 We are facing a multitude of challenges worldwide right now that influence our future lives. What role can a futures thinker play in coping with these challenges and maybe even act on them to create a better future? Well, you can join The Millennium project! In the book 'How to Research Trends' I give an overview on page 30 of networks related to trends and futures studies. One of those is The Millennium Project (MP), initiated in 1996 by Jerome Glenn. It has the purpose to improve humanity's prospects for building a better future. Wow, ok, that sounds like a very idealistic goal! Luckily, the MP makes it practical and concrete how you can participate in reaching this ambitious objective: they created a foresight network to build a global collective intelligence system.  The MP is a think tank on behalf of humanity, not on behalf of a government, or an issue, or an ideology, but on behalf of building a better future for all of us. Futures thinkers, academics, business planners and policy makers around the globe are invited to be part of the MP think tank and contribute their future visions on various topics and challenges. This can be done online or offline via live meetings in the over 50 local nodes. Want to know if there is a MP node in your country already? Check the node overview. If not, you can initiate one! Combined the input from across the globe provides a rich source of information. The work is distilled in an annual report "State of the Future", in the “Futures Research Methodology" series, and in special studies.  I joined a session of the Dutch node recently, it was themed “The Future of Work”. One week beforehand the MP shared the first rough outline for three main future scenario on the future of work. During the live meeting participants reacted on these scenarios from a general perspective and from their cultural/regional perspective. Every 20 minutes you could join a themed discussion table, such as work & tech, work & education, work & governance. Going through this carrousel of themes and meeting different participants made the exchange of information very open and dynamic. I really liked this set-up because it helped discussions move forward and not linger on too long. The sessions are organised around the world to collect diverse input on the scenarios to develop them into an engaging and in-depth storyline on the future work.  When you are working in the field of futures, trends and innovation it is vital to meet others and hear different perspectives on any kind of topic. Next to contributing by sharing my visions I also learned a lot from the different visions of the other participants. Thank you MP, keep up the good work!
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