ABOUT US
The Centre for a Smart Future (CSF) Asia-centric hub for advancing great ideas
where young professionals work in an interdisciplinary, contemporary and solutions-oriented way.
It is a virtual think tank headquartered in Colombo, with a network of practitioners, researchers, policy professionals and thought leaders across the world.
OUR GUIDING APPROACHES
Being more interdisciplinary, being more imaginative
Tackling the challenges of our time increasingly requires a more interdisciplinary approach than ever before. We will seek to go beyond narrow ideas and narrow expertise and bring different skills and perspectives to bear on the socio-economic challenges we focus our work on.
Amplifying examples of innovation and impact:
There are many bright spots emerging continuously across our economies and societies, that hint at the possibilities of a smart future - people and organizations who are doing things with more imagination, ingenuity and courage. We will support to amplify and advance these ideas by researching, sharing, and featuring them responsibly in policy advocacy, and inspiring business model redesign.
Innovation and inclusion as fundamental cross-cutting themes:
Innovation is not a ‘nice to do’ and inclusion is not a ‘nice to have’. Both of these are no longer options, or cosmetic aspects to economic development pathways in our countries - they are instead fundamental to achieving a smarter growth path. At CSF, innovation and inclusion are necessarily intersecting and cross-cutting considerations throughout our work.
Producing meaningful outputs and strategic guidance:
We commission and publish short and compelling reports, working papers and essays; and thought-leadership articles. We conduct virtual (and eventually in-person) discussion events/forums; convene communities of practice on identified thematic areas and host dialogues with multi-stakeholder participation. In a later stage we will build capacity of relevant stakeholders/stakeholder groups through smartly run training and awareness programmes.
FOCUS THEMATIC AREAS
The Centre focuses primarily on five key thematic areas, symbolised by the five quadrants in the
logo.
Innovation and
inclusion are fundamental cross-cutting themes, and our work in these necessarily intersecting.
