Season  1  Number 9

Interview with Ozcon Saritas

Modafar shaker

good evening good morning everybody wherever you are, and hello to a new episode of EMCAN futures. I have an outstanding guest today professor Ozcon Saritas if I pronounce it right. My pleasure sir to have you on the show.

Ozcon Saritas

Yeah, thank you Modafar for inviting me for this excellent podcast series, so I’m very pleased to be here with you today looking forward to talking to you.

Modafar shaker

Thank you very much professor, and let’s start jump into what get you into future foresight or future thinking in general.

Ozcon Saritas

Well. yes , everybody I think has its own kind of story in getting into the field, because this is not like any other discipline we have like: in Engineering, Medicine or Physics or something like that , foresight is there kind of not established as an academic discipline like that at the moment at least but it is actually an understanding, and the kind of view of looking into the future and view of thinking and designing the future ,so in recent Years it’s become a discipline ,so there are now a PhD programs, master’s programs and things like that. But it still actually retains its kind of distinguished role compared to other well-established disciplines. So, like many other people, my background is different I come from a different field which is architecture, so I studied architecture and design in my undergraduate studies, and then I finished that, after that I started a master’s program on project and construction management, so I was following the kind of construction pathway. But during this time, during my master’s Classes, I took one class which was called

management theory, because I needed to take in a course in English, so this program was not in English, in Turkish it was in Istanbul and so the only English course available was the management theory in industrial engineering faculty. Then I took this one and then by chance, luck or coincidence, or whatever you call it the professor of this course was retired, and then another professor came and he said he was going to talk about scenario planning. I had no idea what scenario planning Was at that point. and then he started talking about the future and why future is uncertain, why we cannot predict the future, why uncertainty is a good thing when it comes to thinking about the future, and then why you can do something about the future so you are not there just to predict it. But you can actually do something about it and you can design it, so when I like learned about these concepts and when I was exposed all the kind of tools and Techniques like scenarios all the Delphi and other kind of quantitative qualitative instruments, he showed us, I was so amazed by all this. then actually I also discovered that it fits very well with my background as Architect so because architecture is also it’s bringing together Science and Technology ,because you need to know what technologies are there for example, for materials construction techniques, what you can do with concrete, what you can do with steel, you need to understand their physical characteristics and everything .So we had a kind of engineering background too and then you are bringing this together with human because you need to design some spaces that humans will live in. so there should be some aesthetical you know concerns ,also in terms of size spaces colors design and everything and then you are bringing science Technology and society humans values aesthetics Together this 100 % applies to our futures thinking too .so it actually provided me an excellent background in terms of thinking about the future it is not only about science and Technology, we should create and design some futures that people would want to live in and that future should involve all the kind of possibilities for human necessary and enough spaces good design .so that they will feel good . so, this is actually what I’m trying to do in my futures thinking is pretty much.

Modafar shaker

You know it’s very interesting to hear this analogy and between architecture, and I never crossed my mind that architecture have anything

in common with the foresight and future thinking, but it’s interesting too and it’s quite a powerful point of view that actually what we are doing as a future thinking. Are we trying to create those possible images of the future or preferable futures? And in the same way architecture trying to build that livable places or landscapes, it’s amazing and actually it’s amazing to hear about your professor and how that completely like out of plan you did not plan to.

Ozcon Saritas

But absolutely it’s purely a coincidence, yeah purely coincidence. this is actually what is good you know with life and it is also like bringing another concept on the table which is wild card, so like those small likelihood but if it happens then it changes your life you know forever so disruptive impact.

Modafar shaker

Actually, from there I want to jump to another project, professor about from your perspective and your work, whether it’s in academia or in business context, what are the major trends or changes that you are seeing and it will shape or potentially will shape our future in 10, 20 years? like we are now speaking about you know the health issues pandemic, but what other changes maybe in social changes? we all know about artificial intelligence and technology let me hear your perspective.

