Boundless: Recent Episodes
Richard Foster-Fletcher
Designing our Digital Future. With Richard Foster-Fletcher. "How we can make AI and other power technologies work for us, not against us"
Host: Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Guest: Carl Gombrich, Dean, London Interdisciplinary School
Guest Bio:
Carl Gombrich is a trailblazer in higher education and a passionate advocate for interdisciplinary learning. As Dean of the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS), Carl is at the forefront of reimagining university education to better equip students for the complexities of the modern world.
Prior to joining LIS, Carl was Director of the Arts and Sciences BASc programme at UCL, pioneering innovative approaches to liberal arts education. With a background in mathematics, philosophy, and even opera singing, Carl brings a unique and dynamic perspective to education reform.
Explore more about Carl’s work on his blog and connect with him on LinkedIn.
Episode Title: "The Renaissance of Interdisciplinary Education: A Conversation with Carl Gombrich"
Episode Overview:
In this episode, we’re joined by Carl Gombrich to discuss how interdisciplinary education is redefining the future of higher learning. Carl shares insights from his leadership at the London Interdisciplinary School (LIS), the UK's first university in 50 years to gain degree-awarding powers from its inception. We explore the importance of breadth in education, the challenges of hyper-specialisation, and why rigour and creativity are essential across all disciplines.
Carl’s vision for education is transformative, making LIS a standout institution that values real-world problem-solving, connection-making, and equipping students with the skills to thrive in a fast-changing knowledge economy. Learn more about the pioneering work happening at LIS by visiting their website.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. Why interdisciplinary education is essential for preparing students to tackle complex, real-world challenges.
2. The role of generalists in fostering innovation and leadership.
3. The cultural and practical shifts needed to adapt education for the knowledge economy.
4. The importance of rigour and creativity in building a robust educational framework.
5. How LIS is setting new standards in higher education with its radical and problem-based learning model.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. Interdisciplinary education is a powerful tool for bridging gaps between disciplines and fostering innovation.
2. Students equipped with a mix of quantitative and qualitative skills are uniquely prepared to lead in diverse fields.
3. Universities must evolve to remain relevant in an interconnected and AI-driven world.
The London Interdisciplinary School (LIS) is revolutionising higher education in the UK with its focus on real-world problem-solving and interdisciplinary learning. By combining academic rigour with creativity and practical application, LIS equips its graduates with the skills and mindset to succeed in a fast-changing world. Whether you’re a prospective student, parent, or employer, LIS represents the future of education. Learn more at lis.ac.uk.
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Host: Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Guest: Professor Jonathan Michie, OBE, President of Kellogg College, University of Oxford
Guest Bio:
Jonathan Michie, OBE, is an esteemed academic and advocate for lifelong learning. As President of Kellogg College at the University of Oxford, he has championed adult education and its transformative role in addressing global challenges. His thought leadership spans education policy, AI integration, and democratic empowerment through learning.Episode
Title:
AI and Democratic Futures with Professor Jonathan Michie"Episode Overview:
In this episode, Richard Foster-Fletcher and Professor Jonathan Michie discuss how AI and lifelong learning intersect to tackle pressing global challenges. Drawing on historical and contemporary insights, they explore the evolving landscape of education, from the radical recommendations of the 1919 Adult Education Report to today’s AI-driven tools. They also delve into the critical role of education in fostering democracy, addressing inequality, and preparing societies for technological advances.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. The transformative potential of lifelong learning for societal and economic renewal.
2. Lessons from the 1919 Adult Education Report and its relevance today.
3. How AI tools can support personalised, accessible, and democratic education.
4. The integration of universities, colleges, and businesses to foster innovation.
5. The balance between AI hype and its realistic applications in education.
Key Takeaway Ideas:
1. Lifelong learning must prioritise adaptability, critical thinking, and the ability to learn continuously in an AI-driven world.
2. AI’s potential lies in democratising education but requires robust regulation to avoid misuse and inequities.
3. Collaborative education models that engage learners, educators, and employers can create resilient societies capable of addressing global crises.
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AI, Humanity’s Evolution, and Our Place in the Cosmos
Guest: Professor J. Craig Wheeler, Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin
Summary: In this episode of the Boundless Podcast, Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair of MKAI, welcomes Professor J. Craig Wheeler, a distinguished astrophysicist and author of the forthcoming book The Path to Singularity: How Technology Will Challenge the Future of Humanity. Together, they explore humanity’s place in a rapidly evolving technological landscape, discussing topics like AI, climate change, space colonization, and the implications of technological advancements on society. Professor Wheeler provides his insightful perspective on humanity’s future, contemplating how technology could shape or even redefine our species in the years to come.
Key Talking Points:
* The Journey to Now – Professor Wheeler discusses his background in astrophysics, what inspired his exploration of humanity's evolution and technology, and how his astronomical perspective shapes his views on our future.
* Technological Impact – A discussion on AI, genetic engineering, and how these technologies will fundamentally change human life, including the concept of the technological singularity.
* Opportunities for Equity – Climate change, overpopulation, and AI as global challenges that demand equitable solutions. Could AI offer an alternative form of intelligence to guide ethical decision-making?
* Ethical Considerations – The potential risks of unchecked technological advancements, with a focus on AI and genetic modification, and the ethical responsibilities of scientists.
* The Way Forward – Speculation on humanity's future as a multi-planetary species, the need for biological change, and the role of AI in either aiding or threatening our existence.
* Closing Thoughts – Reflections on responsible innovation, merging technology with humanity, and the importance of broad awareness around technological risks.
Key Quotes:* "If climate change significantly reduces our population, who caused the problem becomes academic. It will affect us all." * "We may need to think about death in a very different way if we develop the technology to live forever." * "AI has immense potential for good, but the key is awareness and ensuring that we don’t let it run unchecked."
Guest Bio: Professor J. Craig Wheeler is an American astronomer. He is the Samuel T. and Fern Yanagisawa Regents Professor of Astronomy Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin. He is known for his theoretical work on supernovae. He is a past president of the American Astronomical Society, a Fellow of that society, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Episode Links & Resources:* The Path to Singularity: How Technology Will Challenge the Future of Humanity (Publisher Link) * Professor Wheeler's Personal Website * University of Texas Profile
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Host:
* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Guest:
* Dan Ariely, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Economics, Duke University
Guest Bios:
* Dan Ariely is a globally recognised expert in behavioural economics and the author of several bestsellers, including Predictably Irrational. His research explores the often irrational patterns in human decision-making and their implications for various fields, including education, finance, and health.
Episode Overview: In "AI in Further Education: Ethical Implications and Behavioral Insights," we delve into the transformative role of AI in further education. Richard Foster-Fletcher is joined by Dan Ariely to explore how AI technologies like personalised learning algorithms and automated grading systems are reshaping the educational landscape. The discussion covers the ethical challenges these innovations present, the impact on student cognitive development, and how insights from behavioural economics can guide the responsible use of AI in education.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. The influence of AI on belief formation and information processing in education.
2. The role of trust in AI systems and its effect on educational outcomes.
3. Cognitive development: How AI is shaping critical thinking and problem-solving skills in students.
4. Ethical considerations in the deployment of AI in educational settings.
5. Balancing AI-driven innovation with equity and privacy in education.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. AI has the potential to significantly enhance personalised learning, but it must be implemented with careful consideration of its ethical implications.
2. Building and maintaining trust in AI systems is crucial for their success in educational environments.
3. Educators must ensure that AI tools support, rather than replace, critical cognitive skills like independent thinking and problem-solving.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
Hosts:* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org * Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
Guest:* Jason Lancaster, Principal and CEO Elect, Northampton College
Guest Bio:
Jason Lancaster is a specialist in education, training, and skills development with a distinguished career in the further education sector. Currently the Principal and CEO Elect of Northampton College, Jason has held senior leadership roles including Director of the Institute of Technology and Employer Partnerships, Deputy Principal for Curriculum & Quality, and Vice Principal for Performance Improvement. His work focuses on improving educational provision, developing new curriculum areas, and fostering strong partnerships with employers.
Jason’s background in electronic engineering, with degrees in BEng (Hons) and MEng, and a Post Graduate Certificate in Education (Further and Higher Education), underpins his technical expertise and pedagogical knowledge. He is a member of the Institute of Engineering and Technology and the Society for Education and Training. His leadership has led to the successful introduction of new programs and significant improvements in educational quality, making him a key figure in shaping the future of further education.
Episode 19: "Bridging the Skills Gap: Innovations in Further Education” with Jason Lancaster
Episode Overview:
In "Bridging the Skills Gap: Innovations in Further Education," we explore the transformative impact of AI on further education. This episode brings together insights from Jason Lancaster, delving into how AI technologies like personalised learning systems and data-driven feedback mechanisms are reshaping educational practices. We discuss the strategic use of AI in identifying skills gaps, tailoring curriculum development, and enhancing both teaching and learning experiences.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. The Role of AI in Personalised Learning:
* How AI can be leveraged to personalise learning experiences.
* The potential of AI in identifying skills gaps and tailoring curriculum development to meet individual learner needs.
2. Innovations in Curriculum Development for Further Education:
* Jason's experience with introducing new curriculum areas and meeting the needs of both learners and employers.
* The challenge of embedding wider skills and behaviours, with AI providing opportunities for consistency.
3. Strategies for Quality Improvement in Further Education Institutions:
* Key strategies and best practices implemented by Jason to drive improvements in educational provision.
* Insights into the difference between improving poor to decent and decent to excellent educational standards.
4. Bridging the Skills Gap through Employer Partnerships:
* The importance of collaboration between colleges and employers in creating responsive and relevant educational programs.
* Challenges and opportunities in aligning educational provision with employer needs, particularly in the context of AI and automation.
5. Leadership and Management in the Education Sector:
* Jason's approach to leadership and management in the education sector.
* The importance of mentoring and supporting future leaders in further education.
6. The Future of Vocational Education:
* Trends and predictions for the future of vocational education and training.
* The role of technology in enhancing vocational education and preparing students for the future.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:1. Data as a Strategic Asset: * Treating data with the same seriousness as financial and human resources to enhance decision-making and operational efficiencies. 2. Ethical Tech Integration: * The need for careful consideration of ethical implications and policy development when incorporating technology in educational settings. 3. Empowering through Innovation: * How technological advancements can empower educators and learners, leading to improved educational outcomes and reduced administrative burdens.
Explore the Episode:
Witness a compelling discussion on the transformative power of data and technology in education with Jason Lancaster, and learn how these tools are not just reshaping educational strategies but also setting the stage for a more efficient and effective future. Tune into this enlightening conversation to see how data-centric approaches are pivotal in driving the next wave of educational innovation.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
Hosts:
* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
* Jaisal Surana, Head of Advocacy, MKAI.org
Guest:
* Sir Anthony Seldon, Head Master, Epsom College
Guest Bios:
Sir Anthony Seldon: Sir Anthony Francis Seldon is a prominent British educator, contemporary historian, and author known for his significant contributions to education and political history. Sir Anthony is currently the Head Master of Epsom College. He previously served as the 13th Master of Wellington College and was Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham from 2015 to 2020.
A prolific author, Sir Anthony has written or edited more than 45 books, including political biographies of every British Prime Minister from John Major to Boris Johnson. His works are noted for their insightful analysis and detailed research, contributing significantly to contemporary historical literature.
In education, Sir Anthony is widely recognised for his innovative approaches. He introduced happiness and well-being classes at Wellington College, advocating for a holistic approach to education that encompasses emotional and social development alongside academic achievement. His leadership in promoting the International Baccalaureate and personalised learning has been influential in modernising educational practices in the UK and beyond.
Beyond his educational roles, Sir Anthony co-founded the Centre for Contemporary British History and the charity Action for Happiness. He is also a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company and serves on the boards of several other charities and educational bodies. Knighted in 2014 for services to education and modern political history, Sir Anthony continues to be a leading voice in educational reform and historical scholarship. His recent focus includes integrating AI into education to enhance personalised learning and resilience in students.
Episode Overview:
In this special live episode of "The Transformative Impact of AI in Education," we explore the revolutionary potential of artificial intelligence in the realm of further education. This episode brings together insights from Sir Anthony Seldon and Richard Foster-Fletcher, along with guests from the MKAI.org community. The discussion delves into how AI technologies like machine learning, personalised learning algorithms, and adaptive educational software are reshaping educational practices. We discuss the historical context of educational revolutions, the unique qualities of human intelligence, and the ethical considerations surrounding AI in education.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. The transformative potential of AI compared to historical technological advancements.
2. The importance of learning from history in shaping AI's role in education.
3. Balancing human intelligence and AI in modern educational systems.
4. The challenges and opportunities AI presents for teachers and students.
5. The ethical implications and practical implementation of AI in education.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. AI has the potential to revolutionise education in ways comparable to the printing press and internal combustion engine.
2. A balanced approach that integrates AI while emphasising human qualities is essential for modernising education.
3. Teachers play a crucial role in maintaining human elements in education, especially for younger students.
4. AI can provide significant benefits for personalised learning, particularly for students with special educational needs.
5. International cooperation and ethical considerations are vital in harnessing AI's potential for the betterment of education.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership, and the Future of Further Education
Hosts:* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org * Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
Guest:* Laurence Frewin, Principal and CEO, South Devon College
Guest Bios:
Laurence Frewin has been the Principal & CEO of South Devon College since September 2019. He is known for his strategic leadership and management expertise, both in the private sector and in education. Laurence's career at South Devon College began in 2010 as Vice Principal Corporate Services, later becoming Deputy CEO. He has led significant cross-college initiatives in sustainability, equality, and diversity, and managed professional and business support areas. His notable achievements include overseeing the development of major infrastructure projects like the £9m University Building, £7m South West Energy Centre, and the £17m Hi Tech & Digital Centre.
Episode 19: "Beyond the Horizon: The Laurence Frewin Vision for South Devon "
Episode Overview:
In "Beyond the Horizon: The Laurence Frewin Vision for South Devon ," we explore the transformative role of AI and digital technologies in further education. Laurence Frewin shares his strategic vision for integrating AI at South Devon College, his leadership philosophy, and the college's role as a community hub. This episode delves into specific AI projects, community engagement through technology, and strategic planning for the future educational landscape.
Key Topics of Discussion:1. Visionary Leadership in Education: Examining Laurence's approach to leadership and strategic vision for South Devon College amidst technological evolution. 2. The Crossroads of AI and Education: Discussing specific AI projects at South Devon College and collaborations with tech companies. 3. Community and Business Engagement Through Technology: Exploring how digital tools support learners, businesses, and the local community. 4. Strategic Thinking and Future Planning: Reflecting on Laurence's strategic planning for the future educational landscape, including preparation for 2035 and beyond. 5. Ethical and Creative Considerations in AI: Addressing ethical dilemmas and creative challenges posed by AI in education.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:1. Innovative Leadership: Highlighting the importance of visionary leadership in driving technological transformation in education. 2. Ethical AI Integration: Emphasizing the need for ethical considerations and policy development in AI adoption. 3. Empowering Communities: Showcasing how technology can foster community and business engagement, enhancing educational outcomes.
Explore the Episode: Join us for an insightful discussion on the transformative power of AI and technology in education with Laurence Frewin. Learn how South Devon College is setting the stage for a more connected and technologically advanced educational future.
Tune in to gain valuable insights into strategic planning, community engagement, and the ethical integration of AI in education.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership, and the Future of Further Education
Hosts:
Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.orgKurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
Guest:
Scott Mulholland, Chief Information, Data, and Estates Officer, NCG
Guest Bios:
Scott Mulholland has carved a niche in driving digital transformation across the education sector, particularly in further education. His journey began in student administration at Robert Gordon University, where he also earned his MSc in E-Business. Scott's career expanded through various senior roles, including a significant tenure as Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire, before moving to NCG. Here, he leads strategic initiatives across IT, estates, and data, enhancing educational delivery through innovative technology solutions.
Episode 18: Ep. 17. Harnessing Data for Educational Excellence with Scott Mulholland
Episode Overview:
In "Harnessing Data for Educational Excellence" we delve into the critical role of data management and technological innovation in shaping the future of further education. Join us as Scott Mulholland, a seasoned leader in information and estates management, shares his insights on leveraging data to transform educational practices and outcomes. This episode explores the integration of AI and data-driven strategies within the educational sector, highlighting the potential for significant enhancements in teaching, learning, and administrative efficiency.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. Strategic Data Utilization: Examining Scott's approach to transforming data handling to drive educational and operational advancements.
2. Innovative Educational Technologies: Discussion on the development and impact of tools like "Teach Assist" and "Learn Assist," and their role in enhancing the educational experience.
3. Overcoming Technological Challenges: Insights into the challenges faced during the implementation of new technologies and the lessons learned.
4. Future of Education Technologies: Reflections on upcoming trends and potential innovations that could further reshape educational environments.
5. Smart Campus Initiatives: Exploring the integration of IT, estates, and data towards creating a more interconnected and responsive educational infrastructure.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. Data as a Strategic Asset: Emphasizing the importance of treating data with the same seriousness as financial and human resources to enhance decision-making and operational efficiencies.
2. Ethical Tech Integration: Highlighting the need for careful consideration of ethical implications and policy development when incorporating technology in educational settings.
3. Empowering through Innovation: Showcasing how technological advancements can empower educators and learners, leading to improved educational outcomes and reduced administrative burdens.
