Hamburg, Germany is located in the middle of a one-of-a-kind waterscape. In addition, you will find patches of green all over the Hanseatic city. There are numerous parks, meadows and forests of all sizes wherever you go. The North Sea’s fresh breeze, urban architecture and vast public green spaces add up to making Hamburg a real sight to see and a metropolis with almost unparalleled quality of life.

What
4Sing GmbH has established the X-Center Germany as part of the Global X Center Network. The Hamburg-based consulting and idea-generating company invites others to participate in joint development of scenarios and identification of alternative futures. It offers a place to exchange on methods and tools for dealing with “unpredictable futures”.

Why
The X-Center Germany builds on the objectives of learning and collective analysis to offer flexible thinking tools for decision making. This, its focus is complementary to other networks such as the Global X-Network on scientific work. Collaborative, integrated scenarios with multi-dimensional relevant factors capture the complexity and check strategies, create larger spaces of possibility in dealing with uncertainty, complexity and extreme events, and are therefore actionable as linear prediction or feeling allegations in today often so-called “post-factual” era.
We support this process of change with the help of scenarios, collective knowledge exchange, personally-direct dialogues, often combined with digital instruments, to jointly develop ideas for upcoming prospects and necessary today change steps.

The future plays a role today. But it involves extremely many unknowns – and many people view this with a mixture of hope, confidence and terror at the same time. With the new X-Center Germany we invite others to join in the interdisciplinary development of possible futures, be it for high-level policy decisions, entrepreneurship or civic engagement.

With the establishment of the X-Center Germany, 4Sing has joined other pioneers, already exploring the world of uncertainties. And the world are in the face of unknown futures many change processes before, in business and politics, in institutions and in personal behavior patterns.

When
The X-Center Hamburg was formed in Hamburg, Germany in the Spring of 2016.

Who

Core Founding Members of the X-Center Hamburg

Adrian Taylor: Founder 4Sing Foresight to Strategy for Security and Sustainability in Governance – Hamburg, Germany
Adrian Taylor helps both public and private sector clients to use foresight methods to formulate robust strategy options. His role is that of providing content input, process design as well as workshop moderation especially in security and sustainability related issues. He has experience in using a number of methods that leverage Open Source Intelligence, and the Parmenides Eidos Suite of software tools for supporting (but not in any way replacing) human reasoning to anticipate future changes in the world outside. In the course of his work he has had occasion to work in over 33 countries of the world, and runs workshops in English, French and German. Adrian has over two decades of working experience, and has previously been a junior officer in the British Army, a lobbyist on EU matters, a scenario planner in a joint venture with Global Business Network, Desk Officer for India at the European Commission and a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech, before joining the European School of Governance (eusg) – his last job prior to becoming self-employed.  He was also President of the European Open Source Intelligence Forum in parallel to his employment with the eusg.
His education includes: Degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics Trinity College Oxford, and a License Spéciale (Masters) in European Studies with “Grande Distinction” from the Université Libre deBruxelles.   Adrian is also author of a number of published essays, and regularly contributes editorial pieces to on-line journals. Adrian was born and raised in London, England, and has subsequently spent 24 years living elsewhere, notably Gibraltar, Brussels, Atlanta, Zurich, New York, and Munich.  He currently resides in Hamburg.

Petra Wiesbrock:  is a junior strategy consultant who has extensive experience of using a variety of tools like Parmenides Eidos™ and Futurescaper™ for consultation, scenarios work and strategizing purposes. She has a technical background in Urban Planning and Design and direct experience of coordinating stakeholder participation in territorial planning projects – notably including citizens’ involvement. Petra has also applied a number of tools for visualization of both spatial and causal relationships, and this work helps the decision maker literally to “see” the impact of choices made on the physical space and other spheres. Petra is also a PhD candidate, working on urban informality and complexity based on the example of the rapidly changing urban neighborhood Sijoumi in Tunis.

Martina Kampmann:  Senior Associate 4Sing Foresight to Strategy for Security and Sustainability in Governance, Germany
Ms Martina Kampmann is a Senior Policy Expert on Strategic Partnerships, multi-stakeholder knowledge sharing and mutual learning networks in various policy areas. From 2013 to 2014 she was Senior Counsellor of the ‘Knowledge Sharing Alliance’ (KSA) at the Office of the Secretary General of the OECD. Previously she was a senior manager at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). She is now Senior Associate of 4Sing GmbH Consult, founded by Adrian Taylor. She is also connected to several global city networks and initiatives at the Technical University Berlin.
At OECD her duties included the development of knowledge sharing and mutual learning in the Organisation and the establishment of the Knowledge Sharing with emerging and developing countries and with organizations with field presence, creating synergies between policy and practice. The programme involved OECD and international experts in particular on green growth and green urban development in Dynamic Asia; innovating public sector policies and civil society participation; as well as Strategic Foresight and other strategic topics of global relevance.
At the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Martina was inter alia Director of International Strategic Alliances and Partnerships. In 2012-2013 she was President of the ‘EU Practitioners Network’ working closely with the European Commission, and she worked in close partnerships with the Worldbank Group, the regional banks, and civil society organizations in Asia and Latin America. During the 1980/90s she worked in several Asian countries, chiefly in Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and in Latin America.
Martina, a German national, holds a Master of Arts in Political Science, International Affairs, Economics and Social Geography from the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany. She served as panelist and provided lectures e.g. during the Worldbank-KDI conference on South-South cooperation (Seoul, August 2014), and attended the recent HLM3 Country led Knowledge Sharing (Washington, March 2016). She also served as a panelist for the High Level Japan-OECD conference on Urban development and infrastructure (Tokyo, Oct 2014); and was a key speaker on City to City learning (CDIA, Manila, Nov 2014). Recent publications: OECD Series on Post 2015: Policy Dialogues, knowledge sharing and mutual learning (OECD, June 2014); The Knowledge Sharing Alliance, OECD broshure, Oct 2014.