Ozcon Saritas

Absolutely yes, thank you for this question, I think it’s a very important one. And pandemic is actually only one of those events which is kind of shaping or transforming our lives. and also, it’s not the first one; I mean we should always remind ourselves that this pandemic is not the first one there were other pandemics too. 10 years ago, 20 years ago we were talking about Stars, and then Bird flu, Swine flu which are still going in some parts of the world, and now we are talking about COVID 19. so, pandemics will be part of our lives. I remember, I mean when we were writing some reports for example; different projects for the European commission or for you know different clients we were always talking about the pandemic, so in many ways it wasn’t like unknown, unknown. It

was very much known and unknown. so, we knew that there would be some sort of pandemic outbreak and then, but we didn’t know when exactly, and how and you know from where it may start, and how quickly it would become a kind of a global concern, a health concern. Well at the beginning it starts the health concern but this pandemic helps to see that the problem is not only about the health, so the world is a system in this system there are you know, social factors, technological factors, economic environmental, political, cultural so it’s an ecosystem of all these factors coming together and forming our lives. And so any change can be triggered by any part of this system so we suddenly saw that for example; the pandemic became a global societal and economic issue and many countries are now concerned whether they should open up or not because the pandemic outbreak ,so on the one side there is a great health concern ,on the other side you have this all these lockdowns affecting your economy so you can see the causal relationships between different trends and different developments and how they affect each other. so, in the future this change can be triggered by any other part of the system and then may become again a kind of a global societal or environmental concern. Whether it would be triggered by climate change for example. Because climate change is affecting you know the amount of land we have for agriculture for example. It affects the availability of food and then the food availability is very much dependent on water, and then water and food are also related to energy. so, the next change or next wave could be triggered by any of this or by an economic for example; a crisis. so, what I said for pandemic is this is you know the same for the economic crisis for example. There will be economic crisis there have been and there will be more. So, we should expect that this kind of things are recurring in the you know next decades to come and so they will come in different shapes and sizes but these are some of the factors I think which will continue affecting our lives.

Modafar shaker

Interesting, interesting and the interesting point uh that you mentioned about the world being a system and we know that from the system theory and system thinking that the more we get uh nodes connected within the system, the level of complexity freezes. Right

Ozcon Saritas

Absolutely.

Modafar shaker

With that increases the level of uncertainty or the impact of whatever change happen, it’s like the uncertainty level increases. From that I want to shed light uh professor also on your idea about ignorance and how that affects uh foresight as a discipline about how we think about the future in general.

Ozcon Saritas

Yeah, these are very well formulated questions actually. So, again what we understand I mean with this the pandemic is that uh in the pandemic there was no like a lack of anticipation. So, as I said, we had some experience in the past and we could see that I mean there be another one so our system should be ready to remain kind of resilient and robust when such a challenge comes. Um so the problem in some cases, of course we always like develop some new ideas and then new solutions. For example, new methodological approaches for foresight in order to kind of anticipate the future in a complex world which is very dynamic and very fast changing and we also see with that kind of instruments and tools we can use what kind of evidence we can generate and we can use this to inform our anticipation and futures thinking but then we can anticipate some changes in the future but it is very important to integrate what you anticipate with policy making. So, I actually very clearly saw that there is a great gap between I mean what we do for example as foresight researches or practitioners or futures thinkers and the agendas of the policy makers. This has always been a question but it became very evident that there is a kind of lack of communication between these two groups because you can never actually warn them enough in order to start any acting. So that is why I consider uh that ignorance is an important problem because sometimes people know that things are coming or things are going to happen but because of, I think a different kind of expectations and different agendas then this can never find a way itself in

their kind of thinking. So, short-termism for example can be more dominant than long-term and systemic, and you know future-oriented thinking and then taking some kind of actions and policies from known to be prepared for the future. Unfortunately, we still have this gap and I think we need to find some ways to address this gap due to the ignorance.

Modafar shaker

Very, very true and it is very true also in different uh context whether it is like in corporations and NGOs, I faced with many interactions in the short terms. The focus on operational and what tangible, what we can like feel and major rather than like long-term, and you know long-term future thinking and uh. But tell me like uh what is your tricks to deal with that? How we deal with that kind of mindset.