Explore the Episode:
Witness a compelling discussion on the transformative power of data and technology in education with Scott Mulholland, and learn how these tools are not just reshaping educational strategies but also setting the stage for a more efficient and effective future. Tune into this enlightening conversation to see how data-centric approaches are pivotal in driving the next wave of educational innovation.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further EducationHosts:* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org * Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
Guests:* Lisa Capper MBE, CEO & Principal, Stoke on Trent Further Education College
Guest Bio: Lisa Capper MBE, CEO & Principal of Stoke on Trent College, is renowned for her passionate advocacy for education as a transformative force. With a career spanning significant roles from the Department of Education and Skills to executive positions in major educational institutions, Lisa has led substantial government projects and change programmes aimed at enhancing educational outcomes. Notably, she has also served as the first female Chair of the National Deaf Children’s Society, demonstrating a long-standing commitment to leadership and stakeholder management in the education sector.
Episode Number: 16
Episode Title: "AI and the Future of Further Education: Insights from Lisa Capper"Episode Overview: In "AI and the Future of Further Education: Insights from Lisa Capper," we delve into the transformative impact of AI technologies on the educational landscape. This episode brings Lisa Capper's unique perspective to the forefront, exploring how Stoke on Trent College integrates AI to enhance student learning and operational efficiency. The discussion extends to the broader implications of AI in further education, emphasizing the need for strategic implementation and ethical considerations.
Key Topics of Discussion:1. AI's Role in Enhancing Learning Outcomes: Exploration of how AI tools like 'Interview Coach' are revolutionizing student engagement and skill development. 2. Digital Strategy and Infrastructure: Discussion on Stoke on Trent College’s 'Skills Ready Future Ready' strategic initiative and its focus on aligning educational offerings with employer needs. 3. Challenges and Opportunities in AI Adoption: Insights into the practical challenges of integrating AI into educational settings and how to overcome them. 4. Ethical Considerations and Digital Literacy: Examination of the importance of ethical AI use in education and the imperative to boost digital literacy among students and staff. 5. Partnerships and Community Impact: How collaborations with local industries and educational institutions enhance the learning ecosystem and community revitalization.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:1. AI as a Catalyst for Educational Transformation: Lisa highlights AI's potential to dramatically improve teaching methodologies and student interactions. 2. Building a Future-Ready Workforce: Emphasis on the necessity of equipping students with both technical skills and critical soft skills to meet the demands of the modern workplace. 3. The Importance of Inclusive Access: Discussion on the need to ensure all students have equal access to AI tools and digital resources to prevent a widening digital divide.
This episode provides a comprehensive look at the intersection of AI technology and further education, showcasing Lisa Capper’s innovative approaches to leveraging AI for enhancing educational outcomes and operational efficiency.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Host:
Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Guest:
Professor Alex Edmans, Professor of Finance at London Business School and Mercers' School Memorial Emeritus Professor of Business at Gresham College
Guest Bio:
Professor Alex Edmans is renowned for his work on finance and misinformation. With a significant following from his TED talk "What to Trust in a Post-Truth World" and presentations at forums like Davos and Google, he brings critical insights into the impacts of misinformation in various sectors. His book "Grow the Pie" and his recent works delve into the complexities of misinformation in finance, politics, and health.
Episode Overview:
In this compelling episode, Professor Alex Edmans joins Richard Foster-Fletcher to unravel the intricate web of misinformation and bias that influences public opinion and decision-making in today’s society. Their discussion pivots on the subtle yet profound ways misinformation permeates various aspects of daily life and decision-making, from social media interactions to academic research.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. The nature and impact of cognitive shortcuts and how they contribute to the spread of misinformation.
2. Challenges in distinguishing credible information from misleading data in the digital age.
3. The role of biases in shaping public perceptions and opinions, particularly in the realms of social media and academic publishing.
4. Strategies to foster critical thinking and discernment in evaluating information.
5. The ethical responsibilities of researchers, corporations, and media in reporting and disseminating information.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. The importance of understanding the underlying biases and structures that facilitate misinformation.
2. Effective strategies for individuals and communities to cultivate a more discerning and questioning approach to information consumption.
3. The critical role of education in empowering individuals to navigate the complexities of misinformation and bias in a post-truth era.
This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of misinformation and seeking ways to foster a more informed and discerning society.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
Hosts:
Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
Guest:
Andrew Green, CEO, Chichester College Group
Guest Bio:
Andrew Green, the CEO of Chichester College Group, has been a transformative figure in further education since beginning his career as a student teacher in 1996. With a focus on innovation and adaptation, Andrew has guided the group to cater to approximately 25,000 students, ensuring that educational practices evolve to meet the changing demands of the workforce and technological advancements. Under his leadership since 2021, Chichester College Group has prioritised excellence and strategic innovation.
Episode 15: "Strategic Innovation: Harnessing AI for Future-Ready Education with Andy Green"
Episode Overview:
In "Integrating AI into the Fabric of Further Education with Andrew Green," we delve into the strategic deployment of AI technologies within the Chichester College Group. This episode provides an in-depth look at how AI is not only reshaping educational methodologies but also enhancing the administrative and operational efficiencies of institutions. Join us as Andrew shares his insights and strategies for embedding AI into the core of educational practices, ensuring that both students and staff are prepared for a future where technology plays a pivotal role.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. The Role of AI in Modernising Educational Environments: Exploring the transformative impact of AI applications in further education.
2. Strategic Implementation of AI in College Administration: How AI streamlines operations and improves efficiency.
3. Preparing Students for an AI-Integrated Job Market: Strategies to enhance student readiness for the evolving workforce.
4. Ethical Considerations in AI Deployment: Balancing innovation with responsibility in the use of AI in education.
5. Future Trends in AI and Education: Predictions and expectations for the next wave of AI advancements in the sector.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. AI as a Catalyst for Educational Excellence: Highlighting the benefits of AI in enhancing learning outcomes and operational efficiency.
2. The Importance of Strategic Vision in AI Adoption: How foresight and planning are crucial for successful AI integration.
3. Collaboration and Continuous Learning: Emphasizing the need for ongoing education and partnership within the AI landscape to foster innovation and ethical practices.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Host: Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Guest: Lord Tim Clement-Jones, Former Chair of the House of Lords Select Committee on AI
Episode: "Shaping Policy: Lord Tim Clement-Jones on AI Governance"
Episode Overview: In "Shaping Policy: Lord Tim Clement-Jones on AI Governance," we delve into the critical role of ethical principles in AI regulation. This special episode, with Lord Tim Clement-Jones, explores the intersection of AI technology and regulatory frameworks at both national and international levels. We discuss the importance of transparency, accountability, and public trust in fostering robust AI governance.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. Ethical Foundations: Emphasizing the need for ethical guidelines to shape AI regulation.
2. Global Perspectives: Comparing legislative advancements in AI governance across the US and EU.
3. Addressing AI Risks: Tackling job displacement, biases, and the challenges of deepfakes.
4. Public Engagement: The role of public trust and inclusivity in regulatory processes.
5. International Standards: Advocating for stringent global regulations to support responsible AI innovation.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. The necessity of integrating both national and international perspectives in AI regulation.
2. The importance of maintaining rigorous ethical standards to govern AI's broad applications.
3. The potential for international cooperation to establish comprehensive and effective AI governance standards.
A special thanks to Jaisal Surana for her moderation during this interview.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further EducationHosts:
* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
* Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
Guests:
* Shelagh Legrave CBE DL, Further Education Commissioner, UK Government
Episode 14: Shaping the Future: Shelagh Legrave on Innovating Further Education in the AI Era
Episode Overview: In "Shaping the Future: Shelagh Legrave on Innovating Further Education in the AI Era," we explore the transformative impact of AI on further education. Joined by Shelagh Legrave, the Further Education Commissioner, we delve into how AI technologies are reshaping educational practices across the UK. This episode covers the practical applications of AI in education, the challenges of AI adoption, and its role in administrative efficiency.
Guest Bio: Shelagh Legrave CBE DL: An experienced Chief Executive and board member with a background in further and higher education, as well as financial services. Currently serving as the Further Education Commissioner under the Department for Education, Shelagh is a qualified accountant passionate about using her expertise to support community initiatives, including a decade-long chairmanship of a homeless charity. She is also actively involved in the arts, education, and grant-giving charities, with a strong focus on sport and well-being.
Key Topics of Discussion:
1. AI’s Practical Applications in Education: Exploring innovative tools like virtual welding and AI’s impact on teaching practical skills.
2. Overcoming Barriers to AI Adoption: Discussing the investment needs and common fears surrounding AI in education.
3. AI’s Role in Administrative Efficiency: How AI can streamline tasks to save time for educational leaders.
4. Leadership and Vision in AI Adoption: Shelagh’s approach to integrating AI within the educational sector, focusing on ethical considerations.
5. Ethical Implications of AI and Student Well-being: Ensuring AI supports rather than replaces human judgment in education.
Key 'Takeaway' Ideas:
1. The importance of balancing AI integration with human oversight to enhance educational outcomes.
2. The need for strategic leadership in navigating the challenges and opportunities presented by AI in education.
3. How AI can be a tool for equality, providing essential support and levelling the educational playing field.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.
Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:
* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
* Kurt Hintz, Managing Director, Fortis Education Consulting
* Michael Webb, Director of Technology and Analytics at Jisc
* Paul McKean, Director of Further Education and Skills and Training at Jisc
Episode 13: Navigating the New Frontiers: AI's Role in Further Education with Jisc
Episode Overview:
In "Navigating the New Frontiers: AI's Role in Further Education with Jisc," we venture into the transformative realm of AI in education. This episode, featuring insights from Jisc's Paul McKean and Michael Webb, delves into the delicate equilibrium between AI and human intervention, the democratisation of learning through personalised AI tools, and the challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI technologies like ChatGPT. We explore how AI is reshaping educational landscapes, enhancing communication and social skills, and redefining academic integrity. Join us for a thought-provoking discussion on AI's burgeoning impact in further education.
Key Topics of Discussion:
In the latest episode of "Navigating the New Frontiers: AI's Role in Further Education with Jisc," we delve into pivotal discussions surrounding AI's integration into education. Our conversation pivots around several key areas:
1. The Balancing Act: We examine the crucial balance between AI's capabilities and the invaluable human touch in education. The dialogue opens up on the complexities surrounding formative assessments aided by AI and the ensuing debates on grade inflation, underscoring the necessity for a thoughtful approach to integrating AI in assessments.
2. Accessibility Challenges: Addressing access disparities, the discussion highlights the importance of ensuring equitable access to AI tools, connectivity, and devices. The freemium models of generative AI tools potentially widen the digital divide, raising concerns about equal opportunities for all learners.
3. Cognitive Offloading and Assessment Evolution: The conversation explores the shift towards cognitive offloading to AI tools like calculators and how it necessitates a re-evaluation of assessment criteria. This segment contemplates the expectation for students to delve deeper into their subjects, thanks to AI's support.
4. Empowering Educators and Learners: Finally, we spotlight the transformative potential of AI in democratising education. With examples like the use of visual AI to enhance language skills, the episode illustrates AI's role in catalysing learning and levelling the educational playing field for all, including those with learning difficulties.
The AI resources from Jisc are available here.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:
* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
* Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
* Conrad Taylor, Business Learning & Technologies Manager, The City of Wolverhampton College
* Dr. Adam Dwight, Lecturer in Teacher Education and Learning Innovator, The City of Wolverhampton College
Episode 12: Embracing Digital Transformation: Insights from The City of Wolverhampton College
Episode Overview:
In this episode, Richard Foster-Fletcher and Kurt Hintz engage in a comprehensive dialogue with Conrad Taylor and Dr. Adam Dwight from City of Wolverhampton College. The discussion illuminates the college's strategic approach to digital transformation, highlighting the innovative integration of AI and technology in teaching and learning processes. The conversation delves into the pivotal roles that Conrad and Adam play in spearheading digital initiatives, shedding light on the transformative impact of technology on student engagement and educational outcomes.
Key Topics of Discussion:
* The pathway to digital transformation within the education sector, emphasising the initiatives spearheaded by the City of Wolverhampton College.
* The dynamic role of technology in reshaping educational experiences, with a focus on personalised learning and digital skill development.
* Insights into the leadership strategies that drive successful technology integration in further education settings.
Recommendations from the Episode:* Adopting a Forward-Looking Approach: Emphasising the importance of visionary leadership in navigating the complexities of digital transformation in education. * Fostering Collaborative Innovation: Highlighting the significance of collaboration among educators, technologists, and students to maximise the potential of digital tools in enhancing learning. * Empowering Through Digital Literacy: Stressing the necessity of equipping both students and educators with digital competencies to thrive in a technologically advanced educational landscape.
This episode serves as an inspiring exploration of the challenges and opportunities presented by digital transformation in further education, offering valuable insights for educators, leaders, and policymakers committed to leveraging AI and technology for educational excellence.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:
* Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
* Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
* Ian Pryce CBE, Former CEO of Bedford College Group
Episode 11: "AI Innovations and Leadership: The Bedford College Group's Journey"Episode Overview: In this episode, the conversation focuses on the transformative role of AI in further education. Ian Pryce shares his insights from his tenure at Bedford College Group, discussing how AI and digital technologies have been integrated into the curriculum. The discussion, led by Richard Foster-Fletcher and Kurt Hintz, explores the challenges and opportunities of implementing AI in further education.
AI Integration at Bedford College Group: Ian Pryce talks about Bedford College's journey in integrating AI into their system, highlighting the use of the Century computerised system to enhance online study. The conversation delves into the impact of this AI tool in supporting both staff and students, and how it has helped to advance personalised learning and improve teacher efficiency.
Embracing AI for Future-Proofing Education: The dialogue sheds light on how the Bedford College Group is preparing students for future challenges through AI. It discusses the role of AI in shaping new educational paradigms and the importance of equipping students with relevant digital skills.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations: Pryce, Foster-Fletcher, and Hintz discuss the ethical implications and practical challenges of integrating AI in education. They touch on the importance of balancing technology with traditional teaching methods and ensuring equitable access to digital resources.
The episode concludes with a focus on the importance of leadership in driving technological change in education. It highlights the need for continuous innovation and adaptability in the face of rapidly evolving AI technologies, ensuring that further education remains relevant and effective in preparing students for the future.
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**Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:*
Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
* Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
* Graham Bell, the Director of Digital Education at Cranfield School of Management
Episode Title:"Strategies for Executive Education in the Age of AI"
Date of Recording: 19th Jan 2024
Episode Introduction:
In this insightful episode, we delve into the evolving role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in higher education and leadership. Joined by Graham Bell from Cranfield School of Management, we explore how AI is shaping the educational landscape, its implications for leadership, and the unique challenges and opportunities it presents. This discussion is essential for educators, leaders, and anyone interested in the intersection of AI, technology, and education.
Guest Bio:
Graham Bell, the Director of Digital Education at Cranfield School of Management, brings extensive experience in integrating digital technologies in educational settings. With nearly 30 years at Cranfield, Graham has been at the forefront of employing emerging technologies to enhance learning and teaching experiences. His insights into the use of AI in education are particularly relevant in today's rapidly evolving technological landscape.
Topic 1: Cranfield University's Unique Approach
Discussion on Cranfield's postgraduate-only structure and its focus areas including management, aerospace technologies, and involvement in addressing grand challenges like climate change.
Topic 2: AI's Role in Education and Leadership
Exploration of how AI is impacting decision-making and learning processes in educational institutions, and the challenges leaders face in adapting to these rapid technological changes.
Topic 3: Future Predictions and Horizon Scanning
Debate on the difficulties of predicting future tech trends, particularly in AI, and the importance for organizational leaders to stay informed and prepared.
Topic 4: AI for Augmentation and Upskilling
Discussion on the potential of AI to augment jobs rather than replace them, focusing on how AI can enhance productivity and learning experiences.
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**Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:**Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
David W. Sime: CTO and Co-Director of Riiot Digital, Technical Director at Riiot Health
Episode Title:"AI and XR at the Forefront: Reshaping Education with David Sime"
Date of Recording: 12th Jan 2024
Guest Bio:
David Sime brings 23 years of expertise in digital communications technology, focusing on the intersection of Education with AI, VR, AR and IoT. Having planned and supported the digital transformation of numerous UK colleges, David challenges conventional educational models, advocating for the integration of cutting-edge AI technologies to revolutionise learning and teaching methodologies. Show Notes:
In an enlightening episode of our podcast, Richard Foster-Fletcher and co-host Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal of Capital City College Group, engage with David Sime in a thought-provoking discussion on the convergence of artificial intelligence (AI) and virtual reality (VR) in education. David, a seasoned expert in digital communications technology, sheds light on how these emerging technologies are reshaping the landscape of both further and higher education.
The episode begins with an exploration of personalized learning through AI. David shares insights into how AI can tailor educational experiences to individual needs, a concept that resonates with Kurt's extensive background in further education. The trio then navigates the concept of the future classroom, visualizing a blended approach that marries physical presence with digital accessibility, a theme particularly relevant to Kurt's expertise in vocational training and technical education.
David delves into the necessities for enhancing VR experiences in education, emphasizing the need for advancements in hardware and connectivity. Here, Kurt contributes his perspective on the practical applications and challenges of integrating such technologies in a further education setting.
A significant portion of the discussion revolves around market consolidation in education platforms and the potential disruptions caused by international players entering the market. David, Richard, and Kurt examine the implications of this trend on data privacy and security, especially when utilizing AI technologies in educational contexts.
In a particularly engaging segment, David discusses the potential of immersive technologies like VR and AR in revolutionizing learning environments. He underscores the need for collaborative efforts among technology providers, educators, and students to ensure successful implementation. Kurt's insights add depth to this conversation, highlighting the dynamics of teacher-student relationships and bridging the digital divide in the context of further education.
