Amyas Valora Foundation: Strategic Foresight Case Study

The context

A new programme, and a first cohort

The Amyas Valora Foundation, based in Singapore, helps vulnerable communities live independently, with dignity and in harmony with nature.

In October 2026 it launched the first cohort of Future-Proofing Impact: Through Strategic Foresight and AI Skilling. The programme opened with four days at the Asia School of Business. Think FRST and White Rice Impact designed and ran the first two, on strategic foresight. AI skilling followed.

Leaders of twenty organisations working on conservation, youth and education, child protection, rights and gender, and cross-sector development came from Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Timor-Leste, India, Singapore and beyond. Two funders, the ECCA Family Foundation and GDSSIL, joined as observers. Most had never run a foresight process. Many arrived wary of AI.

Participants walking into the venue on the first morning — **Day One, 8:30 am.** The cohort arrives.

A Foundation representative giving the welcome note with a microphone — **Welcome note** from the Foundation.

Two participants deep in conversation in front of a photo wall — **First hour.** Strangers become peers.

TABLE 1 · CONSERVATIONAnambas Foundation, Reef Check Malaysia, Common SeasWhen energy becomes free, everyone comes home.

TABLE 2 · CONSERVATIONLINI Foundation, River Cleanup, HAkAThe ocean, the river and the forest all start talking.

TABLE 3 · YOUTH AND WORKAntarang Foundation, Waved, Friends-International, Lifeboat FoundationNobody has one job anymore.

TABLE 4 · CHILD PROTECTIONBaan Dek, ChildFund Australia, DREAMSIf everything is provided, what do children actually need?

TABLE 5 · RIGHTS AND ADVOCACYBanteay Srei, The Exodus Road, Future HopeOne person, a thousand agents, a movement.

TABLE 6 · THE AI-FIRST ORGANISATIONWesterlaken Foundation, Obviously Sustainable, This Life CambodiaRebuild it from zero.

Six tables grouped by the work they do, each with a scenario written for its field. Coral Triangle Center, Bali, also took part and presented its plan on Day Two.

Preparation

Designed for this room, not a syllabus

Six themed tables of three or four organisations.
Six scenario briefs, one per table, each a world in 2036 that had already arrived.
Eleven printed tools, from the Megatrend Impact Brief to the Year 1 Commitment Board, so every output went home on paper.
A welcome table with markers, notebooks and a card addressed to the cohort.

Printed worksheets laid out on a long table before the session — **Setting up.** The printed tools, before the room fills.

A welcome table with a Dear Cohort card, markers and notebooks — **Dear Cohort.** The welcome table.

The approach

Eight moves, from what is changing to who does what on Monday

DAY01

Understanding our future

A shared language, the forces changing the world, six futures, and three horizons.

Participants mingling and talking in pairs during Speed Signals — **Speed Signals.** A bell rotates the pairs every 90 seconds.

Participants at a round table with name cards, laughing as they work — **Table 4.** Baan Dek and DREAMS meet.

Two participants in conversation — **Headlines only.** No organisational history.

01Day One · 09:00Opening

Find your table, then say the headline

Twenty organisations had to start thinking together within the first hour. On Day Two each plans for itself, and they would need each other.

How

A welcome from the Foundation. Then Speed Signals: three questions in rotating pairs. How has your work changed in two years? What excites you about the future? If resources were no limit, what would you solve first? Seven room norms followed, including "Think 10X, not 10%" and "Think alone, then together".

Result

A room that had already spoken to most of itself, and a habit of short, specific answers that carried through both days.

Raheel Waqar, Think FRST, opens the foresight session.

A participant answering with a microphone — **The room answers back.**

Raheel Waqar in front of a slide on ambient AI — **Signal to megatrend.** How a weak signal grows.

02Day One · 10:00Foundations

A shared language for the future

Strategic planning asks how we get there. Foresight asks which there.

