To learn more about how technology has stolen our attention; and what we can do to get it back, I spoke to James Williams (Writer & researcher on the philosophy and ethics of technology, author of ‘Stand out of Our Light’), Jamie Bartlett (Author and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media) and Professor Adam Alter (Author & Associate Professor of Marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business)
By any measure, the United Kingdom is a rich country. We are a nation with over £10 trillion in assets (£6 trillion of which is privately held), and depending on your measure – we are the 5th or 9th largest economy in the world. From the outside, we are a success story; with booming sectors ranging from technology to finance, a seat at the table of global diplomacy, and cultural power internationally. It is perhaps because of this success that we should be surprised, ashamed and appalled by the fact that 21% of our population, some 14.2 million people, are living in poverty. I caught up with the author, artist & social commentator, Darren McGarvey aka LOKI to learn more about the realities of poverty in the UK.
My Interview with Frank Abagnale, Renowned Cybersecurity and Fraud Prevention Expert, Bestselling Author & Subject of Catch Me If You Can.
The Royal Society is a Fellowship of many of the world’s most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence. Sitting at the helm of the Royal Society is Dr. Venki Ramakrishnan, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist who is responsible for giving us some of the most fundamental insights into the biology of life itself. I caught up with Dr. Ramakrishnan to learn more about the role of science in society.
We are in a complex world- made difficult to model because of the nonlinear, emergent, spontaneous and adaptive interactions of trillions of elements. Whilst our biological and environmental complexity has had millions of years to evolve into a form of stable-chaos, our cultural, economic and political complexities are growing in scale and momentum meaning that for many of us- this world feels riskier than ever before. To learn more about the risks facing our world, I spoke to Ian Bremmer, President and Co-Founder of Eurasia Group (one of the world’s leading political risk research and consulting firms), Global Research Professor at NYU, and Co-Founder of GZero Media.
If you are lucky enough to live to 79 (the global average lifespan) you will have spent around 25 of those years (roughly one third of your entire life) asleep. Scientific advances over the past quarter of a century have created a renaissance in sleep research, giving us greater insights into the role and importance of sleep in our lives. To learn more, I spoke to Dr. Matthew Walker, Professor of Neuroscience and Founder & Director of The Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley.
Our inability to disconnect extreme events from the norm also affects our perceptions of business. The picture we see of the business environment shows us the tails not the curve, we here about the super exciting startups, and the gigantic behemoths but we don’t see much about the middle; the small and medium sized businesses who account for the majority. We don’t see that of the 6 million companies in the US, 90% have less than 20 employees. I caught up with Rand Fishkin, Founder of SparkToro and Co-Founder of MOZ & Inbound.com to understand more about the realities of starting-up, and what we can learn from the businesses in the middle.
Dr. Rowan Hooper is Managing Editor of New Scientist, and in his recent book Superhuman, he scoured the world, aiming to answer a few key questions: Why can some people achieve greatness when others can’t, no matter how hard they try? What are the secrets of long life and happiness? Just how much potential does our species have? Rowan met ultrarunners, those who have rebounded from near-death, those who have exhibited exceptional bravery, found incredible happiness, and who have minds, voices and abilities that seemingly the rest of us could never match. I caught up with Rowan to understand what he learned from meeting our world’s superhumans.
Technology push also brings with it a range of unintended or unexpected consequences, particularly at a time (as we are now) where technology can grow from the germination of an idea to sweeping ubiquity at a frightening pace. As a society, we seemingly cannot adapt ourselves, our culture, economy and political landscape fast enough to cope with the momentum of technological advance, but things needn’t be this way. Mitchell Baker co-founded the Mozilla Project to support the open, innovative web and ensure it continues offering opportunities for everyone. As Chairwoman of Mozilla, Mitchell is responsible for organizing and motivating a massive, worldwide, collective of employees and volunteers around the world who are building the internet as a global public resource, open and accessible to all. I caught up with Mitchell to ask whether we need a more human internet.
The greatest humanitarian crisis in history, is also the greatest crisis of our humanity. To learn more about our global refugee and migration crisis, we speak to Gulwali Passarlay (Afghan refugee, author & Co-Founder of My Bright Kite), Professor François Crépeau (Former United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants), Pierre Krähenbühl (Commissioner General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine – UNRWA), Alexander Betts (Professor of Forced Migration and International Affairs, University of Oxford), Catherine Woollard (Secretary General, European Council on Refugees and Exiles, ECRE), Professor Michael Lynk (United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967), Dr. Hanan Ashrawi (PLO Executive Committee Member, Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council & Founder of MIFTAH), Professor Noura Erakat (Human Rights Attorney & Activist) and Professor George Rupp (Former President of the International Rescue Committee, IRC).