The episode also touches on lifelong learning and deep learning, areas where Kurt's experiences in leading significant technical developments and innovations in education provide valuable context.
Actionable insights from the conversation include:
* David Sime's emphasis on developing solutions to further education challenges using technology, advocating for small-scale implementation and evaluation.
* Kurt Hintz's focus on the future of classrooms, encouraging FE leaders to embrace technology solutions, and his insights on navigating the complexities of technology implementation in an FE context.
* The episode wraps up with reflections on teaching experiences, where both David and Kurt share personal anecdotes and thoughts on student engagement and the evolving role of educators in an AI-driven world.
Listeners are treated to a rich tapestry of ideas and perspectives, as the trio skillfully navigates the intersections of technology, education, and leadership, making this episode a must-listen for educators, policymakers, and anyone interested in the future of learning.
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**Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Paul Levy, Writer, thinker, conversifier, collusion breaker Episode 8: AI and Conscious Leadership in Education
Show Notes:In this thought-provoking episode, hosts Richard Foster-Fletcher and Kurt Hintz are joined by writer and technosophy expert Paul Levy to discuss the promises and perils of AI integration in education. Key topics covered include:*** The need for ethics and purpose to guide rapid AI advancement, beyond commercial drivers alone. Education cannot solely optimise for efficiency metrics. * Risk of over-reliance on generative AI leading to helpless dependence once systems are unavailable. Critical thinking capability may erode without balanced human-AI collaboration. * Education's aim transcends employable skills to nurturing self-actualisation. Policymakers and corporations cannot impose convenient narratives about automating learning. * Discernment needed on appropriate AI applications - some scenarios warrant replacement, others damage the human condition. Judgment of long-term impacts essential. * Importance of motivation, curiosity, discovery and confidence-building in human development, beyond AI's purview currently. Risk of instrumentalist view stripping joy of learning. * Possibilities for AI to enhance critical thinking assignments rather than replacing essays outright. Designing nudges towards excellence over mediocrity. * Ensuring emerging technologies improve equity, accessibility and inclusion rather than exacerbating divides.
Far from inevitable dystopia or utopia, the episode offers balanced perspectives on risks, opportunities and responsible leadership needed to craft an AI-powered education system aligned to student welfare.
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**Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:
Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Debra Gray MBE, Principal and CEO, Hull College Episode 7:**Transforming Educational Paradigms for the AI Era
Episode Overview:
OverviewIn an insightful discussion with Debra Gray, this episode of "AI, Leadership and the Future of FE" dives into Hull College's journey of digital transformation and the broader implications of AI in education. Hosted by Richard Foster-Fletcher and Kurt Hintz, the conversation spans from digital innovation to the cultural shift required in embracing technology in education.
Digital Transformation and AI Integration at Hull College:
Debra Gray outlines the significant digital transformation at Hull College, detailing the strategies employed to enhance digital infrastructure across departments. This transformation is centred around supporting learners and preparing them for future roles in various industries, including engineering. The conversation also sheds light on how AI tools, such as Chat GPT, are being embraced as productivity tools rather than feared, marking a significant shift in educational approaches.
AI Academy and Future-Proofing Students:
A key focus of the discussion is the implementation of Hull College's AI Academy, designed for staff training and student programs. Debra illustrates how AI is utilised in various areas like marketing, report writing, and safeguarding, enhancing the overall educational experience. This approach aligns with the broader goal of future-proofing students, equipping them with digital skills that are increasingly sought after in the job market.
Cultural Shifts and Efficiency Gains:
The episode also explores the necessary cultural change among educators in adapting to digital advancements. Debra discusses her approach to encouraging this shift, emphasising the potential of AI to enhance efficiency. She highlights tools like Teacher Matic, which have revolutionised resource generation, allowing teachers more time to engage with students.
Responding to the Evolving Job Market:
The discussion with Kurt brings to the forefront the adaptability and responsiveness required in skills development amidst AI advancements. They deliberate on the historical context of job transformations due to industrial revolutions, underscoring the importance of adapting education to meet these evolving demands.
Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing:
A recurring theme in the episode is the necessity for increased collaboration and knowledge sharing within the further education sector. The discussion concludes with an emphasis on the importance of maintaining a student-centric approach in education, ensuring alignment with industry needs and fostering entrepreneurial and problem-solving skills among students. This approach, facilitated by AI tools like Chat GPT, is crucial in preparing students for a dynamic job market and fostering collaboration in the education sector.
This episode serves as a comprehensive exploration of how digital transformation, spearheaded by forward-thinking leaders like Debra Gray, is reshaping the educational landscape, highlighting the need for flexibility, collaboration, and student-centric strategies in further education.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Dr. Sean Mackney, Principal and CEO at Petroc
Episode 6:
Equal Opportunities in the Digital Age
Episode Notes
This episode centres on the pivotal role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping equal opportunities in the education sector, with a special focus on further education and leadership. Discussions range from how AI could democratise access to quality education to its ethical considerations.
Objectives:
* To discuss AI's potential to level the playing field in education, especially in further education.
* To examine the governmental policies around AI's impact on education and lifelong learning.
* To explore the ethical considerations of AI in educational settings, particularly in terms of inclusion and analytics.
Key Discussions:
AI's Potential in Education and Leadership
Richard, Sean, and Kurt explore the untapped potential of AI to bring equality in educational opportunities. Sean is optimistic that AI could particularly assist those from disadvantaged backgrounds, providing a supportive structure for learning.
AI's Potential in Education: Group-Fetch and Cognitive Offload
Sean and Kurt touch upon how AI can aid in personalised learning experiences. Sean brings up the concept of 'group-fetch' and deep relationships, while Kurt discusses 'cognitive offload' to ease complex tasks.
AI's Impact on Education and Lifelong Learning
Sean brings attention to the governmental view of AI across sectors, urging caution that the pace of technological advancements could outstrip societal adaptation. He advocates for policies like universal income to offset AI's unpredictable disadvantages.
Adapting to AI: The Future of Skills and Careers
Sean and Kurt delve into the necessity for career adaptability in an AI-driven landscape. Sean speaks about the need for switching careers in the case of automation, exemplified by a bricklayer adapting to drone operation.
Colleges as Anchors in the Age of AI
The panel addresses the role of colleges as community anchors, contributing to productivity and equal opportunities. Kurt and Sean emphasise the ethical use of data and AI by colleges and call for government frameworks to guide this.
GPT-4 Release and Productivity Boost
Sean talks about the upcoming release of GPT-4, predicting improvements in productivity. He also hints at the possibility of governmental policy mandating access to mobile hardware and speed.
Inclusion, AI, and Ethics
Sean and Richard focus on the importance of inclusion and ethical engagement with AI and data. They debate the potential benefits and risks of AI in this context.
Ethics and Learning Analytics in Higher Education
The discussion turns towards the ethical dimensions of learning analytics. While Sean expresses reservations about how these tools could potentially limit personal growth, Kurt sees them as useful for tracking skills and behaviours.
Action Items:
* Implement ethical guidelines for AI in educational settings.
* Lobby for governmental frameworks that promote the ethical use of AI.
* Encourage a balanced approach that values both technological advancements and ethical considerations.
The episode serves as a comprehensive guide for educators, policymakers, and thought leaders on the importance and complexity of integrating AI into the educational landscape. It stresses the need for a careful, well-considered approach.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Scott Hayden, Head of Teaching, Learning and Digital, BCoT
Episode 5:
Balancing AI and Human Interaction in Education
Episode Notes
This episode delves into the intricate balance between utilising Artificial Intelligence and maintaining human-centric approaches in education. Our guests discuss the potential benefits and pitfalls of incorporating AI tools into teaching practices, professional development, and assessment.
Highlights:
* Challenges Amid COVID-19: Kurt Hintz discusses the difficulties education is facing due to the pandemic, including behavioural issues among students.
* AI in Professional Development: The conversation explores AI-enabled coaching for educators, focusing on its potential benefits for professional development.
* Objectivity vs. Bias in Assessment: Scott Hayden shares his experience with using AI for marking assignments and discusses the objectivity it offers in comparison to human bias. He also talks about the need to rethink assessment methods to include more authentic forms, such as vlogs and blogs.
* The Human Factor: Kurt Hintz questions the implications of AI in soft skills development, especially in engineering roles. Both Scott and Kurt emphasise the importance of "being the human in the loop" when using AI tools.
* Technology and Human Interaction: The panel discusses the balance needed between technology and human interaction in education. Richard Foster-Fletcher raises concerns about people becoming engrossed in their phones at the expense of personal relationships.
* Ethical Considerations: Scott Hayden stresses the importance of ethical safeguards when using AI tools, particularly for younger audiences. The conversation also touches on the addictive nature of some AI coaching tools and the need for balance.
* Digital Well-Being: Scott acknowledges the challenge of managing screen time addiction, citing examples from a college module he conducted on digital well-being.
Action Items:
* Educators and policy makers should consider implementing ethical guidelines for the use of AI in educational settings.
* Schools should focus on creating a balanced approach that leverages technology while not compromising on human interaction.
* Further discussion is needed to explore the potential future advancements in AI and its impact on education.
This enlightening conversation provides a nuanced view of the role of AI in education, urging caution and thoughtful implementation to benefit both educators and students.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair, MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Episode 4: AI and Data Privacy in Further Education: The balance of harnessing artificial intelligence while ensuring student data remains secure.
Episode Notes:
Introduction
* Importance of discussing data privacy and AI in the educational context.
Data Privacy and Leadership in Education
* Changes in data privacy that educational leaders should be cognisant of.
* Challenges and benefits of utilising data for educational objectives.
* Issues concerning the use of assessment tools and student data.
Innovative Uses of AI in Education
* Ways in which students are utilising Chat GPT for educational purposes.
* Potential risks of personal information being unintentionally disclosed through AI tools.
Policy and Governance in AI Implementation
* Necessity for public policy documents or white papers focused on AI in education.
* Defining objectives, outcomes, and how students should interact with AI.
Discussion Points
* Educating students on the risks associated with platforms and data privacy; addressing awareness gaps among adults.
* Factors such as brand familiarity and network effects in the adoption of technologies in educational settings.
* The role of WhatsApp in education and its implications for data privacy.
* Balancing the effectiveness of data utilisation with the need for data privacy.
* Guidelines for the responsible use of AI in educational settings and safeguarding data integrity.
Closing Remarks
The conversation around data privacy and AI in education is not just timely but essential. It calls for a thoughtful approach to policy, governance, and education to ensure ethical and effective use of technology.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Episode 3: Future-Proofing FE Institutions: Leadership strategies to integrate and adapt to advancements in Artificial Intelligence.
Episode Notes:
In this episode, Richard and Kurt delve into the importance of leadership strategies and future-proofing in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) in further education (FE). They set the stage for an engaging dialogue on the complexities and responsibilities tied to the implementation and ethics of AI.
Leadership in AI and Future-Proofing:
Kurt and Richard begin by discussing their upcoming leadership session and its focus on preparing for AI's transformative impact on education and society. They stress the need for a comprehensive understanding of AI’s potential harms and risks. The emphasis is on a dialogue-driven approach to addressing these challenges, ensuring leaders are actively involved in AI implementation to prevent potential damage.
Structured Implementation and Ethical Challenges:
The conversation shifts to the vital aspects of implementing AI in education, with Kurt highlighting the need for structured policies, systems, and focus. Richard brings attention to the challenges related to AI ethics, underscoring the importance of transparency, external validation, and accountability in AI development.
Navigating Complex Ethical Considerations:
Both speakers acknowledge the complexity of ethical considerations in AI, touching on issues like biased language generation by generative models and the cultural differences that impact ethical decision-making. They concur that navigating these complexities is not just difficult but essential for responsible AI deployment.
Empowerment, Sustainability, and Equity:
Kurt emphasises the critical role of empowered and knowledgeable staff in educational settings. He prompts leaders to be inquisitive about data usage and technology development. Richard agrees and extends the discussion to smaller businesses that could benefit from AI, highlighting the importance of ethical considerations, sustainability, and equity in AI applications.
Future Education and Ethical Implications:
The discussion concludes with Kurt expressing enthusiasm about the potential for further education funding to enable rapid adaptability in AI adoption. Both speakers underline the need for ethical considerations in influencing AI's role in education, particularly concerning its impact on children's lives and societal structures.
This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for FE leaders, equipping them with the insights needed to navigate the complicated landscape of AI in education responsibly.
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Series: Artificial Intelligence Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair MKAI.org
Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group
Episode 2: The Classroom of Tomorrow: A look into how Artificial Intelligence could influence our future learning environments in Further Education.
Episode Notes:
Kurt and Richard open the episode by discussing various elements currently affecting Further Education, including emerging technologies like Chat GPT and Neuralink, the implications of AI in classrooms, and pressing concerns about inequalities within educational systems. The conversation also touches upon the financial aspects and potential disruptions to established educational hierarchies.
Richard queries Kurt about the availability of college-wide WiFi, focusing on the accessibility for students without data. Kurt confirms the presence of free WiFi across the campus, designed to facilitate learning while also offering some degree of protection when accessing social media. The discussion then shifts towards the role of AI in education, specifically as a tool for delivering education and imparting industry-standard skills. Richard posits the idea of a future classroom devoid of physical devices, relying instead on projected information. Kurt underlines the critical role of seamless interconnectivity between individuals and information sources.
Kurt shares his concerns about the responsible application of AI in educational assessments. He argues for the need for tools that can both alleviate the workload on teachers and offer rapid, quality feedback essential for personalised learning. Kurt underscores the importance of addressing existing inequalities in the educational system to achieve true equity for all learners. He also notes the increasing number of companies approaching him with AI solutions, particularly for assessment and planning, while cautioning that companies falling behind in AI advancements risk obsolescence.
Further, Kurt speaks about the symbiotic relationship between Further Education institutions and businesses, stressing the importance of foundational technical training that can evolve into more advanced skill sets. Richard adds to this by discussing AI's role in administrative streamlining, such as in the automation of fee assessments. Both delve into the necessity of optimising learning spaces, examining variables such as lighting and temperature and even the synchronisation of class schedules with peak cognitive times for individuals.
Closing the episode, Kurt and Richard discuss the complexities introduced by remote work. They explore its effect on both individual learning experiences and organisational structures. The duo also ponder how AI can play a role in shaping optimal learning environments, from monitoring student engagement to fostering collaborative learning settings. This rich conversation illustrates the nuanced considerations involved in integrating AI into Further Education while striving to meet each learner's unique needs.
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New series: Artificial Intelligence Leadership and the Future of Further Education
With:
Richard Foster-Fletcher, Executive Chair MKAI.org
* Kurt Hintz, Executive Principal, Capital City College Group*
Episode 1: AI and Personalised Learning: Exploring how Artificial Intelligence might enhance the individualised learning experience
Episode Notes:
Kurt Hintz and Richard Foster-Fletcher discuss their roles in AI implementation in education, with Kurt taking on an educational leadership role and expressing concerns about its implementation. Both participants express support for AI but acknowledge the need for careful consideration in its use.
Kurt shares his background as an educator and his interest in using technology to maximise the potential of education. Richard explains his motivation for working in AI and the need to navigate complex scenarios with the help of AI. They both emphasise the importance of preparing students for jobs that may not even exist yet due to rapid advancements in AI. Richard discusses the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) and ChatGPT on education. He highlights how students can use AI to write essays, create marketing materials, and develop business plans.
Kurt emphasises the need for educators to adapt to this technology and ensure that students are at the forefront of its usage. They discuss how AI tools can enhance productivity without necessarily replacing jobs entirely. They also explore the shifting importance of knowledge in a world where information is readily accessible through technology. The conversation touches on future episodes that will delve into topics such as personalised learning, harnessing technology in education, future-proofing institutions, and data privacy concerns.
Richard discusses the balance between natural human capabilities and learned behaviours in dealing with a larger number of people. He asks if having smart glasses that identify people's names and information would be useful or intrusive. Kurt expresses his enthusiasm for such technology, as it would help him remember names and personalise interactions. They discuss the expectations of knowing people's names in a large organisation and how personalisation can enhance relationships. Kurt suggests that AI skills are becoming essential in various industries, including education, and educators need to incorporate these skills into their teaching.
Richard highlights the potential challenges of generative AI tools like text generation but also recognises their value when used creatively by skilled individuals. They emphasise that AI is just a tool that complements human creativity and thinking. The conversation touches on job displacement concerns but also presents opportunities for those who adapt to new technologies. Lastly, they mention the importance of personalisation in classrooms and introduce the topic of personalisation basics.
Richard and Kurt discuss personalised learning and the potential impact of AI on it. Personalised learning involves having a personal coach who provides constant feedback and support. It aims to adapt teaching methods to each student's individual needs and pace. The traditional model of personalised learning existed in apprenticeships, where individuals received one-on-one guidance. However, implementing this in a classroom with multiple students is challenging but possible through differentiation. AI can potentially enhance personalised learning by constantly measuring an individual's progress against competency frameworks, eliminating the need for point assessments. This approach allows for continuous measurement of skills and abilities at an individual level.
The discussion also addresses whether traditional assessment methods adequately prepare individuals for real-world work environments that involve deadlines and consistent performance over time. Additionally, the conversation highlights how AI tools can support teachers by reducing their administrative workload related to assessments, allowing them to focus more on building strong relationships with their students.
