No one mentioned that the audience at the Foresight Summit are products of a flawed Education system

Accordingly, the audience was not in a frame of mind to think outside the box, in the Strategic Foresight necessary for a seismic change that is needed for a 50 year plan, not just a 13 year plan that is just too shortsighted. The audience therefore were merely like any audience at a Rs25,000 a pop seminar, just time off approved by their superiors to go and enjoy some out of office time, and network a little but take in nothing, as few are actual policy drafters, or policy makers that can add one iota to the concept.

No one challenged them to dream of the land they would like for their still unborn Children! Without the personal avaricious aspirations they have for themselves. Thinking what is good for the Nation is NOT the same as what is good for you, as you only represent the top 1% of society, and your chasing a dream to have a beautiful holiday home, or a nicer car, or more money at retirement to travel the world, is just not part of this agenda. All those personal goals you now have from your limited education, only adds to the carbon footprint, and is AT THE EXPENSE OF YOUR COUNTRYMEN, and so is the reverse of the Foresight that is intended.

It was telling that the Danish Ambassador, (we have a lot to learn from the Scandinavians in their approach to collective thinking over personal greed) said,

“In a knowledge economy its not enough to invest on infrastructure, to generate demand for the expansion of production, it is ever more critical to direct PUBLIC RESOURCES into capitalizing innovation, to develop technical skills”

This is simply NOT something we know how to do, and must learn that more is NOT always best. So it is NOT about how many more packets of biscuits we must sell as the brand manager, that should drive us, but that the wrapper itself will be collected and recycled, and that is why we buy that brand of biscuit, as the Company itself is socially responsible, and is SUSTAINABLE in everything it does, and educates its labor force in the same thinking that includes NUTRITION, and reducing waste, and taking steps to improve the quality of life of their workforce, from use of staff transport, healthy living, day care of a very high quality, to name but a few.

If anyone of you has seen the garbage that is floating on the waterlogged parts of Colombo, can only wonder, what a problem we have in not being able to dispose of our garbage in a safe and effective method, and do not have a sense of recycling centers and collections points to divide all our garbage into different categories. How can we have any foresight then, if we are unable to begin by taking care of the simple processes of daily survival which we have regressed from the banana leaf to the lunch sheet!