Times Colonist columnist Jack Knox writes the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads University, recently launched by Royal Roads President Philip Steenkamp and director Dr. Thomas Homer Dixon, aims to tackle complex world problems through research.
Here’s an excerpt:
“Thomas Homer-Dixon studies the complexity of things. It’s what led the professor to write big-brain books like The Ingenuity Gap: How We Can Solve Problems of the Future and The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization.
[…]
“And now, just in time for the pandemic, the 64-year-old has come home to Victoria to launch a new institute at Royal Roads University.
“Homer-Dixon was introduced Monday as executive director of the brand-new Cascade Institute, whose ambitious goal will be to look into the future for ways to guide policy-makers through crises like the one that has us simultaneously hiding under the bed and banging pots and pans at 7 p.m. each night.
“He arrived from the University of Waterloo, painting a picture of the future that, while sobering, was not devoid of hope. In fact, the whole point of what he is doing is to identify those ‘intervention points’ where it will be possible for leaders to step in and steer the avalanche in a better direction.”
This article appeared in the Victoria Times Colonist.