Ozcon Saritas

Yeah, well. From our side I mean, of course things that we can do are limited but still there are things. Um, first of all like an um increasing um engagement and awareness of uh you know our kind of foresight studies or our kind of work related to anticipation of future developments or emerging developments or emerging change. So um, we always try to find for example bring the policy makers into this kind of stakeholder group. So that they can also view understand exchange and we know there is a great element of mutual learning. So, foresight is not only about the product or the report or some anticipation as such but it is a process. So, this process is participating, inclusive, and it should be as open as possible in order to make sure that we can bring all these actors together including policy makers, industry, society, research institutions, educational institutions and so on. So, this is one of the things that we have been trying to do. And the second thing which became uh more kind of available recently is the use of evidence, more evidence and there is evidence…

Modafar shaker Absence of having more quantitative data you mean.

Ozcon Saritas

That’s right, yes. So, in the past of course we had very limited opportunities. So, what was our evidence, our evidence was what was written in literature for example in some journals or publications and books and so on or experts. You know in certain areas so we relied very much on their knowledge and experience which we still do very much but now we have new instruments like big data for example because then the data in the world is now created on a continuous basis. So, for one expert or one publication or several experts, several publications. It is impossible to understand the dynamics of change. So therefore, we are trying to know look at the kind of big data which is generated on a continuous basis around the world. So, I mean the world is generating all the time. so even if it in the night in here, it is the day in the other part of the world. So, the generation continues and there is no like one you know human being or such human capacity which may grasp all this change and all this knowledge being generated. So, we try to use computers and tools like you know machine learning and moving slightly towards like artificial intelligence in terms of uh collecting data and analyzing it, visualizing it, interpreting it, and then and then, you know, presenting it. So, there are all sorts of new possibilities. And this helps us to show some new evidence, the evidence coming from this kind of collective intelligence from all around the world. So, we have a team of people, for example, in our Institute, they’re developing this intelligent foresight analytics system, which is called [inaudible]. And this system is continuously monitoring different resources and then updating itself automatically with every day, about 3000 to 4,000 new kinds of reports and publications, new Peyton’s and so on. So, the database holds all the rhythm more than 400 million references in it. So that means actually we can do different sorts of analysis. We can look at, for example, scientific publications, to understand the trends in science. We can look at, for example, Payton’s to see what are those technologies or products coming near. And we can look at international reports for example, coming from different international organizations, United nations or UCD and the others, and also national policy documents, international conferences. And there are also some ideas to look at, for example, funding which for example, funding resources are there and what funds are being allocated for what areas, because if there’s some money going into a certain area, you may expect that there will be some change in the future.

Modafar shaker

It’s available for the public like commercialized.

Ozcon Saritas

Well, the outputs are actually available. We use it in certain project, for example, and the latest one was being the south African national foresight exercise to develop science technology, innovation plan, decade of plan for South Africa. We just finished it a couple of weeks ago, almost like it’s very new and the outputs, some of the earlier outputs are available, but the system itself is actually for internal use because there’s not like a at the moment, then we didn’t spend much time to create like some kind of user interface. It’s now about all, about some codes and algorithms running, and then they’re producing these results for us. And we are trying to visualize them.

Modafar shaker

But interesting. it’s very interesting to hear that you are utilizing, you know, the new oil data and informing the foresight activities that you are doing. So, you mentioned that data is important to provide evidence for changes for the trends, right?

Ozcon Saritas

Yes.

Modafar shaker

But how you can, like, maybe not in a practical specificity or like details, but how can you eliminate or like separate they know is the, from the useful data, because the less of data it’s also, there’s a lot of noise within it.

Ozcon Saritas

Absolutely. Yes. I agree with you. So, I always advise that, you know, you should take him and data or big data the pinch of salt as the English

would say. So, with some coaching because the tools are really advancing. So, every day, I mean, we can get clearer, better quality of data. And then we, we, we started having some like more reliable and at the beginning, yeah, there was a very big noise, but the amount of noise is getting less and less, but there’s still noise. And there are still limitations. When you do some kind of big data analysis, you do a lot of decisions and sometimes you may actually include or exclude some of the important references, for example. Yeah. It may not cover everything. So therefore, data or big data results shouldn’t be taken as absolute truth, but they should be taken as kind of an, you know a new kind of perspective.