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This is a conversation with Albin Wilson
🎙️ Albin Wilson is an engineer by trade but has a passion for telling stories and for challenging endeavours. He co-founded the electric vehicle company Uniti in Sweden but has since moved to Nairobi, Kenya to join Opibus, an electric vehicle manufacturer. At Opibus, Albin is in charge of strategy and marketing supporting Opibus’ mission to electrify Africa. With products made and uniquely tailored for their environment, Opibus has a commitment to keeping their products locally made. The company is founded on three pillars of work; electric conversion systems, electric motorcycles and energy and charging solutions. These pillars ensure that from start to finish, the products Opibus produce support a fully sustainable ecosystem while also building toward a more environmentally conscious future. All while creating local jobs and building products that make sense for the local use case - designed in Kenya, for Africa.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Albin talks about:
💡 1.) the opportunities for zero emissions vehicles in Kenya
💡 2.) how they are converting safari vehicles to electric
💡 3.) how to convince motorcycle owners to make the switch to EV
💡 4.) what local energy production needs to be made possible to charge the vehicles
💡 5.) how Kenya could deal with the downstream energy grid challenges when there are millions of EVs to charge
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
This is a conversation with Simon Dowson
🎙️ Simon is Managing Director of Silverstone-based Delta Cosworth. After gaining a degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from Warwick University, he joined Reynard Motorsport on a graduate scheme and went on to become Operations Manager responsible for the day to day running and production of the Race Car division. Following the demise of Reynard, he went on to form Delta, a motorsport consultancy in 2005. Delta has since broadened its capabilities significantly across the electric and hybrid sector and work covers three main product areas; an ultra-low-emissions battery charger, vehicle “platform” engineering and control and high-power battery systems. Delta was acquired by Cosworth in March 2021, adding electrification to 60 years of Cosworth engineering excellence.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Simon talks about:
💡 1.) starting out in motorsports and how he transitioned to battery technology over a decade ago, way ahead of the market
💡 2.) How the technology used in road vehicles is now more advanced than racing vehicles
💡 3.) His reaction when the UK government announced that new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars will be banned from sale in 2030
💡 4.) the biggest challenges in battery technology
💡 5.) the acquisition of Delta into the Cosworth group and what it means for the business going forward
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
This is a conversation with Maz Shar
🎙️ Maz has a background in computer science and has been developing software for products and robots in our homes. During his career, he has shared an interest in emerging technologies such as VR and AR and their impact on society. Often these can be many years away, so Maz has learned to understand the chasm between hype and reality and the challenges of early adoption. Maz has been driving electric cars for the past 2 years and during this time has played an active role within the EV community sharing thoughts on the path to mass adoption. Maz is currently studying AI at King's College London with the ambition to contribute towards more intelligent and cleaner technology.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Maz talks about:
💡 1.) Why and how an EV is more convenient than a petrol or diesel car
💡 2.) Common misconceptions about EVs and areas of confusion
💡 3.) Why it’s important to know that different brands have different charging curves and what to look for when buying an EV
💡 4.) What sort of EV infrastructure the UK will need for those without access to a home charger
💡 5.) Why a bigger battery isn’t necessarily a better battery
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
Together with Power My EV, we are looking for up to 2,000 UK drivers to complete a survey and simple assessment. Your answers will help to tackle the barriers and concerns around switching to fully electric cars.
The survey and assessment take around 10 minutes to complete. To say thanks for taking part, there's a chance to win a £200 Amazon voucher.
Complete the survey at https://powermyev.cmail20.com/t/t-l-murjtit-wjhhrttc-y/
This is a conversation with Tom Callow
🎙️ Tom has worked in the electric vehicle and wider automotive sector for over 12 years. He formerly chaired the motor industry’s principle EV group and has extensive knowledge of electric vehicles, infrastructure and associated technologies. His role at bp pulse includes surfacing insights around vehicles and infrastructure, as well as engaging with the media, car manufacturers, government and other stakeholders. He has driven over 100,000 electric miles in the last four years.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Tom talks about:
💡 1.) BP’s strategy for building EV charging infrastructure
💡 2.) How to incentivise the sharing of public charging resources
💡 3.) When the best time to buy an EV is
💡 4.) How far future batteries will take our vehicles
💡 5.) The future for petrol station owners
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
This is a conversation with Fiona Howarth
🎙️ Fiona studied Engineering, Economics and Management at Oxford University. In her career she has held many varied roles including working at BMW on a hydrogen fuel cell that could provide auxiliary power in a combustion engine car, consulting for a FTSE 100 energy company, and a secondment to the Department of Energy & Climate Change. She was part of the team at British start-up Alert Me, which launched connected home products – which then became part of Hive, the smart metre provided by British Gas. Most recently Fiona is the current CEO of Octopus Electric Vehicles, where she is championing the transition to electric vehicles.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, Fiona talks about:
💡 1.) What triggered her interest in sustainable mobility
💡 2.) Her background working with hydrogen fuel cells and what has held hydrogen power back over the last two decades
💡 3.) What the impact of 10 million EVs will be on the current energy grid and how we can charge them by distributing energy in a smarter way, rather than adding more production
💡 4.) How we can reuse, repurpose and recycle lithium-ion batteries
💡 5.) The work Octopus is doing to bring the cost of EVs down and the story of how a customer got paid to charge his vehicle
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
beyondjourneys #NetZero #shareddata #opendata #smartgrid #EVs
This is a conversation with Olly Craughan.
🎙️ Olly heads up DPD’s corporate social responsibility strategy, having previously worked as Depot General Manager and Operations Manager when he first joined DPD in 2012. His role supports DPD UK in leading the way in green and sustainable delivery, successfully growing the company’s electric delivery fleet. Other projects include launching DPD’s ambitious Vision 25-25-25 strategy to deliver zero emissions to 25 towns and cities across the UK by the end of 2025. DPD UK is the leader in the transition to sustainability and emobilty. Their sustainability mission includes their depots, hubs and offices, all powered by 100% renewable electricity and 100% of waste avoiding landfill, of which 70% is recycled.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Olly talks about:
💡 DPD’s commitment to environmental sustainability; the numbers, the objectives and the plans. He talks about the technology they are implementing, the mindset of the organisation and the grassroots projects that are flourishing.
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast; we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “Sometimes, the number of chargers that we declare in this country can flatter to deceive somewhat, and we've got to make sure we have the right sort of infrastructure for the right application.” @Sam Clarke
This is a conversation with Sam Clarke
🎙️ Sam is an entrepreneur, investor, EV evangelist, industry advisor on all things EV, and a commuter by electric vehicle for over 15 years. He was a previous winner of the Great British Entrepreneurs Awards and is a Fellow and sector chair for the National Institute of Couriers. In 2020, he was voted #36 in the GreenFleet top 100 most influential people in Low Carbon Fleets.
He is the pioneer behind green logistics specialist Gnewt, which he set up in 2009. It won multiple awards nationally and globally from the electric vehicle, logistics, environmental and wider business sectors during its decade long journey of last-mile logistics using only electric vehicles. The business was acquired under John Menzies Plc in 2017.
By the time of Sam's exit in 2019, he had built up the country’s first and largest fully EV commercial fleet, created the largest privately-owned smart charging infrastructure network and installed the largest V2G network in the UK.
Sam has recently extended his Advisory capacity with sustainability experts GRIDSERVE to become their Chief Vehicle Officer to help accelerate their zero-emission future in both energy generation and the build of a nationwide network of electric forecourts.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Sam talks about:
💡 1.) How he launched one of the first fully electric vehicle delivery fleets
💡 2.) how the charging infrastructure developed over time for this business
💡 3.) how and why he transitioned from running an EV fleet to his new role at GRIDSERVE
💡 4.) his thoughts on the distinct EV charging infrastructure challenges in both urban and rural areas
💡 5.) the importance of vehicle to grid technology becoming ubiquitous
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast; we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “To get out of this dire environmental situation, we are going to have to be decisive. If I were a government, I'd say for every electric car you buy, I'm giving you half the money. Beyond this, and with the strongest of conviction, Governments must immediately fund the renewable energy sources we need.” Denis Rothman
This is a conversation with Denis Rothman
🎙️ Denis is an Artificial Intelligence designer, author & developer. He created one of the first AI cognitive Chatbots and an AI resource optimisation system that reduces resource consumption, energy and power. Denis’s latest books include Artificial Intelligence By Example: Acquire advanced AI, machine learning, and deep learning design skills, 2nd Edition and Explainable AI with Python: Interpret, visualize, explain, and integrate reliable AI for fair, secure, and trustworthy AI apps.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Denis talks about:
💡 1.) the carbon-intensive supply chain to create a NetZero car
💡 2.) why we need to have an unconstrained view of transportation and mobility to really get to NetZero
💡 3.) why it’s vital that green car owners develop a green mindset
💡 4.) why cities might be our problem
💡 5.) how humans might adapt to temperatures above 50 degrees Celsius
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “All autonomous vehicles learn from any mistakes that one vehicle makes, as the new knowledge is propagated throughout the rest of the network. On the other hand, when a person makes a mistake, it is only one single driver that learns from the experience. This has huge implications for road safety.” @Raymond Han
This is a conversation with Raymond Han
🎙️ Raymond was the former Head of Business Development at Nissan Motor Corporation, now turned career and business transformation coach. Previous to working at Nissan he was Head of New Markets at BMW Group Financial Services. Raymond has had a distinguished career in Automotive, working in Japan, Germany and South Korea.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Raymond talks about:
💡 1.) The new customer experience opportunities that arise from the flexibility of electric, connected autonomous vehicles
💡 2.) how connected, autonomous vehicles will allow seamless travel beyond borders on your terms, anticipating your needs and in line with your preferences
💡 3.) how road travel is about to become a lot safer and the implications of this
💡 4.) why EVs are better suited to running around the clock and what that will mean for the cost of travel
💡 5.) how the pay as you drive concept will change the insurance industry and the costs of driving
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “There's often this culture of entrepreneurial-ism that looks at technology as a solution in itself. But if they're not developed from the ground up, we can end up with significant inequalities between certain users.” Dr Felicity Heathcote-Márcz
This is a conversation with Dr Felicity Heathcote-Márcz
🎙️ Felicity is an ethnographer and the Research and Behaviours Lead at Atkins Global Intelligent Mobility. She employs anthropological approaches to understand how humans are using the latest intelligent mobility technologies like autonomous vehicles and mobility as a service. Felicity has designed and led research trials testing out new technologies with behavioural interventions to understand what makes a difference to improving transport services and supporting policymakers to understand how they can be ready for the future of transport. Felicity also guest lectures on mobility and research, and has authored academic, technical and journalistic content on these themes.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Felicity talks about:
💡 1.) putting user requirements at the front and centre of the design stage for EVs
💡 2.) the importance of field research to reduce inequality in the future of mobility
💡 3.) mitigating for invisible biases in data and research
💡 4.) where and how behavioural nudging works
💡 5.) mobility, pandemics and the future of work
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “You could argue that running an existing vehicle that doesn't need any modifications on a fuel that has 85% lower impact on the planet is probably better than changing the vehicle for a battery powered one.” Karl W. Feilder
This is a conversation with Karl Feilder
🎙️ Karl is a serial tech entrepreneur and business sustainability advocate. His direct actions to mitigate climate change have resulted in over 15 million tonnes of CO2, achieved from working with global corporations, such as DHL, Del Monte, Anglo American, and McDonald’s.
Karl has previously built five companies to exit via trade sale, and taken two more to their Initial Public Offering (IPO). He is now preparing Neutral Fuels Ltd, a company that produces biofuel from used cooking oil, for an IPO in 2024.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Karl talks about:
💡 1.) setting up a Biofuels company in the heartland of oil production
💡 2.) building a carbon neutral fuel company with an aim to reduce emissions by 85%, without replacing vehicles
💡 3.) why he loves Harley Davidson and saving the species
💡 4.) the role for realists as well as environmentalists
💡 5.) how he mixes work, travel, pleasure and music
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 The Automotive and Energy sectors are going through the biggest changes in 50 years. Their abilities to create, balance and optimise renewable energies are crucial to our sustainable future and to achieving NetZero greenhouse gas emissions.
🎧 This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast which explores the role of Electric Vehicles (EVs) in helping us deliver a fully sustainable, NetZero future: the challenges, the risks and the opportunities. We feature leaders from major automotive, startup automotive, energy, insurance, fleet and battery tech.
🎙️ Today's episode is with my series commentator Tapan Trivedi who will explore our learnings prompted by the episodes with:
➊ Iain Macbeth, Director of EV Strategy - Europe, Enterprise: Insights from the world's leading vehicle rental company (EP16)
➋ Albert Lam, Group CEO at Detroit Electric - Realising the electric dream with a heritage brand (EP17)
Learn more about the series at www.boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series
💬 “China is ready to dominate the Electric Vehicle market. They have ample power electronics engineers that can integrate motor and battery technology together, they have investment, and they have the full support of the Government, for whom this is a priority.” Albert Lam
This is a conversation with Albert Lam
🎙️ Albert is Chairman and CEO of Detroit Electric Holdings Ltd. He is a veteran in the automotive and technology industries. Before founding Detroit Electric in 2009, Albert was the former Executive Director of the Lotus Group International and he served as Managing Director of Apple Computer in Asia. His professional experiences also include holding technical engineering positions in the field of Artificial Intelligence with renowned companies such as Jaguar Land Rover, Ford, and Gaydon Technology. Albert holds an MSc degree in Robotics and studied a PhD in the area of Artificial Intelligence.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Albert talks about:
💡 1.) the reasons for the lack of EV readiness 10 years ago
💡 2.) How China’s EV industry will boom
💡 3.) the importance of decentralising activities and decision making in business
💡 4.) why it’s ‘how’, not ‘when’ we will have autonomous vehicles
💡 5.) the market size and opportunity for Detroit Electric to sell electric and hydrogen powered vans
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment. Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “The key priority over the next couple of years is for the industry and government to work closely together to enable the public charging infrastructure, because without that we're going to struggle to meet some of those ambitious targets.” Iain Macbeth
🎙️ Iain Macbeth is Director of Electric Vehicle Strategy for Enterprise Holdings' corporately owned entities in Europe, with a fleet of over 200,000 vehicles. His portfolio covers electric charging infrastructure, electric vehicles, customer experience, utilities and innovation in electric mobility. Other areas of interest for Iain include developments in hydrogen technology, the future of mobility, including drones, and the automotive sector.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Iain talks about:
💡 1.) how Enterprise will transform its fleet to Electric vehicles this decade
💡 2.) the challenges and opportunities for the business during this transformation
💡 3.) what’s needed from an infrastructure perspective
💡 4.) why Hydrogen vehicles are being trialled by the group at present
💡 5.) why the charging customer experience needs to improve for all EV customers
💬 The Automotive and Energy sectors are going through the biggest changes in 50 years. Their abilities to create, balance and optimise renewable energies are crucial to our sustainable future and to achieving NetZero greenhouse gas emissions.
🎧 This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast which explores the role of Electric Vehicles (EVs) in helping us deliver a fully sustainable, NetZero future: the challenges, the risks and the opportunities. We feature leaders from major automotive, startup automotive, energy, insurance, fleet and battery tech.
🎙️ Today's episode is with my series commentator Tapan Trivedi who will explore our learnings prompted by the episodes with:
➊ Tanya Sinclair, Policy Director UK & Ireland at ChargePoint: The story of the next 9 years
➋ Uday Senapati, Corporate Strategy and Product Management at Group Lotus: Defining the strategy for a 70 year old Startup
Learn more about the series at www.boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series
💬 “At Lotus, we are working on the philosophy that living with an electric car is much easier than living with a petrol car.” Uday Senapati
🎙️ Uday Senapati is the Executive Director for Corporate Strategy and Product Management at Group Lotus. He is responsible for the company strategy, product management of future cars and digital products/services, as well as strategic partnerships. Prior to joining Lotus, he worked at Bentley Motors, where he was responsible for turning Mulliner, a dormant section of the business, into a successful and profitable special vehicles division. Along with technical areas of business, he has also led teams covering Project Management, Procurement, Supply Chain Management, Production and Logistics. Uday has a great passion for cars and automotive brands and a part of the team that has been entrusted with reinvigorating the Lotus brand and growing the business significantly.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, Uday talks about:
💡 1.) How Lotus is rebirthing itself like a startup
💡 2.) the innovation opportunities from being part of the Geely group
💡 3.) how and why sportscars have a long-term future
💡 4.) creating artificial noise both inside and outside of the vehicle
💡 5.) why technology and automotive companies must collaborate and not compete
💬 “We're all out there installing EV chargers, but there is no requirement on us to power those charges with electricity from renewable sources. And you think, actually, are we helping meet government's climate change objectives here or not?” Tanya Sinclair
🎙️ Tanya Sinclair has worked in electric vehicle policy for almost a decade and is currently Policy Director at ChargePoint for UK, Ireland and Nordics. She also chairs the EV Group of the REA, the association for renewable energy and clean technology. Prior to joining ChargePoint Tanya worked for LEVC, the manufacturers of the London ‘black cab’, where she supported the launch of the first electric taxis in London. Tanya has also worked as an adviser to electric vehicle start-ups, charging companies and manufacturers including Nissan and Tesla.
Tanya talks about:
💡 1.) the revolution that the automobile industry is going through
💡 2.) the ways that we will charge EVs once we have mass adoption
💡 3.) the unique charging challenges for fleet owners, office car parks and mixed occupancy buildings
💡 4.) Lessons the UK can learn from other countries
💡 5.) the climate change elephant in the room – that there’s no Government mandate for EV charging to be powered by renewable energy
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
💬 The Automotive and Energy sectors are going through the biggest changes in 50 years. Their abilities to create, balance and optimise renewable energies are crucial to our sustainable future and to achieving NetZero greenhouse gas emissions.