How

A five-question foresight quiz. The futures cone, and the warning that most organisations plan inside the narrowest cone and call it realism. Singapore's food-security backcast, already in place when supply chains broke in 2020. How a signal grows into a megatrend. Five biases that distort judgement about the future. Three principles: the future is not predictable, not predetermined, and can be influenced.

Result

One shared question for the room: how might we act now, so the future of our work is designed by us and the people we serve, not decided for us?

Raheel Waqar presenting the climate megatrend — **Twelve megatrends**, each with signals visible now and milestones to 2035.

A table standing at the front to share back its brief — **Share back.** Read 10, discuss 10, capture 10, share 5.

A participant presenting his table's Megatrend Impact Brief — **The brief.** One megatrend per row.

03Move 01Scan

Megatrend Impact Brief: a global force, a dated consequence

If a finding would be true for any organisation anywhere, it is not yet a finding.

How

Twelve megatrends reshaping impact in Asia, from "work becomes human-plus-agent" to "development finance contracts, localises and demands proof". Each table took three to five and filled one row each on an A2 sheet: what it changes and when it bites, the opportunity and for whom, and a first move with an owner, a date and one number that shows it is working.

Result

Six briefs. Table 2 chose AI-enhanced monitoring for fieldwork. The youth table judged learning outside the classroom "feasible by 2028, so start in 2027". Table 6 put a number on a Telegram-based case system: 15% of staff time back for community work. Four megatrends no table picked: a blind spot worth naming.

A participant presenting her table's brief beside the sheet on an easel — **Standing inside 2035.** Each table argues from its future.

The scenario brief for Table 2 — **The tool.** Table 2's scenario brief.

The Megatrend Impact Brief worksheet — **The tool.** Megatrend Impact Brief.

04Move 02Explore

Six futures, one per table

A scenario lets a team stand inside a future before it arrives, and see what it opens and what it breaks.

How

Each table received a scenario for its field, set between 2030 and 2035 and grounded in signals visible today. The cross-sector brief imagined forty people becoming eight people supervising two hundred agents. Every brief ended with nine questions, three per horizon, and one share-back ask: one thing to let go of, the smallest experiment, one thing to stop teaching, the first safeguard, one thing to refuse, or the organisation rebuilt from zero in 60 seconds.

Result

Six tables arguing from inside 2035, with their answers already sorted by horizon.

A participant adding a sticky note to a Three Horizons board — **Order is the exercise.** H1, then H3, then H2.

Table 2's completed Three Horizons sheet — **Table 2.** Reactive monitoring to prediction.

Table 6's completed Three Horizons sheet — **Table 6.** Rebuilt from zero.

05Move 03Position

Three Horizons: today, the bridge, and 2036

H1 funds H2, and H2 displaces parts of H1. Holding both on one sheet is the leadership job.

How

H1 first, 15 minutes: what do you run today that is already declining? H3 next, 20 minutes: statements, not aspirations. H2 last, 15 minutes: pilots, hires, partnerships, and things you stop doing. Written second, H2 becomes a wish list. Five-minute presentations, with feedback on sticky notes instead of questions.

Result

Six maps. Anambas Foundation would "become enabler instead of implementer". The conservation table moved to AI that predicts bleaching and deforestation. The rights table held its line: "human relationships, 95%; AI, 5%". The cross-sector table asked funders for flexible funding and flexible KPIs.

Table 1's completed Three Horizons sheet — **End of Day One.** Table 1's map: young people returning to the islands for green jobs. The walls stay up overnight.

06Day One · 17:00Close

Closing the day: one word each

Today you decided what you could be. Tomorrow you decide what you are going to do about it.

How

Round the room, thirty seconds each, no passing and no repeating the person before you: the most significant takeaway, and what you look forward to or feel nervous about tomorrow.

Result

"Uncertainty." "Eye-opener." "Mind-blowing." "Start preparing now."

Day Two begins from the walls, not from a blank page.

DAY02

From foresight to ownership

Nothing new enters the room. Every round narrows the list and adds a name to it.

Raheel Waqar talking with a table during the morning recap — **Table by table.** Reconnecting to what was built on Day One.