So, they should be taken as a kind of like, this is what the collective intelligence is saying and use it not only for information, but for inspiration. So, in the case of Africa, for example, we presented our results to an expert panel for discussion. It saved us a lot of time. First of all, then the foresight, because we usually started with an empty sheet, like a blank sheet on the table. Then it took a lot of time for us to build some kind of content and agenda to start a foresight exercise. But by using this, the kind of big data analytics, we could order to put something on the table for discussion that first of all saved a lot of time. And when the experts looked at it, so we still benefit from expertise, we present the results and we discuss it with them because we know that big data is not perfect yet, but they can tell us, you know, what they say and what they expected and some of the things that they didn’t expect. So, it actually enriches our agenda. So, it’s already there, like fulfills our expectation, like, oh, there’s something new here. There’s kind of new items appearing or a new relationship between different nodes of a network diagram, for example, unexpected couplings coming together. So, we try to use it in this way, rather than like taking absolute truth or anything like that, but to feed into our process for let’s say inspiration.

Modafar shaker

Excellent. I think, but some idea like cross my mind while you were speaking about, you know, the inherent or built-in biases when it comes to algorithms, because I’ll go to Sam’s are coded by people and be able to by definition, have their own biases. So, if the code has the basis and the data, also our biases, maybe the outcome has also some kind of biases,

but as you said, it’s like, you are not taking it as like a point of like absolute truth, but on to something to start with, I think it’s gets, as you also mentioned, it’s like a work in progress and surely it will enhance the technology and help eliminate those spaces. Let me shift there’s many topics I want to speak about. It’s very interesting. I want to speak about one of your talks. You spoke about, you know, this is really in like tools that now in foresight, you know, we have plenty of tools and different like frameworks out there, what’s your approach to pick the right tools for a certain like engagement. For example, if you are working with government, you will work with like different sets of tools or if you are working with an NGO and you’re like another set.

Ozcon Saritas

Yes. That’s another good question. The selection of tools and methods actually is always the kind of point that you need to think. This is where, you know, the art of foresight comes in. So, this is very, you really design a sort of methodology and approach. In many cases people tend to jump into a foresight exercise with some predetermined tools on techniques. Maybe they solve it somewhere else, or they like it, or they have the capacity, or they understand that one. And then they try to apply that. But its methods as it, the reader said, methods may pass by the problem. So, you need to, first of all, understand the problem, like understand what is the issue? What is the context and understand kind of your context and its dynamics, and then how it is, you know, changing and what kind of instruments and approaches would be more suitable?

And then you decide, for example, what are those entry points or triggering points that you want to focus the focus on? So, these are like the content of your foresight exercise. So, I identify like eh, three elements when you design your foresight methodology.

• One is the context, understanding the environment what is the environment and what are its conditions? Because we worked with many different countries, for example during my practical experience very small country, like more issues or in very big country like Russia, you know, so militias are a tiny island, you know, in the Indian ocean. And then Russia is such a big country with a lot of resources and so on. So, you may not use the same approach because scales are different conditions are different and

expectations are different. So, you need to understand, first of all, all this kind of contextual factors.

• then you shape the content of your foresight exercise. So, what are those points? What are those, for example, key teams, areas, or technologies that you will focus on. This is already a big selection process. For example, when you say that we are focusing on nanotechnologists, it does not only like nano for the sake of nanotechnologies. I mean, it is important to make an informed decision and choice. Whether you have any capacity, you have any infrastructure funding or anything like that, then you build your content

• and then you design your process. So, you look at the tools and some of these tools will help you to understand the systems, for example, environmental scanning, horizon scanning, and all this sort of tools, help us to understand trends, drivers of change, and some of the wildcards and weak signals in society, technology economy, etc. And then you may choose some tools which will help you to look into the future to where, like there’s more creativity, for example, to design alternative futures, some scenarios, simulations, or some modeling techniques and alternative kind of tools that you may use to generate different outlooks of the world. Then there are different tools which help you to build visions and priorities. There are different tools to translate this priority into strategies and into action plans.

