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Successful smart cities' implementation will require organisational leadership decision-making competences. The foundation of smart cities is digital technologies; many of these technologies are emerging technologies that require IT skills, which are scarce and will exacerbate the battle for talent between organisations. Filling the talent gap will necessitate global hiring, which has implications for organisational culture, cultural diversity and organisational leadership. Organisational cultural mix is an important contributor to leadership decision-making. However, decision-making is underpinned by trust. Blockchain is an emerging technology that has the potential to engender organisational trust in decision-making and, by extension, in the leadership with the ‘right’ organisational culture. Smart cities will be required to leverage emerging technologies to give business performance a competitive advantage and use emerging technologies’ applications to build a sustainable competitive advantage.

By adopting the Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), Cambodia has experienced various precarious progress and challenges in implementing inclusive education due to the rudimentary inclusion concept prevalent in the country. This chapter denotes updates on the progress of policy implementation, progress of inclusive education programmes by sub-sectors, progress of pre-service and in-service teacher training, and challenges of inclusion at school levels. Moreover, it deliberates the perspectives and implications of effective inclusion with a focus on policy support, teacher education reform, availability of data, and monitoring and evaluation paradigm to achieving Agenda 2030 in Cambodia.

This chapter provides personal (auto-ethnographic) reflections on the career as a business leader in the software-development space and insights into the formation of an authentic leader. The author reviews his journey that led to running a leading video game developer at a valuation of $190 million with 1,200+ staff across 10 locations in eight countries and an array of global clients. Pohontu considers the social, economic, political and psychological elements that shaped his business methodology and discusses how he translated these into a mode of leadership. The development of foresight – a concept that emerged from the author's story – may be of interest to researchers looking to explore diverse leader contexts through theoretical lenses to achieve a greater understanding.

Purpose: The business world has become more turbulent than ever. Organisations must be proactive to meet the challenges of the increasingly disruptive, dynamic, and unpredictable world. One technique that has supported leaders and organisations under challenging circumstances is ‘backcasting’, which works by envisioning a desirable future state and then working backwards to attain it. The current study aims to extend an understanding of the backcasting practices and strategic approaches that can be used by leadership teams in different industries in order to survive in turbulent times and can be adapted within and beyond any pandemic.

Methodology: The research employs a desktop research method to review and compare the most commonly used strategies that leaders from different sectors can use for their respective organisations to thrive in the VUCA world.

Findings: There needs to be more research on the applicability and relevance of backcasting that the leaders of different sectors can employ. The study would provide insights that would bridge the existing research gap and come up with suitable strategies that can be employed for dealing with VUCA challenges in the Indian context.

Significance: The outcome of the study will be helpful to the leaders in designing and aligning ‘out of the box’ backcasting strategies to survive in the highly disruptive world.