A hand placing a sticky note among What if notes — **"What if we could...?"** One sticky per idea.

A Rainforest Connection case card — **The tool.** One of 44 case cards.

07Recap · Move 04Borrow

Inspiration Lab: somebody already solved your problem

They solved it somewhere else, for a different reason, and nobody told you.

How

A recap of Day One, then provocation cards read aloud: "Which success metric could mislead you about future readiness?" "Whose voice is usually missing?" Then 44 case cards across seven themes, from Rainforest Connection and Ant Forest to Harambee, Lumos and WeRobotics. Pick, then write 10 to 15 "What if we could...?" notes with initials. The test: a good what-if names a change your organisation would feel. If it only names a tool, it is not ready.

Result

A wall of what-ifs from every organisation. Coral Triangle Center's community drone patrols for marine threats came straight out of this round.

A table standing around a shared opportunity map covered in sticky notes — **One map per table.** Every sticky placed, with initials.

The Opportunity Map worksheet with four quadrants — **The tool.** Four boxes, two axes.

Table 2's Opportunity Map on the wall, covered in blue, green and pink sticky notes — **Table 2, filled.** River Cleanup, HAkA, LINI.

08Move 05Choose

Opportunity mapping: fund, build, pilot or kill

You now have more opportunity than you can fund. That is the right place to be before you prioritise.

How

One shared map per table, read two ways: which horizon, and commit or test. Fund now: you have the team, skills and budget. Build capability first: a two to three year build. Quick win or pilot. Park or kill. Each organisation then points to its fund-now card and its one kill. No front of room.

Result

297 ideas placed across the four boxes. Every fund-now card needs an owner and a first ninety-day step. Only those, and their prerequisites, go into backcasting.

Usman Zahid addressing the room beside a screen reading Organisational backcasting, where your Year 1 plan begins — **Usman Zahid**, Think FRST, opens organisational backcasting: start at 2036 and walk back.

Usman Zahid coaching two participants through their backcasting sheet — **At the table.** Coaching the walk back.

Common Seas backcasting board with a handwritten 2036 statement — **Common Seas.** The 2036 statement on top.

09Move 06Walk back

A future statement, then backcasting from 2036

Forecasting gives a future that looks like the present, only more tired. Backcasting gives the plan the future demands.

How

One sentence first: "By 2036, we have made ___ possible for ___." Then lock 2036 and walk back through 2033, 2031 and 2029, asking each time what had to happen first. Past tense, real numbers, no adjectives. Stop at next year with three actions, each with a name and a date. Circle any step with nothing behind it: those circles are your homework.

Result

A 2036 statement and a backcast for every organisation. Common Seas: island and coastal communities leading lasting solutions to plastic pollution. Baan Dek: social standards across at least 70% of Thailand's construction sector. Coral Triangle Center: 12 communities flying drone patrols by 2029, 30 by 2031.

A presenter pointing at her Year 1 Commitment Board — **Five minutes each.** Feedback on sticky notes, no questions.

A presenter smiling with the microphone during Year 1 presentations — **Year 1 presentations.**

Reef Check Malaysia's Year 1 Commitment Board — **Reef Check Malaysia.** Q1: the staff retreat.

10Move 07Commit

The Year 1 Commitment Board: a name and a date on every line

An action with no name never happens. The moonshot becomes a Monday task.

How

Four quarters, October 2026 to September 2027, five tasks a quarter at most, each with how, a RACI and a start and finish. Pull from the 2026 column only. Fill Q1 before touching Q2. Cross out any line no one will own. Then every organisation presented. When you present, you are also convincing yourself.

Result

A Year 1 board for every organisation. Reef Check Malaysia takes its plan to its staff retreat on 13 and 14 November. Anambas Foundation moves from waste-bank data to a pilot materials recovery facility. The Exodus Road builds police, NGO and community partnerships ahead of a Q3 pilot.

Two presenters beside a sticky-note board and a whiteboard sketch — **Plans on the wall**, ready to be broken.

The Strategy Pre-Mortem worksheet — **The tool.** 100 points by likelihood.