• So, you need to be aware of first of all, what you are doing and then choose among those tools.

• And also, you need to look at, for example, how much time you have, how much resources, because some tools and methods take longer, they can be more costly and they may require certain skills. So, there are a lot of determinants. So, method selection, and methodology building. These are not simple. This is the art of foresight.

Modafar shaker

actually, Context content, and the process, of course with all the resources available time, maybe different stakeholders who are involved, the level of the stakeholders involved and etc., it’s all important. It is an art actually, how you can design the, the, the process or design in the activity in a way that will serve the purpose that you are targeting. I have a question. I had an activity basically with like some financial guy’s team, and we were speaking about digitalization and the automation of jobs,

and none of them were afraid about, you know, AI and machine learning, taking over their jobs. They will digitalization automation, artificial intelligence, and etc. Is there a fear and in this domain, a future thinking or a future that an AI will take over the role of your children? When we have a futurist AI, maybe

Ozcon Saritas

It is possible. We met, for example, some of the trends and developments in the artificial intelligence, then we could see how the agenda of artificial intelligence is developing in order to kind of have like humanlike systems and voice recognition, and then some deep learning and those sorts of concepts, which may actually, I wouldn’t say like replace, but support us and help us because the world is a very complex place and it is becoming more complex and a lot of different factors interacting with each other. A lot of data is being generated and our human capacity is not enough of course, to deal with all this complexity. So, any of this kind of additional tools and technologies are welcome. So, I would prefer not to be afraid of that because sometimes, you know they’re like this, this slogans like or developments, I mean, some people say that there’s a singularity, so there’ll be computers smarter than humans.

And things like that. Singularity is near singularity is nearer. It is getting close. It’s almost there. So, scaring people like with those very smart computers and so on, but at the same time, I mean, our human capacity is also improving. So, there are all sorts of technologies for enhancement of humans, physical and cognitive capacities too. So, I believe and would like to believe that featured lies in the human computer collective intelligence. So, they will go together. So, we are actually trying to kind of bring these two possibilities together to increase our abilities, cognitive and physical abilities to deal with the future. So, we should just make sure that all this artificial intelligence, robotics and other tools are developed kind of, but not only like focusing on the technological aspect, but also focusing on human aspects and legal aspects and all sorts of ethical questions, which are raised by them. So, we should really strive for bringing together these two systems for a joint and competitive and collective intelligence. Yeah.

Modafar shaker

This was like a big debate currently happening about, you know, shall we trust the technology? Shall we trust the people who own or create the technology? Is there, does they have like a way, much power than they supposed to have, like those tech giants they have now immense power resources. and this is like, I think this is a debate that we should have, and we should have actually in order to have like a future that we all aspire to, this is not a wishful thinking, but that’s like it’s almost, I think it’s almost, it’s not any more like just luxurious or something to speak and over a cup of coffee or something, it’s like, it’s almost this discussion, this, this policy needs to be in place to make sure that neither of those catastrophic, the future could happen in the future. Like an AI or robots taking over the world.

Ozcon Saritas

Yes, yes, you are. Absolutely right. Modafar. I recently started actually working closer with scientists. to my surprise I started seeing that there are still a lot of scientists who are not concerned with, or who are not aware with the kind of ethical, legal, and the other kind of cultural impacts of their kind of research. So, we have been discussing this concept of foresight on site. So how to bring foresight on site, like on the agendas of this scientist. So, they could actually think about the different aspects and different impacts consequences of their science, right? From the beginning of the research and development phase. Otherwise, of course, there’ll be all sorts of catastrophic results, or their research may be stopped because there’s not a linear process anymore. So, the society’s concerns and expectations should be taken into account and scientists should be aware of all these concerns. And that is why it is very important to have four sites on site, like in a lab, in a kind of research environment. And it should be integrated in day-to-day thinking about scientists and policy makers, for example, going, referring back to our earlier discussion in terms of ignorance. So, they should be all made aware by bringing futures thinking into their daily practices.

