Category: Technology and Humanity

Join us May 13th, 2021, 5pm CET for the first-ever edition of ForkTalks!

The Fork In The Road Project is growing quickly. We are now starting to create events that will further expand our audience, and as one of the initiators of this project, I am happy to announce our first ForkTalk!

Here is my ELF Policy Paper on the Future of Europe: Capitalism, Technology and Sustainability

In this talk, I comment on the Covid-19 "Infodemic" and what it means for the future of (social) media and technology regulation, and describe what challenges to our economic and social models may emerge. I outline my key ‘definitive future’ foresights such as the End of Oil and Global Decarbonization, the dawning 'human renaissance' and the imminent action on global warming. I also present my ‘preferred futures’ such as a sustainable capitalism (people planet purpose and prosperity), the rise of digital ethics and a new multilateralism.

Must-read on moonshot thinking in Medical / Life-Sciences (via The Economist)

“An RNA vaccine against any disease is a message written in genetic code: a vaccine against malaria, or some form of cancer, can be made in the same way and with the same equipment as a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. If this provides a platform for getting cells to do all sorts of specific things and to […]

Here is different kind of Gerd-Video: a close-up and personal conversation about #TheGoodFuture

Zoom is great but hugs are greater

Let's not forget that!

Our ultimate job is to be human: Futurist Gerd Leonhard on the Future of Work & Jobs (audio)

...Yet this is only the beginning, and the End of Routine does NOT mean the end of human work.

From Efficiency to Resilience, Agility and Creativity #beyondcovid (gif)

Here is one thing I started noticing – efficiency is no longer enough. It's RESILIENCE, agility and creativity and courage that counts more, now. In a way… efficiency is for machines.

Announcing The Fork In The Road Project – Please Join Us!

Today, I am delighted to invite all interested readers, friends, clients and fellow futurists to consider and join an important new initiative. Together with 2 other esteemed longtime friends, futurists and co-initiators, Glen Hiemstra and David Houle, I recently started an exciting new project named after Buckminster Fuller's meme “The Fork in the Road“. The idea of […]

What kind of Future do we want to leave our children? Rapid decarbonisation is our duty.

This chart says it all. No wonder millennials are having such a difficult time during the Covid-Crisis. Found in Azeem Azhar's cool newsletter. More on Millennials via GerdFeed

Language Teaching and Education after Covid-19: Audio Podcast of my Keynote at KOTESOL 2021

How to develop a Future Mindset? Why the end of routine does not mean the end of work...

You won’t find happiness on a screen, via an app, or in the cloud

"Happiness cannot be acquired or purchased, and therefore would be impossible to stuff into an app, a bot, or some other machine"

What to expect for 2021: My new video series (first batch)

Humans tend to wait until something really bad has happened before we react and make real changes: Witness nuclear weapons and Covid-19. But now we've learned something: being prepared, developing foresight and thinking exponentially will be essential to our future success (or plight).

The Future of Food and Agriculture: How technology and AI will help create a sustainable future

‘In the next 10 years, key technologies will converge to completely disrupt the five foundational sectors—information, energy, food, transportation, and materials—that underpin our global economy, and with them every major industry in the world today. Costs will fall by 10 times or more, while production processes become an order of magnitude (10x) more efficient, using […]

The Future of Capitalism? A few new videos by Futurist Gerd Leonhard

Some related links and must reads via GerdFeed

These 2 graphs say it all: The 3 trends of capital, and human mass vs bio-mass

Produced capital REALLY up. Human Capital: a tiny bit up. Natural Capital: TANKING. More. The Guardian New measures of success needed to avoid catastrophic breakdown, landmark review finds Dasgupta Review 2021

Announcing My New 2021 Speaking Topics: Beyond Corona, The Good Future, Awesome Humans

Without a doubt, 2020 will go down as one of the most disruptive, transformational and challenging years of recent history. Between the global pandemic shock, the corona-coasters, the chaos caused to the world's economies, the inspiring acts of solidarity, the rapid acceleration of pre-covid nascent technological trends, and the development of vaccines in a record […]

Must-read: ARK Investments Big Ideas Report 2021, my highlights and comments on AI, DL,VR, Battery Tech etc

ARK seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the convergence, market potential, and long-term impact of disruptive innovation by researching a global universe that spans sectors, industries, and markets. Today, we are witnessing an acceleration in new technological breakthroughs

Brand-new 2021 speaking topic: Sustainable is the new Profitable. Green is the new Digital.

SUSTAINABLE IS THE NEW PROFITABLE. GREEN IS THE NEW DIGITAL. Why and how the decarbonisation of our economy is the biggest opportunity in this coming decade ‘Digital transformation’ is just business-as usual-by now. The next really big topic has been on the agenda for decades but apparently had to first be kick-started by the Corona Crisis: The Decarbonisation of […]

Technology is exponential – but humans are LINEAR: Keck’s Law, Moore’s Law…Gerd’s law?

You all know Moore's law, and possibly Keck's law, see below. Read more via The Economist. Both curves are EXPONENTIAL (as is Metcalf's law of Networks, I suppose). I have talked about this for the past few years – our challenge is that humans are NOT. We are linear and organic, not binary but multinary […]

Must-Read Book by Rutger Bregman: Humankind – A Hopeful History (some shared highlights)

I am currently a really important book called HumanKind by Rutger Bregman that addresses an essential question I have debated with many people for a long time: Are human beings kind, good, benevolent and collaborative by nature, or not?