🎧 This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast which explores the role of Electric Vehicles (EVs) in helping us deliver a fully sustainable, NetZero future: the challenges, the risks and the opportunities. We feature leaders from major automotive, startup automotive, energy, insurance, fleet and battery tech.
🎙️ Today's episode is with my series commentator Tapan Trivedi who will explore our learnings prompted by the episodes with:
➊ Paul Kirby, Head of LCV and EV Strategy at Vanarama: Transforming fleets to EV
➋ Sara Sloman, Head of Future Mobility Partnership at Elmtronics: Human behaviour and transport planning
Learn more about the series at www.boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series
💬 “Sharing is key. If we are going be reducing congestion, we cannot swap every internal combustion engine vehicle with an EV version” @Sara Sloman
🎙️ Sara Slomanis Head of Future Mobility Partnership at Elmtronics, an independent supplier of electric car charging services and EV chargers in the UK. She has a background in public and private sector consultancy and business development roles serving Local Authorities, and has been involved in delivering project management for the Local Sustainable Transport Fund. Sara is a believer in supporting all modes of transport for a sustainable future and her passion is in clean energy and zero emission mobility. She was named as EV Champion in 2018 and featured on the GreenFleet “100 Most influential” list in 2019 and 2020.
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Sara talks about:
💡 1.) the triggers and events that prompted belief in scaling EVs
💡 2.) why personal EV choices go beyond range and power
💡 3.) the importance of shared vehicles and sharing your vehicle
💡 4.) reframing cars from a status symbol to a commodity
💡 5.) the ongoing challenges of data sharing in the mobility industry
💬 “Teaching driver behaviour is going to be really important in the transition period to Electric vehicles. If we continue to use EVs in the same way we used diesel vehicles, foot to the floor and driving far too quickly, then we’re going to get really poor use from the battery.” @Paul Kirby
This is a conversation with Paul Kirby
🎙️ Paul is Head of Light Commercial Vehicle and Electric Vehicle Strategy at Vanarama. He has nearly 30 years of automotive industry experience specialising in the Light commercial vehicle sector and championing the transition to an electric future. Previous to Vanarama, Paul was at LeasePlan UK heading up the commercial vehicle team and was responsible for developing the Business-Critical Fleet proposition. His other roles have included contract hire and leasing manager at Mercedes-Benz Vans UK and fleet and delivery manager for Wickes.
🎧 In this episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Paul talks about:
💡 1.) why switching fleets of vans to electric power is vital
💡 2.) the buying process for an EV van – myths, misunderstandings and misuse
💡 3.) how mobility startups could change the landscape for electric vans
💡 4.) how inequality is emerging in vehicle recharge costs
💡 5.) what our kids will think about petrol engines
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Discover more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series
💬 The Automotive and Energy sectors are going through the biggest changes in 50 years. Their abilities to create, balance and optimise renewable energies are crucial to our sustainable future and to achieving NetZero greenhouse gas emissions.
🎙️ This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast which explores the role of Electric Vehicles (EVs) in helping us deliver a fully sustainable, NetZero future: the challenges, the risks and the opportunities. We feature leaders from major automotive, startup automotive, energy, insurance, fleet and battery tech.
🎙️ Today's episode is with my series commentator Tapan Trivedi who will explore our learnings prompted by the episodes with:
➊ Lavinia Burski, Technology Consultant AECOM: Human-Vehicle understanding
➋ Jonathan Riggall, Director at Stantec: We need an EV Charging Renaissance
Learn more about the series at www.boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series
💬 “Some people are saying don't worry about new power capacity, because we'll just take the power out of EV cars and distribute it back into the network. But it is not that simple, for starters the grid was never designed for that.” Jonathan Riggall
🎙️ Jonathan Riggall has a background in climate change strategy, pollution impact, and environmental appraisal. He works across a range of sectors including renewable energy, community development, and power distribution. His speciality is working with investors and innovators to establish new technology and approaches to dealing with global growth. His broad skill base as a geographer has included working on international infrastructure investments and projects included environmental offshore wind farms and developing low-carbon infrastructure investment models for towns.
🎧 In this episode, Jonathan talks about:
💡 1.) the decline of the legacy petrol station
💡 2.) the grand challenge of working out what replaces petrol stations
💡 3.) the reason why thousands of endpoint EV chargers are not the complete answer
💡 4.) the challenges with using EVs to balance and support the energy grid
💡 5.) how these changes could prompt not just a technical revolution, but also a cultural and social revolution
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Learn more about the series at www.boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys/
💬 “People need to remember that autonomous vehicles are programmed by humans. And humans aren't perfect. That's the beauty of us, we make mistakes. Therefore, there'll be mistakes in the programming of autonomous vehicles. Lavinia Burski
🎙️ Lavinia is currently a Technology Consultant at AECOM specialising in projects relating to Connected Autonomous Vehicles and future transport solutions. She has previously worked within the Aerospace/Defence sector and was involved in the delivery of research projects and growth strategies related to Autonomy and Unmanned Air Vehicles. She has a PhD from Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh and her research involved analysing specifications and checking their correctness in order to improve the safety of high integrity systems.
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
🎧 In this episode, Lavinia talks about:
💡 1.) How mobility is moving towards inclusive and integrated transport systems
💡 2.) How connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) fit in the wider transport system
💡 3.) How CAVs will interact with current and future infrastructure
💡 4.) Problems with pedestrian-CAV interaction
💡 5.) how shared vehicles/pods fit into the wider transport system
Learn more about the series at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
This is Beyond Journeys: How electrifying road travel will shape our lives and our environment. Today’s episode is on insights and observations from the last two interviews and I’m joined by my series commentator Tapan Trivedi.
🎧 In this episode Tapan and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by episodes with:
- Carl Bayliss, VP, Mobility & Home Energy at Centrica who talked about
💡 1.) his journey from premium car brands into energy services
💡 2.) how we will connect cars to the grid and our homes to balance and optimise energy needs
💡 3.) how connected EVs will help the UK to get to NetZero and encourage renewable energy take-up
💡 4.) how consumer data will be used to support autonomous energy decisions
💡 5.) the partnership between Centrica and Lotus
- Christoph Domke, Clean and Smart Mobility Lead at FTI Consulting who talked about
💡 1.) the winners and losers in mobility as we shift from ICE to EV
💡 2.) which transport sector will electrify first and why
💡 3.) why companies may have to write off legacy assets
💡 4.) how to make EVs more profitable
💡 5.) the feasibility of Truck Platooning
Learn more about the series at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
💬 “Many of the legacy automotive companies are positioned well to produce EVs. They can grab hold of some of the trends and developments, but it needs massive investments and a really proactive leadership team to accomplish this.” Christoph Domke
This is a conversation with Christoph Domke
🎙️ Christoph is the Clean and Smart Mobility Lead at FTI Consulting. He is an evangelist for new and emerging technologies in the transportation industry with a passion for cleaner, sustainable, more efficient and interconnected movement of goods and people. He is an expert in future transportation, key technology trends and go-to-market initiatives. With particular expertise in digital freight brokerage, connectivity and telematics, autonomous trucks and truck platooning, and electric, hydrogen and natural gas-powered commercial vehicles.
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Learn more about the Beyond Journeys series at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys/
💬 “The realization post pandemic is that people will drive far fewer miles then we previously thought.” @Carl Bayliss
This is a conversation with Carl Bayliss
🎙️ Carl is Vice President, Mobility & Home Energy at Centrica and has spent the past 20 years working across global markets in the automotive industry, including such companies as Ferrari, Infiniti, Nissan and Bugatti.
His experiences in the electrification of mobility and democratisation of renewable energy through home energy management have moved Carl into an industry shift from automotive to energy & services. Carl has leading involvement in the recent partnership between Centrica and British motor manufacturer Lotus. They are working to develop a new model for electric vehicle ownership that fully integrates future mobility and energy, by making the car an extension of the home, capable of storing electricity, minimising emissions and generating new income through providing services to the energy market. Together the two companies aim to redefine the customer relationship with cars. One controlled by smart devices at home and on the move.
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
Learn more about the Beyond Journeys series at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
This is Beyond Journeys: How electrifying road travel will shape our lives and our environment. Today’s episode is on insights and observations from the last two interviews and I’m joined by my series commentator Tapan Trivedi.
🎧 In this episode Tapan and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
EP1 Beyond Journeys: Mike Hughes, SVP at Schneider Electric: How we balance and optimise the new smart grid
EP2 Beyond Journeys: Ed Houghton, Head of Research at DG Cities: The development of smart mobility living labs
💬 “There are biases against EVs for reasons like range, anxiety and comfort. But it’s important that we think of drivers not as a homogenous group, but instead, we recognise and serve their unique differences.” @Edward Houghton
This is a conversation with Edward Houghton
🎙️ Edward is Head of Research and Service Design at DG Cities. He is a behavioural and data scientist interested in sustainability and Smart Cities, systems thinking and systems resilience. Excited and interested in user-centred design, data, AI and machine learning and with a background in intervention design, impact evaluation and operational research. Edward is driven by understanding "what works".
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment.
🎧 In this, the 2nd episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Edward talks about:
💡 1.) EV consumer behaviours
💡 2.) Ethical use of data and AI to support the smart grid
💡 3.) the impact potential of mobility hubs
💡 4.) Unintended consequences of new mobility policies
💡 5.) the importance of evidence-based decisions
💬 “In the future, choosing an electric vehicle will be much the same as choosing a mobile phone handset and tariff today.” Mike Hughes
🎙️ Mike Hughes is SVP End-to-End Digital Customer Relationships at Schneider Electric, responsible for the deployment of a frictionless customer experience.
During his more than 20 years with Schneider Electric Mike has had a diverse international career. Before moving to his current role, Mike held the position of CEO and President, Schneider Electric UK and Ireland, with responsibility for the operations of the Group within the Zone.
Mike believes that digital technologies are key to delivering frictionless experience, efficiency, unleashing sustainable growth, supporting innovation and reducing environmental impact. As a leader and manager, Mike strongly supports the employee wellbeing, inclusion and flexible working initiatives that underpin the culture of high performance at Schneider Electric.
This is the Beyond Journeys series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how the electrification of road travel will impact our lives and environment. Learn more at https://boundlesspodcast.co.uk/beyond-journeys-series/
🎧 In this, the first episode of the Beyond Journeys series on the @Boundless Podcast, Mike talks about:
💡 1.) the opportunities and challenges of developing an efficient, smart-grid
💡 2.) the role of EVs to support the energy grid
💡 3.) the evolution of data sharing across companies and industries
💡 4.) how Schneider Electric will use data to automate energy optimisation for homes and vehicles
💡 5.) how choosing an EV in the future will be like choosing a mobile phone today
💬 “The reality is that today, amenities that are considered human rights by the UN, are inaccessible to people if they don't have the money for it. Proof in front of our eyes that trickle down-capitalism hasn’t worked.” @Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
Nick Wise, CEO at OceanMind: Using AI to protect and safeguard our oceans
Amir Banifatemi, Chief Innovation Officer at XPRIZE: The exponential power of using grand challenges to solve global problems
💬 “When we are able to remove the lens of geography, culture, biases, economics, religion, or protectionism, we will see that others’ problems are universally the same as ours.” @Amir Banifatemi
This is a conversation with Amir Banifatemi
🎙️ Amir is the General Manager for Innovation and Growth at XPRIZE where he leads the AI initiatives and is Executive Director for the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE and the ANA Avatar XPRIZE.
Prior to joining XPRIZE, Amir began his career at the European Space Agency and then held executive positions at Airbus, AP-HP and the European Commission division for information society and media. He managed two venture capital funds and contributed to the formation of more than 10 startups with emphasis on Information Technologies, Telecommunications, IoT, and Healthcare. Mr. Banifatemi is a guest lecturer and an adjunct MBA professor at UC Berkeley, Chapman University, Claremont McKenna College, UC Irvine, and HEC Paris.
XPRIZE is a non-profit organization that designs and hosts public competitions intended to encourage technological development to benefit humanity. Their board of trustees include James Cameron, Larry Page, Arianna Huffington, and Ratan Tata among others.
The XPRIZE mission is to bring about "radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity" through incentivized competition. It fosters high-profile competitions to motivate individuals, companies and organizations across all disciplines to develop innovative ideas and technologies that help solve the world's grand challenges.
The first XPRIZE foundation began in 1996 when entrepreneur Peter Diamandis offered a $10-million prize to the first privately financed team that could build and fly a three-passenger vehicle 100 kilometers into space twice within two weeks. The contest, later titled the Ansari XPRIZE for Suborbital Spaceflight, motivated 26 teams from seven nations to invest more than $100 million in pursuit of the $10 million purse. On October 4, 2004, the Ansari XPRIZE was won by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, who successfully completed the contest in their spacecraft SpaceShipOne.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
🎧 In this episode of the Infinite Leader series on the @Boundless Podcast, Amir talks about:
💡 1.) the exponential impact of grand challenges
💡 2.) the role of XPRIZE in galvanising coordinated action
💡 3.) why the prize money is a smaller factor than some people think
💡 4.) the importance of collaboration, even in competition
💡 5.) how the XPRIZE Foundation is contributing to addressing climate change
💬 “We're starting to understand much more about human activity on the oceans in general, not just the fishing activities, which is very exciting.” @Nick Wise
This is a conversation with Nick Wise
🎙️ Nick is CEO at OceanMind and a pioneer of Tech for Good. He is at the forefront of deploying technology to help address some of the world’s most pressing problems.
Nick created OceanMind to help protect the world’s oceans. Humans are exploiting the oceans at an alarming rate, damaging ecosystems, destroying livelihoods, and enslaving others to do it. At OceanMind they use satellites and artificial intelligence to empower enforcement and compliance, helping authorities to enforce regulations more effectively, and seafood buyers to make more responsible buying decisions. This combination of enforcement and economics helps drive behavioural change on the oceans, increasing sustainability and encouraging responsible practices.
Three billion people derive their protein from seafood. One in eight people depend on the sea to earn their livelihood. The ocean is crucial to the global carbon cycle, shuttling gigatons of carbon each year between the atmosphere and plankton. The ocean regulates our weather and our climate. We need the ocean to survive.
Yet the ocean is under dire threat from human activity and the relentless effects of climate change. UNESCO estimates that 60% of the world’s major marine ecosystems have been degraded or used unsustainably. Thousands of ocean species are threatened with extinction.
Nick is now growing OceanMind to tackle these issues at the global scale, building on the successful deployment of AI to identify fishing activities, we are now building models to detect human trafficking and modern slavery in fisheries, and to identify suspected illegal salvage activities over protected undersea war graves and sites of cultural heritage.
Healthy oceans are essential to human wellbeing, and the damage being done puts us all at risk. Intact ecosystems provide far greater resilience against the ravages of climate change, and the oceans provide half of the oxygen that we breathe. It is vital that we do all we can to protect the oceans for all our futures.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, they are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “In reality, making more sustainable choices is not always black and white. I think we need to make the ethical choice or better choice, an easy one so that people not only choose it, but stick with it.” @Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
1) Ferdinando Villa, Basque Centre for Climate Change: A Digital Knowledge Symphony
2) Bistra Dilkina, Center on AI in Society at USC: Using AI on real-world problems
💬 “Overall the engagement of computer science in sustainable development has really been slow to start and less strong than I believe it should be.” @Bistra Dilkina
This is a conversation with Bistra Dilkina
🎙️ Bistra is Associate Professor of Computer Science and co-Director of Center on AI in Society at University of Southern California. She works on developing scalable solution techniques for solving large-scale real-world optimization problems. To do this she merges ideas from algorithm design, operations research and machine learning. Bistra is keen on bringing these state-of-the-art methodologies to problem domains that have important societal impact. In particular, she works on predictive and optimization problems related to wildlife conservation planning and anti-poaching, among others.
The University of Southern California Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (USC CAIS) has a mission is to conduct research in Artificial Intelligence to help solve the most difficult social problems facing our world. When they consider what problems to tackle, they focus their efforts on low resource communities in the United States and globally. They draw inspiration from the Grand Challenges of Social Work, the Grand Challenges of Engineering, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. Based on these goals, their initial projects focus on ending homelessness, fighting substance abuse, preventing suicide, improving access to health care, social responses to global climate change, reducing gang violence, and protecting wildlife.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “For sustainability, we have already written the book of knowledge. But the book is written in too many languages. We don't need new scientific discoveries in order to save the world, we just need to be able to read the book that’s already been written” @Ferdinando Villa
🎙️ Ferdinando is an Ikerbasque Research Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change. He holds a PhD in theoretical Ecology and had a long parallel career as a scientific software designer and engineer. After working in many fields of Ecology, from theoretical island biogeography to spatially-explicit decision analysis, he discovered the joys and pains of interdisciplinary research during a long career in ecological economics at the universities of Maryland and Vermont.
He has since expanded the focus of his research to the interface of policy, ecology and economics, concentrating on artificial intelligence approaches to assist environmental decision making and natural system assessment and valuation.