Modafar shaker

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I want to hear your perspective professor about the cultural aspect and how we can, as people on the domain, how we can utilize the cultural values, the views, and making that happen, how we can like start to form a cultural background. You know, every country, the region has its own different cultural background. How we can utilize that and start from that to address those concerns were addressed those patterns that we are seeing.

Ozcon Saritas

Yeah. There’s another good point. First of all, I’m in a, maybe it’s a bit like a cliche, but our differences are actually outreaching. So, we need to come to this understanding, first of all in the world, because they, like with the world, with the Monaco-colored kind of, without any kind of diversity or variations, it would be a very boring place to live in. So, we are humans and with our kind of backgrounds, cultures, our beliefs and everything, I think so, and all of them are beat for lighting. So, there are all sorts of, eh, kind of manipulations made to exploit them in certain ways and then use it for, or abuse them for different purposes. But we should really kind of leave this behind and then should focus on like our common futures together with coexistence. So, this is one of the key messages, otherwise, for example there are, you know, there’s futures thinking everywhere.

I mean and you know, everybody has their own kind of understanding of futures and their own way of doing something about this future. And we should really explore this and understand this and create synergies between them, because I think we should, we should be inspired by doing nature for this nature is so diverse. There are so many different species in it and how they live in kind of harmony. And the biggest problems of humans are that we don’t learn them from the nature and we challenge it, we confront it continuous and exploited, but we never actually considered the nature in terms of its kind of harmony coexistence. And then it’s kind of you know, ordered sometimes Caltech, but there’s an order in the

scales. So, once we start actually exploring all this and they will, our understanding, I think then we will learn that our differences are actually are reaching. This is then we cannot live without our differences because we live in different places, different geographies, different resources, different systems and all this, they actually you know, are the things that make us ourselves to build our identity and we will exist as long as we can keep this.

Modafar shaker

Yeah. So, I think you are not in favor on settlement on Mars. We [inaudible] go find another planet. What do you think?

Ozcon Saritas

Well, as long as, you know, we don’t export our problems to mars.

I am not against that, but we should make sure that we don’t bring everything I’m in, like, you know, all this, eh, our current way of thinking, for example, into Mars, if we look at Mars, for example, from more exploitation kind of perspective, then we will definitely fail that. If you look at the Mars with the possibility of, you know, coherence and coexistence and from this sort of cooperation perspective, then we will win there also. So, I’m not against that. That is very good. It’s very exciting. So, I think the sort of things should happen and continue because we just push the boundaries of our thinking.

Modafar shaker

but some people are arguing that instead of investing a huge amount of money just to go to Mars and something that might or might not work out, we should invest in like ending poverty or like, you know, working on climate issues or, you know, all of this stuff.

Ozcon Saritas

Yeah. I think we are I mean, in the world, there’s whole amount of money spent for all sorts of unnecessary things, which could be directed into that direction. It’s not only like space research is a waste of money, but there is so much money wasted in other activities which could be directed

because mean, what is interesting with Mars and cutting-edge signs is that if you look at the history, a lot of innovations in our daily lives originate from this sort of cutting-edge research. For example, in the past, this was like a defense technology. Right. So, all this, for example, internet and remote kind of connection technologies, mobile technologies, all these are coming with the, you know, previous research on defense. And now I’m hoping that I’m in, we don’t have to develop some new weapons and new things, but direct our energies for again, cutting edge science in other fields like space exploration, if it is constructive, it may actually help us to deal with different challenges.

And we may address some of the problems in our planet by using this technology and this sort of thinking. So, from that sort of perspective, I don’t think it is a waste of money, but for example, if we don’t invest in again, new weapons and then for finance new wards and things like that, this will be enough to feed our people and populations to have a wealthy good life, better lives. We shouldn’t displace people just, you know, provide them necessary you know, sources not to give them like everything. Ready-Made not to give them the fish if you like, but to teach them how to fish, instead of you know, how to leave

Modafar shaker

I want officer to apply your thinking on how to identify a high on this Mars exportation, you mentioned a lot of your talks and your lectures about how can we identify certain trends or changes a hive or not can we apply that on a mars exportation.

