On 29 September 2025, the TRANSIT think tank held a special event at the Impact Hub Zurich: an experiment entitled « Reflecting on future skills together », which involved testing three games dealing with futures and future skills. Participants from adult learning and education practice and research spent the afternoon exploring questions about the future in a playful way and reflecting on them together.
Introduction and thematic framework
After a joint lunch, Helen Buchs (responsible for TRANSIT) and Sabin Müller (moderator and former responsible for TRANSIT) opened the event with a future warm-up based on the TRANSIT future questions and a set of future skills cards.
A brief introduction to the fourth TRANSIT trend report, « Future Skills and the Future of Adult Learning », highlighted the report’s key findings on future skills. It emphasised that future skills are not only about individuals adapting to a changing world, but can also be understood as a collective resource for shaping the future of societies. Upon arrival, participants received a freshly printed poster summarising the most important content of the trend report in a concise, clear and inspiring manner.
Playing and reflecting
The afternoon focused on trying out three different games:
- Future Skills card set: stimulated discussions about future skills. Participants emphasised that the card set is suitable for workshops and teamwork.
- Future Trends Card Set: presented key trends for discussion. The variety of cards and the appealing visualisation were particularly appreciated. Participants identified potential applications in team development and educational processes.
- Megatrend Work Kit: provided access to overarching social developments. Participants praised the topicality of the themes, the concrete scenarios and how it encouraged of strategic thinking.
After each round of the game, the groups recorded their reflections in writing. The evaluation showed that the participants found the playful format to be inspiring, practical and adaptable to different contexts.
Thinking ahead: TRANSIT toolbox
In the final part, the results were compiled during a plenary session and transferred to the concept of a TRANSIT toolbox. This toolbox aims to strengthen continuing education as a means of social transformation, enabling individuals to develop responses to key social challenges. The aim is to make continuing education more forward-looking and innovative while promoting adults’ ability to take action, enabling them to actively work towards a sustainable society. Specifically, the toolbox will offer a combination of knowledge, methods, and playful activities. It will inspire participants and provide them with practical tools that can be used in various contexts of adult education.
Participants at the event contributed concrete suggestions to this vision:
- the combinationof analogue and digital elementsto address different learning approaches,
- game and workshop ideas with different levelsfor flexible target group work,
- Reflection aidsand questions for assessing current status and setting goals.
They also discussed the role of TRANSIT, from train-the-trainer programmes and quality assurance of materials, to establishing a network of interested individuals.
Conclusion
The event showed that games are an effective way of starting discussions about future skills and trends. They make complex topics more tangible and encourage shared visioning and reflection. Building on the experience and ideas gathered, TRANSIT will now examine how the toolbox can be designed to further strengthen adult learning and education as a space for addressing future social issues. Click here for a participant’s perspective
Click here for a participant’s perspective (in german)