Dr. Villa’s best known project is ARIES (Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services), which is producing a next-generation web application meant to make environmental decisions easier and more effective. The ARIES project builds on a partnership of international experts, NGOs, and academics, and pairs user and expert knowledge with advanced artificial intelligence to construct a model of a case study, making sure that no relevant data or knowledge is overlooked.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “I think there are far too few of us that have made the connection between the climate crisis and the rise of this pandemic.” @Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
@ Alex Dehgan, CEO at Conservation X Labs
@ Marianne Haahr, Director Green Digital Finance Alliance
💬 “Our financial regulators have discovered that climate risks are financial risks” @Marianne Haahr
🎙️ Marianne Haahr is Director of the Green Digital Finance Alliance, a non-profit focused on harnessing the power of fintech to unlock financing for the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, co-chaired by the UN Environment Program and Ant Financial Services Group and is a partner to the UN SG’s Task Force for Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals. Marianne has served as External Advisor on TechVelopment to the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Previously, she was Executive Leader at Sustainia leading the development of the Global Opportunity Explorer. The beginning of her career was dedicated to designing solutions for financial inclusion and climate finance in emerging markets.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability. And now here’s my conversation with Marianne Haahr
💬 “Rather than looking at conservation as a cost, we should be looking at it as an opportunity to reinvent our economies for the future. And when the entrepreneurs and VCs see those opportunities, then I think they’re going to be incredibly successful.” @Alex Dehgan
This is a conversation with Alex Dehgan
🎙️ Alex is a creative serial innovator, entrepreneur, scientist, and experienced diplomat and development leader, specializing in creative approaches to taking on and solving grand challenges in conservation, development, and foreign affairs, with a record of success in more than 80 countries on six continents. He is the CEO and Co-Founder of Conservation X Labs, an organisation that seeks to create a new model for conservation. They call themselves a conservation technology open foundry focused on creating and scaling new revolutionary innovations that have the power to transform the future of conservation. Conservation X Labs launches grand challenges that use open innovation, prizes, mass collaboration and the power of the market to develop new conversation technologies.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “Consumers have the right to know their risks. A truly consumer-centric approach is about making artificial intelligence risks visible and predictable.” @Nikita Lukianets
🎙️ Nikita Lukianets, a Founder of the Open Ethics initiative that fosters the inclusive dialogue between experts and citizens to design systems where humans and AI successfully work together. Nikita is also a Founder and CTO at PocketConfidant AI, a 24/7 coaching technology powered by artificial intelligence.
Previously, as a fellow with SIGNALIFE Ph.D. program in life sciences in France, Nikita worked on supervised and unsupervised learning algorithms for neuronal classification, bridging approaches in neurobiology and statistical learning.
Nikita Lukianets has more than 10 years of experience in Human-Computer Interaction and has partnered with multiple organizations to help them build human-centered interfaces.
💬 “A lot of fortune 100 CEOs, they're playing for two to five years, that's how long their tenure is. They're not playing for the long game. We will get a new class of leaders in tune with the long game and interested in how their companies affect not only their stakeholders and their employees and their customers, but also the greater world.” John Thompson
🎙️ John is an international technology executive with over 30 years of experience in the business intelligence and advanced analytics fields. Currently, John is responsible for the global Advanced Analytics & Artificial Intelligence team and efforts at CSL. Prior to CSL, John was an Executive Partner at Gartner and responsible for the advanced analytics business unit of the Dell Software Group. John is the author of the bestselling book – Analytics Teams: Leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence for business improvement. The book was published in June 2020 and outlines how to hire and manage high-performance advanced analytics teams. This is the second time that John has appeared on the show, and this time we talked about the dynamics of leadership, including how the best leaders use data and how leaders are developing new skills this decade to respond to the changing world that we live in.
🎧 In this episode of the Boundless Podcast, John talks about:
💡 1.) why data driven decision making can raise overall level of employee performance, but won’t affect the outliers
💡 2.) similarities and differences in the leadership styles of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos
💡 3.) how the corporate leadership skillset is changing this decade
💬 “AI regulation? I think this war is lost already. AI was an invisible enemy, and until it was too late, we didn’t notice or we didn’t care.“ @Denis Rothman
This is a conversation with Denis Rothman
🎙️ Denis is an Artificial Intelligence designer, author & developer. He created one of the first AI cognitive Chatbots and an AI resource optimisation system which reduces resource consumption, energy and power. Denis’s latest books include: Artificial Intelligence By Example: Acquire advanced AI, machine learning, and deep learning design skills, 2nd Edition and Explainable AI with Python: Interpret, visualize, explain, and integrate reliable AI for fair, secure, and trustworthy AI apps.
In this episode, Denis gave me a free rein to have an open conversation about some of the most challenging questions about Artificial Intelligence power and control and human significance. I hope you enjoy hearing how he addressed these questions.
This is the Boundless Podcast with me your host Richard Foster-Fletcher and my resident Friday co-host Dr. Naeema Pasha from Henley Business School.
💬 “Working with people who think differently forces you to make new connections.” @Dr. Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education and leading on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion global strategy.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
1) Stylianos Taxidis, Head of Data Science & Products at CDP: How to live in the data age
2) Yonah Welker, Explorer and Innovator: Reframing 'inclusion' to 'zero-exclusion'
💬 “Over my discussions with many of my colleagues and people who are involved in mental health, neurodiversity and disability, we agree that we don't need inclusion. We need zero-exclusion.“ Yonah Welker
This is a conversation with Yonah Welker
🎙️ Yonah is a technologist, explorer and Venture Capitalist working on the intersections of technology, artificial intelligence, human ability, society & ethics. He’s founded tech companies and labs, helped to facilitate tech ecosystems across the world, screened hundreds of technologies on behalf of projects and ecosystems with MIT, Singularity University, 500 Startups, Techstars, European Commission and World Economic Forum.
Yohan is interested in algorithmic diversity. How we can reimagine technology, ability, ethics and create open and interconnected ecosystems where anyone has equal access regardless of ability. He asks questions like can we align ability with technology to help individuals to actually perform, not just ‘fit’? His interest in inclusive ecosystems is driven by his own journey which includes neurological and autoimmune disorders which led to isolation and rejection, so much so that he was forced to create personalised learning, development for himself.
This is the Boundless Podcast, and now here’s my conversation with Yonah Welker
💬 “As content selection algorithms become better, we need to consciously seek out opinions different from our own. AI is inadvertently creating a polarised society, and it’s down to us to make it more balanced” Stylianos Taxidis
This is a conversation with Stylianos Taxidis
🎙️ Stylianos is the Head of Data Science & Products at CDP, a not-for-profit charity running the global disclosure system for investors, companies, and regions to manage their environmental impacts. He is very passionate about environmental issues and an advocate of using the evolution in the field of data science to drive meaningful actions for the problems of our generation. He is a true believer of Augmented not Artificial Intelligence for the creation of a synergetic relationship between humans and algorithms.
🎧 In this episode of the @Boundless Podcast, Stylianos talks about:
💡 1.) the rise of the ‘instant expert‘
💡 2.) how AI is augmenting rather replacing true experts
💡 3.) how to change your mind
💬 “Around the world, and particularly in companies, there isn't a mindset of sharing that transcends a mindset of ownership. When we think about technology that can truly save the world, I think we need to take a step back and think, how can we make it the ‘easy choice’ to share and work together.” @Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
1) Jessie Oliver, Australian Citizen Science Association: The role of Citizen Science in sustainability
2) Rose Mwebaza, UN Climate Technology Centre: Driving solutions that scale
💬 “The idea of data being the new oil is outdated, but still there’s companies holding onto data and information that when shared will be extremely useful in solving global problems. This data, in the hands of the right people will absolutely transform systems.” Rose Mwebaza
This is a conversation with Rose Mwebaza
🎙️ Rose is the Director of the UN Climate Technology Centre and has 20 years’ experience providing policy advice on a wide range of climate change, environment and sustainable development issues. She has previously served as Chief Natural Resources Officer at the African Development Bank, and held leadership positions within the UN Development Programme. Rose holds a PhD in Environment and Natural Resource Governance, a Master’s Degree in International Comparative Law and a Bachelor of Law Degree.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “With AI, we are learning things that we've never had the ability to learn before about species conservation. This is crucial. We can’t protect species if we don’t know or don’t understand them.” @Jessie Oliver
This is a conversation with Jessie Oliver
🎙️ Jessie is passionate about avian ecology and environmental outreach. She has been heavily involved in the development of the Australian Citizen Science Association (ACSA) since its inception and is currently the ACSA International Liaison. Since 2015, Jessie has been researching how to design technologies that entice people to have fun, meaningful, and impactful experiences with nature, with citizen science, and with wildlife conservation activities. Jessie also explores the alignments of citizen science with the use of artificial intelligence and conservation technology.
Jessie says that many people around the world are deploying audio recorders into nature and gathering huge amounts of data that can reveal invaluable information about ecosystems and wildlife that live in them. However, analysing this data is tricky, requiring both technical and animal call knowledge. Environmental recordings have potential to be more accessible for broader uses in nature engagement, citizen science, and wildlife conservation, but technologies that are both fun and useful are needed for acoustic sensing to reach its full potential.
With this in mind, she is investigating how to design technologies that provide delightful and informative ways to explore audio recordings. Her research is centred around exploring the potential that acoustic sensing may be useful to find secretive, endangered Eastern bristlebirds. In this research, she has worked with conservationists involved in bristlebird recovery efforts, birders and additional citizen scientists, as well as members of the broader public, to uncover needs for future technologies to explore and analyse audio recordings.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
Key links to support the episode:
-
The Earth School Citizen Science Quest for a sampler of globally relevant projects:
-- https://magazine.scienceconnected.org/2020/07/earth-school-take-a-nature-quest/ -
Search for projects of interest or get inspired to create your own:
-- SciStarter (https://scistarter.org/; Based in U.S.A with some global projects)
-- Australian Citizen Science Project Finder (https://biocollect.ala.org.au/acsa)
-- European Citizen Science Project Finder (https://eu-citizen.science/all/)
-- Asia Citizen Science Projects: Project Tracker (http://projects.citizenscience.asia/) -
Citizen science associations, networks, & partnerships:
-- Australian Citizen Science Association (https://citizenscience.org.au/)
-- European CitizenScience Association (https://ecsa.citizen-science.net/)
-- U.S.based Citizen Science Association (https://www.citizenscience.org/)
-- Iberoamerican Network of Participatory Science (http://cienciaparticipativa.net/the-ricap/)
-- Citizen Science Asia (http://www.citizenscience.asia/)
-- Citizen Science Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (#CITSCINZ) (https://monicalogues.com/2020/08/25/the-citizenscience-association-of-aotearoa-new-zealand-wrapping-up-year-one)
-- Citizen Science for the Amazon Network (https://www.amazoniacienciaciudadana.org/)
-- Brazilian Birdwatching & Citizen Science Network (https://www.wikiaves.com.br/)
-- Citizen Science Global Partnership (http://citizenscienceglobal.org/) -
Follow Jessie and her work via:
-- LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessieloliver/)
-- Twitter (https://twitter.com/JessieLOliver)
-- Publications via Research Gate or ORCiD
💬 “I do think that we need to let go of the idea of our country being part of our identity. What we need is to come together globally and pool and share our resources; food, water, energy, technology. This is vital to enable a bigger portion of the world to function with better equality." Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
1) Michal Nachmany, Climate Policy and Data Expert: NetZero: who is accountable for what
2) Youssef Nassef, Climate Adaptation Director - UNFCCC: Living through the time of transition
💬 “We've solved acid rain, we solved the ozone hole, and we will solve hopefully COVID-19. But, do we want to continue living our lives waiting for the next environmental hazard to materialize and then looking for ways to react to it? Or is it time now to think of transforming the world towards different values?” @Youssef Nassef
This is a conversation with Youssef Nassef
🎙️ Youssef is the Coordinator of Adaptation at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. He possesses 30 years of experience in diplomacy and international environmental policy and is a seconded diplomat from the Egyptian Foreign Service. In 2019 Youssef launched Resilience Frontiers, a two-year collective intelligence process that began with the Resilience Frontiers 2019 conference in Songdo, South Korea.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “In 2006, Lord Nicholas stern was commissioned by the British government to estimate the economic price of climate change. Fixing climate change, he said at the time, would cost 1-2% of world GDP. Everyone took a gasp. But then he continued, not fixing climate change would cost about 20% of world GDP.” @Michal Nachmany
This is a conversation with Michal Nachmany
🎙️ Michal currently leads the work on the Grantham Research Institute’s structured datasets and tools, supporting evidence-based decision-making – from national legislation and policy to low-carbon investment practices.
Since 2013 She has been leading the Grantham Research Institute’s Climate Change Laws of the World project – the most comprehensive global resource on climate legislation and policy – taking it from a printed annual publication covering 33 countries to a dynamic online, open-access resource with global coverage and a wide engagement programme.
Since 2018 she has also been project managing the Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) – an investor-led initiative to support companies’ transition to a low-carbon economy. Supported by investors with over $18 trillion in Assets under Management and Advice, TPI tracks climate governance and emissions trajectories by the highest emitting companies worldwide, to facilitate evidence-based investor engagement and investment.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “First and foremost, what we need is clear data. We need to know what impact our choices are making.” Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
@Janet Salem, Economic Affairs Officer, Circular Economy at United Nations on sustainability startups across the globe
@Imtiaz Adam, Founder at Deep Learn Strategies: Building a GreenTech Recovery with AI IoT and 5G
💬 “"The shift from narrow to broad AI will include learning from smaller data sets and hence result in computational efficiency. The possibilities for new business models and innovations across the entire economy including for breaking from ‘business as usual’ towards environmental sustainability are huge.” @Imtiaz Adam
This is a conversation with Imtiaz Adam
🎙️ Imtiaz is a Data Scientist and Machine Learning engineer. He has an MSc in Computer Science with research in AI Deep Learning, an MBA and is a Sloan Fellow in Strategy from London Business School. He also served as a Director of Morgan Stanley where he was global head of clean technology infrastructure financing.
🎧 In this episode, Imtiaz talks about the importance of connecting technologies, environmental sustainability and new job creation with our economic recovery from COVID-19. His focus in this conversation is on Broad AI, 5g IoT and AI on the edge. Imtiaz explains that today we have narrow AI whereby the machine can perform specific tasks and the powerful Deep Learning algorithms of today require Big Data sets for training. The learning process is quite different to that of a human child and entails vast amounts of labelled data sets. Looking ahead, he says, we are closer to moving into broad AI that will empower Deep Learning to perform broader tasks. The shift to broad AI will include learning from smaller data sets and enable more computational efficiency. Furthermore, the Broad AI era will enable intelligent devices for AI IoT where the Internet of Things converges with AI Edge Computing. Imtiaz says that AI techniques such as Federated Learning with decentralized data will also deliver gains in data privacy as well as efficiency.
Overarchingly we will move to a more efficient and also more capable era of AI that will also deliver services that may be used in fighting climate change such as devices and sensors that may enable real-time interactions with people and also objects such as buildings, manufacturing facilities, energy systems, smart cities do as to optimize for efficiency gains and reduce unwanted wastage and pollution. Imtiaz references a PWC and Microsoft report that sets out huge numbers of greenhouse gas emissions reduction and job creation that AI could deliver by 2030.
💬 “The IPCC has said that it's too late to avert climate change through the supply side alone, therefore as individuals, we need to shift our consumption behaviour. But the producer is also responsible for our consumption, so they're going to need to help us shift our consumption choices to more sustainable options.” @Janet Salem
This is a conversation with Janet Salem
🎙️ Janet has worked for the United Nations for over 13 years in Paris, Vienna and now in Bangkok where she leads the Asia and the Pacific work on sustainable lifestyles and innovation. Her current role with the UN is as Economic Affairs Officer for Circular Economy.
🎧 In this episode, Janet talks about how the ecosystem of startup companies working on environmental sustainability has changed and developed over the last few years. In her role at the UN they track not only the successful companies but those that do not succeed in scaling up. The reason is that often the failure of a company can be down to legislation or regulation, so this data can help to promote the relevant changes in policy that will create a better platform of success for the next company. Janet talks about the global surge in startups including in Asia.
With over 50% of India now having access to the internet, more and more business ideas are being created, getting noticed and getting funded in that region. She explains that the transition to sustainable business and a circular economy is driving these business leaders, but unfortunately, capital is still mostly going to safe projects and proven technologies.
One way to change the way the capital is invested is to look to the leadership of Jacinda Ardern in New Zealand. The NZ Treasury has been instructed that, when planning policies or modelling future economic scenarios for New Zealand, it can no longer only consider the impact on GDP growth. Instead, it must include social, human, and natural considerations into its thinking.
Janet talks about responsibility. Who is accountable for what, and remarks on the disposable coffee cup as an example of failure in sustainable practice, failure in policymaking and failure in economics. But she says, whilst consumers need to change, there also must be viable alternatives.
Finally, Janet talks about the power of visualisation. A theme throughout this series and she explains what she’s been working on recently with Sony and new immersive technologies.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “Some people benefit from home working, but the research shows that face-to-face meetings are much better for developing ideas. The University of Stanford has published research that says in 2021 we could lose out on innovation because we haven't got that face-to-face connectivity.” Dr. Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
Diane Mulcahy, Institutional Investor: “The future of work is here, it's not just evenly distributed”
Murray Grubb Jnr, Director of CX & Strategic Accounts at Oracle: “AI use in marketing still needs humans”
💬 “In most cases customer loyalty simply doesn’t exist anymore and that’s why AI in marketing still needs that human touch; validation points and constant checkpoints throughout the process. One mistake and your customer is gone for good.” @Murray Grubb Jnr
This is a conversation with Murray Grubb Jnr
🎙️ Murray heads up the Aviation Sector and strategic accounts in Oracle to drive Digital Transformation, User Adoption and Acceptance of modern digital services. He is a former Elected Politician, Speaker, Panellist, Judge and Industry Expert on all forms of Digital Engagement.