Ozcon Saritas

This possible you know we do I talked about like data and other things and different tools and techniques we use. We try to look at, for example, different sources of information because each information source tells us a different part of the story. So, we try to use them kind of in a complimentary way to get the full story in one of those kinds of analysis that we do we look at media. So, what is in the agenda of media, for example, and compare it with the agenda of science and the technology. So, we’ll look at, for example, at the very simple terms, scientific publications and news. And when we compare scientific publications and

news, we see that some of the things, you know, mentioned in the news, for example, they no scientific grounding, you know, science is not actually engaged with, so that is a clear hype, for example, it is only spoken by, you know, media.

And so, but without any kind of evidence. Yes. there are some of the areas which are mentioned in media, but also in science. So, we see a great match between them. So, we can understand that this is not actually a hype, so this is more or less reality. And there are also some areas which haven’t found their ways in media yet, but they’re on the agenda of scientists. Maybe they are at the very kind of basic level. So, they haven’t demonstrated yet any practical applications though. They haven’t come into the rather of media yet. So, when you compare this to source of information, then you can have an idea, at least what could be hype potentially. And what is the real signs and then there’s any gap between them or not.

Modafar shaker

very interesting. My last question, professor, I enjoyed the discussion. My last question. What would be your advice to someone who’s just getting into the field? What were your mistakes when you started and your advice how to avoid them?

Ozcon Saritas

Well, yeah, I think, yeah, any of us probably make mistakes. It is important that to understand that this is the kind of a continuous learning experience, right. And it’s never too late. So first of all, lifelong learning, so we can always explore some new things and see some new things and understand you the world, the nature of ourselves, and then find some ways to create some synergies, to position ourselves in the best way in our lives. Because it’s very important that to understand, for example, who you are, what your skills are, what you like to do, and then match it. I mean, what the requirements of the worlds our businesses are or policy are and things like that. So, exploding yourself is probably an important first step and understanding. So that’s why I think a good first step to begin with is to open all the rudders and then try to understand the world.

You know, after you talked about systems thinking this was the topic of my PhD thesis, they actually systems thinking for foresight. That’s why I don’t distinguish any more like this is my field and the other things I don’t care about; I care about anything. So, because I see that this is life and life is composed of all different systems. And with their kind of a synergy, sometimes the failures are, if we make some mistakes you know, which may affect the mechanism and the principles of the system and how it operates. So, we need to understand that there might be some further implications of, you know, our simple mistakes then, like it may grow and it may have some implications, like in the case of pandemic, as we spoke at the very beginning, give me become a global economic issue, for example.

So, I advise everyone just to open rudders and look at different things at different levels and never ignore anything, every piece of information or any piece of advice. And then and then they will actually find their way and they will be able to position themselves within this complex system. And then they will see them as the agents to start the change process, because we need scientists, we need policymakers, we need industrialists’ entrepreneurs, for example, innovators, we need infrastructures builders and everything. So, we should just understand that we are a part of this big system and we are all responsible for a better future.

Modafar shaker

Nice. So, keep learning, have an open, like approach open to different field different changes that having not only to focus on technology or the economy without like, which is your specialty, but then look at different aspects. And I can add to that is also you need to understand that what is your biases when you are like looking at the future? I think this is important to, because if I have a certain world view a certain bias, I need to understand those. And I need to understand that maybe relevant to, to what you are speaking about, system thinking how that relates to different systems and how that can be utilized and, and the activities or the work I’m doing.

Ozcon Saritas

Absolutely. Those shouldn’t be barriers. I mean, they can be utilized, as you said, I completely agree with you,

Modafar shaker

Right. Thank you very much professor for the very informative, very interesting conversation. Any final thoughts, final message you want to deliver to our audience?

Ozcon Saritas

Well, I think I’ve communicated a lot of messages for this time and I will save some of them for next time. So, I’m hoping that this is not the answer. We will continue talking to each other.

Modafar shaker

Yeah, sure. Thanks a lot professor for sure we will have other collaborations in the future.

Ozcon Saritas

Thank you. Thank you Modafar for the opportunity. It was a great pleasure.