Futures Week Brazil 2025 Youth Building Futures
- TTF_Brazil
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
Between March 10 and 14, 2025, the Brazilian hub extended the celebration of this day into an entire thematic week. It was a bold—and necessary—step. By holding Futures Week Brazil, the Brazilian hub transformed the impact of World Futures Day into something more significant: a public call for a new culture of futures, constructed from the Global South, with youth at the center stage.
In times when imagination feels like a luxury and crisis has become the norm, Futures Week proposed something radical: turning imagination into a collective tool. Moreover, it positioned youth as the protagonists of this transformation.
The event gathered more than 22,000 registrations and reached 40,000 live participants via simultaneous broadcasts on YouTube and LinkedIn. It featured over 12 hours of original content, 25 national and international speakers, live participation directly from SXSW (Austin, Texas), and a network of over 20 partnering companies (supporters and sponsors).
All of this was organized in an unprecedented global format: five thematic online rooms, each lasting 90 minutes, brought together diverse panels—futurists, influencers, Gen Z youth, sponsoring brands, and generative AI acting as curator and insight synthesizer. It was a true living lab of co-creation.
The DNA of Brazil in every conversation
The program addressed five major provocations, each exploring an essential aspect of building possible—and desirable—futures.
The first room opened with an urgent question: Where has imagination gone? In times of permacrisis, creativity seems swallowed by fear. Educator Luciana Bazanella challenged attendees: “We are training youth to repeat, not to imagine. This is a social design error.” The discussion invited educators to reclaim creative boredom, mistakes, and idleness as learning engines.
On the second day, the focus shifted to work—or what will remain of it. In an automated world, how do we ensure relevance and purpose? Gabriel Portugal summarized: "Gen Z doesn’t want less effort; they want more coherence." Regenerative education emerged as an answer to an exhausted model that neither addresses the desires nor the planet’s limits.
The third room was a milestone in active listening and representation. Young indigenous, peripheral, and climate activist voices called out their underrepresentation in global decisions. Morena Mariah, one of the most powerful voices, asserted: “We are not asking for space. We are creating space.” Youth protagonism became practice rather than theory.
The fourth gathering placed regeneration at its core. Beyond preserving what remains, the call was to heal, redesign, and re-enchant our relationship with life. "Regenerate is the new verb of the century," stated Rosa Alegria, one of Brazil's futurism pioneers. This session linked ecology, culture, and innovation through real solutions from Brazilian territories.
The closing brought Gen Z perspectives on consumption. Young communicators, artists, and activists demonstrated that consumption has become activism and coherence is the criterion.
"It’s not enough to sell. Brands must position themselves, belong, and transform." —Wesley Xavier
The periphery was presented as the place where the future already happens, with style, power, and vision.
Event playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAQ5OJ5GmTY&list=PLQf5UHRT1Y6MVuUNswx28YlCawjP-jL6A&index=5
Small Moments, Big Connections
Besides the online program, Brazil was the only country to hold an in-person activation within Teach the Future's global cycle: SMOJ—Small Moments of Joy—a sensory celebration hosted at ESPM Tech, one of Brazil's top private universities in São Paulo.
Futures took shape through small gestures in music, art, and heartfelt conversations.
As marketing director of TTF Brazil, defined it,
“We don’t need big structures. Just authentic connections.”—Eduardo Sá
What did we learn?
Futures Week Brazil 2025 showed that futurism can no longer be elitist, Eurocentric, or purely academic. It must be collective, accessible, and applied. It proved that youth are not just "the future"—they are the present, pulsating, deciding, proposing. It demonstrated that imagining is not escapism; it's a strategy.
Above all, it showed a new way of building futures already underway—in schools, online, marginalized communities, in conversation circles. What we saw in Brazil is just the beginning: a replicable, scalable model deeply rooted in listening, co-creation, and real impact.
Teach the Future invites you to imagine the thousand possible futures born when youth, knowledge, technology, and courage meet.