🎧 In this episode, Murray talks about brand ‘authenticity’ as being critical, and gives some great examples of this, but explains that, as we have learned from the pandemic, the world can change swiftly and companies cannot rely on their AI to support consumer personalisation when new buyer data takes time to build. Murray talks about the importance of keeping the human in the loop especially at times like this and why consumer loyalty to a brand is wafer-thin and that one mistake, whether from a human or from your AI can turn a customer away for life.
💬 “One impact of COVID-19 is that some workers now care less about the external signs of success and care more about things like freedom, flexibility and autonomy. That is difficult for some companies to shift towards, because it means they have less control over what success looks like. @Diane Mulcahy
This is a conversation with Diane Mulcahy
🎙️ Diane is the author of the bestselling book ‘The Gig Economy’. Diane is a consultant, speaker and lecturer and currently an Advisor to the Kauffman Foundation, where she manages the venture capital portfolio. She is the author of ‘We Have Met the Enemy … and He Is Us’, a widely read report on the VC industry.
🎧 In this episode, I asked Diane if COVID-19 has changed, revealed or accelerated the future of work. She perceives that predominately it has accelerated the future of work towards more permanent remote working, and it’s established new types of employee motivations. Diane discusses how leaders and leadership models are adjusting to reflect changes in employees desires for increase autonomy and flexibility.
But not all employees want to be based from home and although a number of high profile technology companies announced permanent work from home strategies, that may not be the end of that story. We haven’t yet discovered the longer-term impacts of distributed teams on creativity and innovation. Whilst the future may be uncertain for remote working, Diane has hopes that the change in mindset created by COVID-19 could encourage employers to increase flexibly in areas like holiday and working hours and to recruit from a far wider geographic pool of candidates. Diane is an expert on gig working, and she talks about trust within the workplace, particularly around the collection and use of data. She also explained how a lack of trust can drive employees towards freelance work or gig work where they have more control over their work, including their hours and location. Finally, I asked Diane for some advice to people entering the workforce for the first time during the global pandemic.
💬 “Sometimes you just need someone to step up and say, ‘we can do this’. When we look back at how we addressed climate change this decade, we will see that this person was not the one that had the best ideas, or even made the biggest impact on the cause. It was the person who made the biggest impact on the people.” Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎧 In this conversation, Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
1) Gavin Starks, Founder at IcebreakerOne.org: The power of Open Data
2) Andrew Zolli, VP Global Impact Initiatives at Planet: Leveraging the big pause for climate action
💬 “Rather than thinking that we need to ‘fix’ capitalism, we can think about encouraging a flourishing of diversity and different ways of living on earth. All to move us to something that is sustainable in terms of human capacity and civilization.” @Andrew Zolli
This is a conversation with Andrew Zolli
🎙️ Andrew oversees Global Impact initiatives at Planet, a breakthrough space and AI organization that has deployed the largest constellation of Earth-observing satellites in history. These satellites image our whole planet every day in high resolution, and his team makes sure this data is ethically used to its highest and best purposes to monitor the world’s ecosystems, improve humanitarian action and disaster response, protect human rights, transform sustainable development and advance scientific discovery. Planet is exploring how their tools can inform the next iteration of capitalism, where social and environmental externalities are more effectively measured and valued.
🎧 In this episode, Andrew reflects on how 2020 has been a remarkable year for change: he mentioned Black Lives Matter calling it the culmination of social conscience of a whole generation which expressed a broad and deep desire for change. And we saw, albeit in the most painful way possible a glimpse of what a lower carbon future might look like through COVID-19 lockdowns.
Andrews refers to this as a glimpse that a better world might be possible. He spoke about resilience a subject that he’s written extensively about. He provides an in-depth commentary on resilience, referencing it as amongst other things, as the ability to persist, recover, or even thrive amid disruption. And in every system, most societal responses to disruptions are, what adhocratic. We use our knowledge, wisdom, and our rehearsal of disasters and disruptions and combine them with our own imaginative capacity so that we can engage in improvisational kinds of behaviours.
He describes our response to climate change to be more like jazz than classical music. Living systems always orbit a healthy range of different States, a dynamic disequilibrium. And in that disequilibrium is where we find new innovations. We try new experiments, things change, and we adapt and adjust and learn and grow. This experimentation, Andrew says, is also a form of resilience.
Coming back to practical points, Andrew points out that the company Amazon is measured millions of times a day to assess its value. But the Amazon rainforest is not measured nearly as frequently. As we don't value what we don't measure. It's not valued nearly as much. With our current economic systems we only value the trees when they are cut, or land when it’s cleared, we are missing the incredibly important role that the trees are playing while they're standing up, which is that they're enabling humanity to breathe.
So capitalism has produced enormous wealth, but it treats the value of nature as optional. The global capitalist system, Andrew, says cannot continue. We have to align climate and capital. And we must acknowledge that there are many pathways. Rather than fixing capitalism, we want to encourage a flourish of diversity, of civilization, different ways of living on the earth, all in an effort to move us to something that is both sustainable and flourishing in terms of human capacity and civilization.
We have to make the invisible visible for people so that we can reinforce these messages and visualize the interconnected relationships between our planet and our economy. We need to create new norms. Doing away with this idea of dominance over the earth, and encouraging thinking for the long-term.
Andrew works for Planet, helping organizations all over the world to access and act on earth data. There is a huge role for data, analysis and AI since the scale and size and speed of the challenges we're confronting are bigger than our cognition.
We're living through the sixth extinction, but we're also living through the second Renaissance. Through a period when our tools, have never been more powerful. More powerful than many of us are aware of he says. Tools that can combat the weaponization of misinformation and provide evidence when things happen. Planet helps its clients to use the satellite imagery to prove when environmental catastrophes happen, which can be used as evidence at times when governments try to cover up disasters.
Finally, Andrew talks about how the observations have shown how quickly some natural systems recover from intense human impacts. He has seen rewilding initiated on the scale of weeks to months, proof that the earth can and will survive. Andrew is confident that life will flourish on the earth again. This is the moment to think and act in ways that will get humanity into a position where it can flourish along with the rest of the life on the planet.
💬 “As a benchmark, we spent two to three times our GDP creating the railways, effectively creating the industrial revolution. The idea that we're going to somehow re-engineer and de-carbonise everything for some small percentage of our GDP, I think is magical thinking.” Gavin Starks
This is a conversation with Gavin Starks
🎙️ Gavin helps solve complex challenges. He has co-created over a dozen organisations, building multi-disciplinary teams fit for a digital age. He explores the impact of data on business, society and culture which has led to roles such as co-chair of the Open Banking Standard and founding CEO of the Open Data Institute.
🎧 In this episode, Gavin talks about the mindset and actions needed to create a working blueprint for the freer sharing and licensing of data at scale. He explains why this approach is critical for making a green and sustainable recovery possible. He uses the example of creating an effective, decentralized and distributed energy grid that incorporates shared data, describing this as a federated decentralized approach to data sharing. But he warns that this isn’t possible without a culture shift.
Gavin defines open data and shared data and explains the differences between these two concepts. He explains open data by comparing it to Open Banking where there's a common standard for all parties that are working in the banking sector and hundreds of different FinTech companies to share information across the whole network, but maintaining privacy and consent. Gavin talks about how this approach has democratised access to the marketplace for financial information and could be a useful mechanism for other industries.
I asked him if the movement of money particularly investment has responded to the changes in risk, particularly risk related to climate change. He sees positive change here but warms about the speed of progress. Physics, he says, doesn't really care about how quickly we are able to change our systems. We need to be moving faster to decarbonise all of our activities.
To drive home the gulf in our actions to what is needed, he points out that the UK spent two to three times its GDP creating the railways and so the idea that we're going to somehow re-engineer everything for some small percentage of our GDP is magical thinking. But Gavin says, if are able to adopt the principles of a war economy, then we can achieve remarkable things, at scale and at speed. And even between our first conversation and this recording, something remarkable happened when China announced its goal to be carbon neutral by 2060. This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “Every day our devices serve up business stats to us; number of downloads, sales, signups, etc. Can we add air quality, % of renewable energy, water pollution levels to those? I think to act on climate information, we need to see climate information… the stuff that matters to us.” Richard Foster-Fletcher
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is @Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with:
Kristin Gutekunst, CEO at Overview Collective: Leveraging XR for Climate Impact
Steven Ramage, Head of External Relations at Group on Earth Observations (GEO): How businesses are harnessing earth observation data
💬 “There's a lot of people who are making decisions that affect our day to day lives, that don't understand the data, nor the technology that is influencing those decisions” Steven Ramage
This is a conversation with Steven Ramage
🎙️ Steven leads global stakeholder engagement and external relations for the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), an intergovernmental partnership promoting the value and usefulness of Earth observations (EO) for research, policy, decisions and action. He has worked in the private sector and consulted for the World Bank and the United Nations.
🎧 In this episode, Steven talks about the important work that the Group on Earth Observations known as GEO is doing. GEO is an intergovernmental partnership working to improve the availability, access and use of open Earth observations, including satellite imagery, remote sensing and in situ data, to impact policy and decision making in a wide range of sectors. Earth observations play a major role in achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
For example, GEO makes available Earth observations in support of effective policy responses for climate change adaptation, mitigation and other specific provisions, working with partners to enhance global observation systems for climate action. Also, Earth observations contribute to disaster preparedness and better mitigation and response.
When it comes to getting stakeholder buy-in for your idea, project or partnership Steven shared two important factors with us that will create action from your data – the first is use the power of storytelling and the second, is to use the language of the decision-maker. We all have our own acronyms and vernacular, but if we can’t transcend these to speak someone else’s language then we will miss out on important opportunities. And when it comes to climate change, we can’t avoid to miss these.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “The human spirit is so resilient and if we can provide some of the vulnerable people around the world with the tools they need, they will often be able to use them to great advantage.” Kristin Gutekunst
This is a conversation with Kristin Gutekunst
🎙️ Kristin is an expert in new media, brand, and partnerships with over 10 years of progressive experience working at the United Nations in campaigning for development, particularly through the combination of high-level advocacy strategies, grassroots mobilization, youth engagement, and innovative communications such as immersive media and experiential marketing. Many of the projects she has developed and launched have been streamlined, becoming standard for new media and communications at the UN as it has embraced the opportunity of the Sustainable Development Goals.
🎧 In this episode, Kristin talks about how Virtual Reality technologies are allowing stories to be told in new and novel ways, and are part of the new narrative in charitable giving to focus on the resilience, hope and ingenuity of individuals around the world. Individuals that when given better tools, can use these to better themselves and those around them.
Kristin charts a brief history of how we got to this new narrative, one that focuses on the quality and impact of the giving. Impact is a keyword for Kristin, she works with brilliant storytellers and technologists so that she can focus on how to amplify the message and use it to create lasting and significant change. Examples she gives, are by linking the impacts of climate change to the changes in your local community, things that people can see and have bearing on their day to day lives. There’s sometimes a feeling of disconnect, insignificance or overwhelm that causes inaction at the individual level and Kristin is working on successful strategies to overcome all of these with technologies, data and the power of storytelling.
Finally, she talks about the importance of being able to visualise data, something that until now has only been possible in 2D, is now both immersive and in 3D. She says this difference makes a big difference.
This is the Infinite Leaders series on the Boundless Podcast, we are exploring how Digital Transformation, Data and Artificial Intelligence can promote, provide engagement and deliver environmental sustainability.
💬 “Technology can drive positive social change, but only if the technology is utilized for that specific purpose. With this in mind, we need to be consciously driving technology and ourselves in that direction.” Jon Thor Sigurleifsson
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.
🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with @David Jensen and Professor Dirk Messner. Our topics included:
💡 1.) measuring and managing our carbon footprint
💡 2.) turning knowledge into action
💡 3.) the emphasis on individuals vs. corporations and governments
💡 4.) how big retailers can affect change
💡 5.) why equality is better for rich people
💬 “The level of expertise about what digitalization means for sustainable economic development is very, very minor. We must close the links on these two mega trends, as right now digital technologies are driving even more consumption. When we link digitalisation and artificial intelligence to the new modernization paradigm, which is about sustainability and climate protection, that’s when change will accelerate.” Professor Dirk Messner
This is a conversation with Professor Dirk Messner
🎙️ Dirk is the President of the German Environment Agency. He is an internationally renowned sustainability scientist, and was the Director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn and Co-Chairman of the German Advisory Council on Global Change.
🎧 In this episode, Dirk talks about how we connect transformational digital technologies with sustainable development and disconnect gross resource consumption emissions from gross resource efficiency. He explains the complications with trying to use technology, which in itself creates more consumption, to reduce consumption. There is somewhat of a paradoxical nature to pointing technology at environmental sustainability. But Dirk describes a civilisational shift akin to the industrial revolution, even the Neolithic revolution that we are about to become a part of. He provides some ideas and answers to these challenges, including how we need to connect more digitalisation knowledge to climate knowledge and tax companies based on emissions rather than employees.
He is focussed on the integration of currently diverse and separate systems and describes how rapid investment from and into Europe could make our region a global leader for climate action. Dirk dips into history to show that at times like these, we tend to go backwards before we go forward. He references the two world wars to explain this phenomenon and with this in mind, he hopes this won’t be the case now with climate change, and that we can find a way to move directly forward.
It was an honour to speak with Professor Messner, his global expertise and connections are without parallel in terms of combining sustainable development, environment and policy advice on sustainability research.
💬 “It's happened a few times that the colleagues in different tech companies have expressed how concerned they are about the immense potential knowledge and power these companies have and how important it is to govern this knowledge and this power.” David Jensen
This is a conversation with David Jensen
🎙️ David works at the UN Environment Programme as the coordinator of the Digital Transformation Task Force and the head of Policy and Innovation for the Crisis Management Branch. He is helping to write the digital transformation strategy for UN Environment to amplify and accelerate their adoption of digital technologies, practices and mindsets. He has also been advising the UN Science Policy Business Forum on these topics and was the co-author of a flagship discussion paper entitled The Case for a Digital Ecosystem for the Environment. David is also the co-founder of different digital platforms, including EarthSchool, Environmental Peacebuilding and MapX as well as a series on a Digital Ecosystem for the Planet on Medium.
🎧 In this episode, David talks about how digital technology is going to lead to a massive transformation around supply chain trends. However, currently, we still need a shared vision between organizations like the UN and their corporate partners and the big technology companies and the other stakeholders about how we can ensure that the digital economy actually achieves global sustainability and takes us towards the sustainable development goals, rather than in the other direction. We talked about how important it is for organizations like the UN to step further into this conversation and begin to put a governance framework around the digital economy. David highlights the importance of partnerships, particularly with technology companies.
But says they only really work when we have the guidelines, the standards and the safeguards. That means that these partnerships are compatible with the public interest. He goes on to say that currently there isn't a huge amount of transparency in the underlying business model of these types of partnerships.
And he raises his concerns about technological dependencies, which could be being created right now. One area that he says has great potential is citizen science. And allowing individuals everywhere to collect collate and analyze environmental data. We talked about who needs to own the data, the support, sustainable development, especially around the infrastructure and how we can work to ensure that it's open public and transparent.
David explains how digital technologies could be used as nudging tools to help us as consumers to make better choices. And he puts out a rallying call for this to be a priority. For the big eCommerce players, I will share David's final words from the episode here, which you could enjoy hearing again from him later on the future is what we make it.
We can decide to use the technology for good and to advance global sustainability, or we can decide to use it for maximizing profits and driving hyper-consumption. It's really up to us as a global community to decide.
💬 “It's not always about what you get back for sharing your company data. Take energy distribution, for example, it’s vital that a number of key companies share their EV data with the grid and that this trusted ecosystem of shared data becomes a new baseline of doing business.” @Richard Foster-Fletcher
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with @Scott Taylor and @Edosa Odaro. Our topics included:
💡 1.) data use in the enterprise; a massive opportunity or a mirage
💡 2.) using data to strengthen democracy and trustworthiness
💡 3.) how we can encourage data sharing within trusted ecosystems
💡 4.) the origins of the phrase ‘data is the new oil’
💡 5.) creating a culture of trust
💬 “We need to be mindful as leaders in organisations deploying AI, that if we're doing something that we don’t feel good telling our mum's about, then there's a very good chance that that thing is not right.” Edosa Odaro
This is a conversation with Edosa Odaro
🎙️ Edosa is a global cross-industry leader currently serving as Chief Business Officer at Theory+Practice. He is passionate about deploying effective AI and data solutions, about applying behavioural economics for solving complex real-world problems and most of all about developing services that predetermine the actual return for his clients on their Data, AI & Technology investments. In a previous role, he was a Head of Data at the world's second-largest financial services company and responsible for driving significant people, data and cloud transformation.
🎧 In this episode, Edosa talks about the reaction from the general public to problems that occur when we cede control to machines – from autonomous vehicles to recommendation engines. He explores the reasons why we find harm caused by machines so distasteful, even when on balance they make our safer and less accident-prone. Edosa talked about whether these challenges around perception are better addressed through machine and AI explainability or by creating a culture of openness and transparency in the businesses that create the technology way before any incidents happen.
This led our conversation onto trust and what that means for a modern business that deploys frontier technologies. Edosa explained that there’s still too many examples of where we are coding bias into our AI models, albeit this is usually an intended consequence, it’s still a reminder of how far we have to go in a field of technology that prioritises scale and impact.
