations. Change can feel both familiar and unsettling.
Your Story from 2070
Read the three 2070 worlds. Pick the one that pulls you - or unsettles you.
Fill in the blanks on the right, then save or download your story.
Appreciating the worlds we imagined
Read the stories being created and discuss together: which kind of world would you be interested in living in?
What surprised you?
What similarities or patterns across worlds and personas did you notice?
Which parts of these futures inspire you most?
After imagining these futures, what is one small action you can take now that aligns with the world you want to see?
Co-creating Life in 2070 · World Futures Day 2026
Pou rarama
Pou o te whakaaro
Pou o te tāngata
Pou o te aroha
Te pou e here nei i a tātou
Mauri ora ki a tātou
May understanding be yours
Through reflection
Through personal endeavour
Through respect
The virtues which bind us as one
May we be filled with wellbeing