Professors Without Borders (Prowibo) is a UK registered charity that works to support equitable access to quality education. This includes providing opportunities for learners and educators across the world to develop skills to become changemakers. Since 2022, Dr James Lamb and Professor Jen Ross have collaborated with Prowibo on events and activities that have explored approaches to futures thinking and education. Jen and James were originally approached by Prowibo because of their work in creating the University’s MSc in Education Futures, which connects with Jen’s research around digital futures and James’ work around future learning spaces.
The first output from this successful collaboration took the form of a free online course, ‘Teaching Futures Thinking’, delivered across five weeks during May and June 2024. The course was designed for educators working with upper secondary school students, or early years undergraduates. Through a mixture of live sessions, online whiteboard collaboration and reflective writing, participants explored ways of using futures thinking and methods in their own teaching and community work. 35 educators from 18 countries took part in the course, and with the opportunity of earning a University of Edinburgh open digital badge.
Following on from this first collaboration, in September 2024, James contributed a futures thinking workshop to Prowibo’s entrepreneurship bootcamp. On this occasion, the audience was made up of students, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, who enrolled on the course with an idea to create change. This collaboration was repeated in September 2025.
Looking ahead, the next stage of collaboration will see James bringing his expertise around digital pedagogy to the creation of new events aimed at Prowibo’s audiences of learners, educators and future changemakers.
