- “Mercado Urbano de Tobalaba,” the urban project under development and envisioned as a space of the future, was the site of the third encounter of Chile Territorio Futuro experts. Based on the scenarios imagined by the group, they delved into the risks and opportunities of each one and what the country has and needs to address them.
- Social organization, new governance, and participation models are central to maximizing future opportunities. Experts predict a growing demand for institutional changes in the public and private spheres.
- As a core dimension in the experts' scenarios, the climate crisis detonated many reflections that highlighted the urgent need for incentives to achieve fundamental changes in the population's consumption habits and transformations to production models.
Santiago, October 20, 2022. Chile Territorio Futuro (in English, Chile: Future Territory), the initiative coordinated by the Center for Innovation in Cities of the UDD Faculty of Architecture and promoted by the Enel Foundation, is now in its eighth month of development. The project has already collected most of the information needed, and during the last two months, it will focus on the final analysis and deliverables.
The information collected until now is based on interviews with 50 experts, technical documentation identifying the signs of future change, and three in-person encounters. The last of these meetings was held today at the "Mercado Urbano Tobalaba," an urban project that will soon open to the public.
Experts on well-being and quality of life, new financial norms in times of climate crisis, energy and food transformation, production models and circular economy, and new governance and citizen participation models debated the future scenarios imagined during the previous encounter.
The work done by Chile Territorio has followed a systematic path and a prospective analysis methodology, which began with experts identifying signs of change for the future. Based on these signs and upon analysis of the information collected, participants imagined future scenarios that were the subject of debate today.
Some areas that received the most attention included the urgent need for institutional changes to address the climate crisis and new ways of living that imply virtual reality. Participants also looked at opportunities for energy innovation and decentralization in the country. Experts highlighted Chile’s advantages, including its natural resources and geographic diversity, while considering the energy sector’s potential role as a transformation leader.
Meanwhile, they also expressed concern regarding gaps in education and the urgent need to take transformative actions to strengthen the country’s human capital and job opportunities offered by the leading industries, namely mining and energy.
Today’s Chile Territorio Futuro encounter included Carlo Papa, the Executive Director of the Enel Foundation. Papa highlighted the importance of the initiative to proactively spur public and private actions to address future challenges. He also solidified the knowledge partnership between the Enel Foundation and Universidad del Desarrollo, which now joins the network of universities and research centers that generate knowledge and innovate in collaboration with the foundation. The methodology used by Chile Territorio Futuro hopes to become a model for the imagination and exploration of future scenarios in other contexts.
The results of today's encounter will soon be published along with the other interim results of Chile Territorio Futuro at www.chileterritoriofuturo.cl. The initiative's final product will be delivered in January 2023 and published the following March.