Foresight includes innovative strategic planning, policy formulation, and solution design methods that do not intend to predict or forecast the future, but rather consider alternative scenarios. Foresight is a systematic process, cognitively supported by future thinking, is highly participatory, contains elements of future intelligence gathering and serves as a medium- to long￾term vision-building process aimed at envisaging the future and strategically making decisions in the present to arrive at a preferred future. It empowers decision makers and policy planners to use new ways of thinking about, talking about, and implementing strategic plans and policies that would have a high benefit when realised. Foresight is built on the notion that the future is not predetermined but rather can be influenced or even created by actions in the present. Foresight consists of activities aimed at debating, shaping, and thinking about the future. This foresight exercise for Botswana was prepared in the context of the broader science, technology, and innovation (STI) environment globally and at continental, regional, and local levels. This served to bring it into alignment with global trends and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and policies for sustainable development and STI in Africa, the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and Botswana. In particular, the four pillars of Vision 2036 were considered as guidelines for the foresight exercise. These pillars are: sustainable economic development; human and social development; sustainable development; and governance, peace and security.