Participants writing on a worksheet at their table — **Alone first,** then together.

11Move 08Break it

Pre-mortem: it is October 2027, and the plan has failed

Ask what could go wrong and you get polite risks. Tell a room it already went wrong and you get the real ones.

How

Three rules: it already happened; specific, or it does not count; the plan changes today, not in a follow-up email no one opens. Write alone first. Cluster the same failure in different clothes. Split 100 points across the reasons: most get zero, and that is the point. Fix everything above the line, each fix with a name.

Result

Each organisation's biggest risk and the fix it owns, written onto its Year 1 board the same day.

Usman Zahid speaking with a microphone beside a slide titled Four pillars to become AI-first — **Usman Zahid**, Think FRST, on the four pillars of an AI-first organisation.

12Day Two · 16:50Bridge and close

The bridge to an AI-first organisation

Nobody wrote "adopt AI" on a board. Everybody wrote something that needs it.

How

Four pillars. Mindset: a decision, not a workshop. Culture: one person using AI is a habit, a team using it is a culture. Systems: if a step is the same every time, AI can carry it. Capacity: effective means time handed back. Done well, the ten-year vision may take five. Then a closing round: what excites you, what would you defend in front of your board on Monday, and what will you do from tomorrow?

Result

About 35 people answered in the closing round. Sceptics described themselves as excited. Several left with a plan for their board.

Days Three and Four, AI skilling with Mereka, start where pillar four begins.

The outcome

What the two days produced

Every organisation left with a vision for 2036 and a first year it owns. For some, this was their first foresight process.

6megatrend briefs

6Three Horizons maps

297ideas on opportunity maps

202036 visions with Year 1 plans

REEF CHECK MALAYSIAFrom Malaysia to Southeast AsiaRegional reef, seagrass and mangrove maps from underwater drones, and coastal communities managing their own marine resources.

HAKAClosing the data-to-action gapEarly warning for floods and deforestation in the Leuser Ecosystem, with communities, government and business acting on the same data.

ANTARANG FOUNDATIONEvery young person, school to workGovernment in India supporting every young person through the transition, with an AI career facilitator model.

BAAN DEKSafe communities on construction sitesSocial standards across at least 70% of Thailand's construction sector, for migrant workers and their children.

THE EXODUS ROADFrom rescue to preventionA coordinated response that reaches children before exploitation, 24 hours a day.

OBVIOUSLY SUSTAINABLEA twin-transition evidence partnerFifty coastal communities supported through a consortium of 25 partners.

5 and 6 Oct
AI skilling days for the same cohort, led by Mereka.
After the workshop
Every backcasting board and Year 1 plan transcribed into an editable copy, so teams continue where they stopped.
13 and 14 Nov
Reef Check Malaysia takes its plan to its staff retreat, the first move on its Year 1 board.

In their own words

What the room said

We were just thinking small, our mindset was small. After this exercise, the mindset has changed.
Participant, closing round

If human trafficking is active 24/7, then why shouldn't we? Why are we only limited to work 9:00 to 5:00?
Shyam Kamble, The Exodus Road

I thought it would be a lot more depressing, but it feels quite uplifting actually.
Participant, closing round

This entire one and a half days are actually breaking that bubble of us, and almost to say that we really cannot avoid AI.
Indrani Dutta, Antarang Foundation

Our organization is not about what we do, but what we allow others to do.
Guillermo Lozano Leo, ChildFund Australia

So there's this data-to-action gap that we're hoping to close by 2036.
Irham Hudaya Yunardi, HAkA

For the rest of the board now I have a viable action plan to present.
Participant, closing round

A lot of these ideas were already there, but now we are basically putting technology into it.
Sabine Joukes, River Cleanup

We might need to have 10-year strategy plan with their foresight to be the action plan.
Baan Dek

Group photo of all participants and facilitators at the end of Day Two — **The first cohort of Future-Proofing Impact.**Twenty organisations, two days, one shared future. Asia School of Business, Kuala Lumpur, 4 October 2026.