We also delved into the push and pull options available to retailers based on how they can incentivise or penalise certain customer types based on shopping habits, such as those that are heavy returners of goods such as fashion. Edosa was kind enough to explore a couple of examples that I presented based on the hospitality industry. Finally, I asked Edosa my quick-fire AI questions, which you may enjoy hearing his answers to.
💬 “Untethering data from technology, I believe, is one of the most important organizational changes that is happening. And that’s because data is not based on software, it's not based on technical aspects, it's based on how it helps the business” Scott Taylor
This is a conversation with Scott Taylor
🎙️ Scott, The Data Whisperer, has helped countless companies “calm data down” by enlightening business executives to the value and power of proper data management. He focuses on business alignment and the “strategic WHY” rather than system implementation and the “technical HOW.” As Principal Consultant for MetaMeta Consulting, he helps Enterprises and Tech Brands tell their data story.
As a recognized influencer and subject matter expert in the data management space, he has worked with global enterprises by representing some of the world’s most iconic business data brands including Dun & Bradstreet, Nielsen, Microsoft and WPP/Kantar in a variety of strategic marketing, go to market, innovation and consulting roles.
🎧 In this episode, Scott talks about how the world changed when someone thought to put the word big before data, he describes the fall out of confusion and bright shiny object syndrome that ensued. I asked him how companies are doing in the basics, the basics of organising, structuring and understanding their internal data so that downstream projects can be successful, such as an internet of things strategy, or an AI project.
Scott talked about whether it’s wise to try and monetise your data by selling it to third parties, and whether it’s better to have a data leader in your organisation or to spread this knowledge and responsibility across the business. Sometimes, he says, the Chief Data Officer is quite as chief-like as it may sound. But it still might be a route into the CEO role in the future. But Scott warns, these prospective CEO’s from the data division will have to learn how to successfully tell business stories, which means they need to know and talk the business language. Technical language won’t cut it. And they need to remember that they’re competing for attention and budget with the Chief of Sales and the Chief of Marketing, two leaders that tell stories for a living.
Finally, Scott told us about the success of his puppets of data and the impact they have had on his story and his social influence and he explained the meaning of his moniker ‘the data whisperer’.
💬 “New organisations are springing up where the service they offer is to help you game an AI system and get around the algorithms.” Dr. Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes which included a recent talk I gave and my conversation with @Riham Satti. Our topics included:
💡 1.) why tech companies may have to work harder than other industries to create trust
💡 2.) the problem with binary/digital style thinking (credit to Paul Levy given)
💡 3.) the need to encourage employees to ignore data if you want real creativity
💡 4.) the brain, decision making and clarification on biases
💡 5.) gaming AI systems in the recruitment process
💬 “We need to have a diversity of ideas and diversity of solutions to solve this diversity and inclusion problem. It’s about how we process information differently. Bias training doesn't change our mindset, so I think we need to discover how AI and augmented intelligence can tackle this.” Riham Satti
This is a conversation with Riham Satti
🎙️ Riham is a clinical neuroscientist turned entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO of MeVitae, a cognitive recruiting system that makes intelligent and personalised hiring decisions.
🎧 In this episode, Riham explains what has to happen in businesses to address and tackle diversity challenges. She clarifies exactly why this is so important, not just because of fairness, not just because it offers more opportunity to more people, but because it’s going to be the single, most powerful driver for business transformation. In my opinion, a company’s ability to understand, address and benefit from D&I, (Diversity and inclusion) will directly correlate to their ability to innovate, to democratise decision making and ideas from across all the workforce and find their own route quickly to environmental sustainability.
As we always say on this show, everything is connected.
Solve gender inequality around the world and it’s possible that you’ll probably make big progress in addressing social justice, climate action and innovation gaps. Whilst Riham’s work focusses on HR hiring processes, there’s no way I could resist asking some massive questions about human cognitive evolution, limits and opportunities to a guest with Masters degrees in neuroscience and biomedical engineering. As you know we don’t do much small talk on this show, and if you like big talk, then you’ll definitely enjoy the start of this episode.
💬 “There’s this idea that in business we go on a journey with AI that starts with automating repetitive tasks to then augmenting decision making. And when we do, us humans, will be free to pursue new creative endeavours. I'm not sure I see enough evidence to support this logic yet. AI, to date, has been more adept at narrowing our perspectives, than widening them.” Richard Foster-Fletcher
Today I wanted to share something a little different with you. This is part of a guest lecture that I’ve been giving a number of Universities. It incorporates some of the ideas and themes that we’ve been discussing lately on the show. I use this talk to challenge the perception that AI in corporations to naturally going to set free human innovation and creativity. In fact, I put forward an opposing view, that AI in corporations will create echo-chambers of ideas and processes, similar to how AI created echo-chambers of views and beliefs on social media. I hope you enjoy this episode and we’ll be back with regular programming later this week.
This is the Boundless Podcast with me your host Richard Foster-Fletcher and my resident Friday co-host Dr. Naeema Pasha from Henley Business School.
💬 “Diversity isn't something that we do because it's a nice thing. If the CEO wants their organization to win, they've got to hire the kind of team that is going to get them there. A team that can transform them.” @Dr Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode, Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with @Karen Silverman and @Raj Balasundaram. Our topics included:
💡 1.) could the AI story mirror the story of genetically modified food?
💡 2.) the slim line between AI recommendations and AI influence
💡 3.) what powers innovation in the enterprise
💡 4.) the transformation of HR in the age of diversity
💡 5.) can AI save the fashion industry?
💬 “AI is not your salesperson, stop asking it to do that. AI as a mechanism to support your consumer in their own needs. This idea is a big mind-shift for brands, because their first instinct with AI is to try and use it to sell more. Think, make sure you work for the consumer first. A happy consumer leads in the end, to a happy brand.” @Raj Balasundaram
This is a conversation with Raj Balasundaram
🎙️ Raj is an Artificial Intelligence and Digital Marketing Evangelist. He is a tech storyteller, mentor and teacher simplifying complex digital challenges into common sense to passionately advocate customer-centricity marketing techniques. It is his second appearance on the Boundless podcast, and we are delighted to welcome him back.
🎧 In this episode, Raj and I talk about the trend towards using AI to serve individual consumers needs at scale. The implications of this are significant, particularly in the fashion industry. Raj described the problem that the fashion business experiences in detail, the over-stocking, the discounting, the environmental footprint and the waste, before and after-sale. He explains that AI has a solution to this and describes what will have to happen with the technology, from the brands and through the consumer for us to get there. It’s an incredible vision and one that will disrupt the whole industry, creating a step-change in the supply chain and the revenues. Although Raj is a Senior Vice President in an innovative AI company, he comes on to the show to share his own personal views and beliefs.
💬 “It’s not easy for one human being with one set of experiences to understand the implications of AI, and that’s the challenge for a decision-maker. When AI generates a prediction, it can be crazy smart or simply crazy. A leader needs to learn how to tell the difference.” @Karen Silverman
🎙️ Karen is the CEO and Founder of The Cantellus Group an innovative advisory group helping business to successfully navigate applied AI and frontier technologies. She was formerly a managing partner of Latham & Watkins, LLP San Francisco office, where she led the firm’s partnership with the World Economic Forum.
Karen is a leading voice on harnessing the power of advanced technologies and building trustworthy AI and frontier technology systems. She is a globally recognized leader in corporate antitrust matters, having successfully guided hundreds of transactions through complex regulatory challenges and enterprise-critical government investigations to completion. In 2019 Karen was named by the Financial Times as a Top Ten Innovative Lawyer and by the California Daily Journal as a Top AI Attorney in California.
🎧 In this episode, Karen and I talk about what makes AI and frontier technologies such as Blockchain, Augmented and Virtual Reality and bioengineering different from previous technologies and the implications of these differences. We discussed what a CEO needs to know and do to navigate frontier technologies and the big challenges that persist with trying to successfully adopt and scale AI in the enterprise. Karen talks about what her company does to try and address these challenges and where she sees significant innovation opportunities for businesses.
We had a robust conversation about the challenges ahead for HR leaders as they work towards incorporating an augmented and digital workforce and we spoke about business ethics with AI and about knowing where and when to draw the line of data use. Karen explained that we may be better to legislate specific AI use cases rather than the developments or models.
She warns against AI applications suffering the same challenges that genetically modified organisms technologies have, where GMO was viewed as uncontrollable, unnatural and undesirable.
💬 “Amazon wants to win at e-commerce by removing the sale. They'll send you stuff in the mail and you'd send back what you don’t want. The genius behind that is not that their AI so brilliant that they'll still make a profit, even with the stuff you send back. The genius is that there is no sale. You can't compete with Amazon for a sale, if there isn't one.” Richard Foster-Fletcher
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode, Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with David W. Sime and Geoff Keeling. Our topics included:
💡 1.) new kingdoms and monopolies in VR
💡 2.) persuasion and influence in new media
💡 3.) flipping AI influencing our biases, to AI illuminating our biases
💡 4.) human decision making and climate change
💡 5.) AI and behavioural psychology
💬 “The point of AI is to satisfy people's preferences, but there are two ways to this. One is to adjust the world to fit the preferences. The other is to adjust the preferences to fit the world. And it seems like the latter is what's increasingly going on. That’s definitely not what we want, so we need a plausible criteria for when somebody’s preferences are being unduly influenced in a way which is not appropriate.” Dr. Geoff Keeling
🎙️ Dr. Geoff Keeling is a Research Fellow in AI Ethics at Stanford University. He is based in the Center for Ethics in Society and the Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. Geoff’s work is about the safe and ethical design of emerging technologies. His current research is about the ethical design and regulation of machine learning in medicine; and the ethics of automated vehicles. Geoff’s broader interests include ethical decision-making under uncertainty, alongside foundational questions about the nature of rationality, reasons, evidence, and probability.
🎧 In this episode, Geoff and I talk pragmatically about how capable and useful human decision making is when we objectively examine the torrid state of nations, equality and the climate. There’s a huge amount of bias in that question, but it’s something that I want to hear the experts answer, albeit many people do not agree with the premise of that question. Geoff addressed this and we examined the role of the individual and society in decision making and the associated payoffs and exactly what reasoning we wish machines to do and when? Also whether this would be better as reactive to situations or pro-active? For example, should machines be permitted to pro-actively intervene when they recognise opportunities to save lives? We talked about the differences between AI meeting needs and influencing needs, and I asked Geoff how thin the line is between influence and exploitation. We talked about Cambridge Analytica and I asked if this group of people could work out how to exploit our innate human biases, could we instead use AI to illuminate these biases.
Coming to autonomous vehicles, Geoff explained and explored the trolley problem, something he wrote his thesis on in 2019, and he was quick to rationalise the limitations with this idea in self-driving cars. I asked him how two non-experts could have a useful and relevant conversation about autonomous cars, avoiding the pitfalls and the hype. I asked Geoff where it’s useful to think and talk about Artificial General Intelligence at this point in history.
We came full circle and again I asked Geoff about human decision making and whether our perspective is limited to a few living voices. I gave my own thoughts on how we largely ignore the needs of animals, nature and the unborn and finally I asked Geoff what people ask him about his work at dinner parties. It was a real privilege to spend time with Geoff, he was very generous with his time and enthusiasm for this conversation. I find his perspectives to be fascinating, and I hope you do too.
💬 “There's VR hardware out there which is suspiciously cheap. This raises alarm bells. For example, to use one particular headset, you have to log into that social media channel. That’s a company that wants your data.” @David W. Sime
This is a conversation with David Sime
🎙️ David is a multi-award winning AR and VR production manager with over twenty years of digital media experience. David works with Google and the Chartered Institute of Marketing and directs the immersive media agency Oncor Reality. He is a published author on the application of Virtual and Augmented Reality in both mental and physical healthcare.
🎧 In this episode, David and I talk about the risks and dangers of immersive, always-on technologies such as augmented reality. A future that we are accelerating towards where the blended physical and digital worlds become unrecognisable from one another. I asked David about the potential of monopolies ruling in this new digital kingdom, on the hardware, software, APIs and most importantly the data. He has grave concerns about this. David is an XR enthusiast, he leads a business promoting these technologies and is positive about the benefits it offers the world in terms of collaboration opportunities, training and development, reduced travelling and therefore reduced greenhouse gas emissions. But importantly he remains pragmatic about the challenges ahead to keep this technology open and inclusive and protect the public from deeper data harvesting and new technological monopolies.
💬 “An organisation should be a learning organisation rather than a knowledge organisation. You see you never really have knowledge; you just acquire things and then they go. But if you're a learning organisation, you have to continually change and adapt. It becomes your nature.” Dr Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is @Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our reactions to this week’s episodes with Celina Lee and Miguel Montero de Quadras. Our topics included:
💡 1.) AI opportunities in Africa
💡 2.) the benefit of using AI competitions for problem solving
💡 3.) Where Africa can leapfrog developments
💡 4.) creating a learning organisation
💡 5.) the problems with hoarding data in the enterprise
💬 “80% of the knowledge your company has collectively is in documents. Documents describing processes, but also emails, casual conversations and presentations. If you want to be a knowledge driven company, you will have to put all this knowledge into one single place. You might call it a digital brain.” @Miguel Montero de Quadras
This is a conversation Miguel Montero
🎙️ Miguel is the founder and former CEO of Atomian and currently its CTO. He is an industrial engineering graduate from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and he also holds a degree in Software Engineering from the Open University of Catalonia. Miguel began developing the Atomian product while he was still a 24-year old student and worked on it for 18 years. He is a pioneer in cognitive computing and used an original system to reproduce human cognitive processes based on symbols, data structures and algorithms.
🎧 In this episode, Miguel and I talk about how companies can harness AI to make themselves more human. The emphasis being on both those words. To be more and to be human. He recommends taking care of your admin and repeated processes with automation technologies and then focussing on using AI to extend the reach and impact of your human employees. This is only achievable Miquel says, when you move beyond being an information or a data company to being a knowledge company. When you find a way to digitally collect and harness all the knowledge that your company has and call upon it to make the best possible decisions. He describes this process, like a company having a digital brain.
💬 “We can’t compare someone who has a data science degree from a top university in the US to someone in Nigeria getting their data science degree without consistent electricity. Data Scientists in Africa have different insights to problem solving and when they bring these to a company, to a job, to a team, it’s incredibly valuable.” @Celina Lee
This is a conversation with Celina Lee
🎙️ Celina is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zindi, based out of Cape Town in South Africa, Zindi data science competition platform, dedicated to solving Africa’s most pressing problems by bringing together a community of data scientists who collaborate and compete to come up with the best possible solutions.
🎧 In this episode, Celina and I talk about Data Science and AI projects in Africa. We discuss the unique perspectives that Data Scientists have across the continent and we explore her business Zindi in detail. I’m fascinated by open innovation and by the ways to crowdsource ideas and harness external independent individuals to solve problems. This is for two reasons, the first is that I think more companies will succeed in innovating when they can learn how to fluently access and harness crowd wisdom and because when companies do this, their perspectives will be broader and their biases illuminated and potentially neutralised. Celina is passionate about her work, which actually extends to many countries around the world that contribute to her platform. She has over a thousand data scientists that compete in competitions to solve AI problems. They have a real-time leaderboard for each project to see who is making progress, and to succeed, data scientists team up and collaborate from all over the world. Perhaps with Zindi we are getting a glimpse into the future of work.
💬 “I think when we look at AI ethics, sometimes we feel it is a simple choice between good and bad, but the choice can be between bad and bad, or good and good. And those are the more complex conundrums where simple solutions or simple slogans aren’t appropriate.” Dr Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is @Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our reactions to this week’s episodes with Stefan Jansen and John MacIntyre featuring Michael Berns and a mention for Kieran Gilmurray.
Our topics included:
💡 1.) algorithmic trading and #ESG
💡 2.) the importance of EQ in finance
💡 3.) autonomous businesses
💡 4.) the most useful ways to discuss AI ethics
💡 5.) thoughts on GPT-3
💬 “Most AI is invisible. It's embedded behind software systems like social media or in industrial systems. I think there's a greater public consciousness that AI is ubiquitous, and a growing concern about what this ubiquity will mean for autonomous decision making in and on our lives.”
This is a conversation with John Macintyre
🎙️ John is the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences, and Pro Vice Chancellor at the University of Sunderland. He has a PhD in applied artificial intelligence, focussing on the use of neural networks in predictive maintenance. During the 1990s John established a research centre – the Centre for Adaptive Systems – at the University, which became recognised by the UK government as a Centre of Excellence for applied research in adaptive computing and artificial intelligence. He has successfully supervised PhDs in fields ranging from neural networks, hybrid systems, and bioinformatics through to lean manufacturing, predictive maintenance, and business and maintenance strategies.
🎧 In this episode, John talks about the recent developments in AI that are making the technology broader in capability and wider in scope. He cites the recent GPT-3 release from Open AI as an example. An AI trained on 175 billion data points. John is highly focused on the ethics of AI and so this theme came up many times in our conversation. He talked about the challenges with encoding mortality and the need to slow down sometimes and challenge the work that is going on. John talked about the difficulties we had during the early stages of COVID-19 to make decisions as the data was limited in use. He talked fluently about the types of safeguards and controls that we need in place to use AI ethically, especially as most AI is invisible to the public. We talked about the need for more diversity in AI teams and how this can help with downstream problems like inaccurate facial recognition systems and he drew parallels to the efforts to reduce the impact of man-made climate change.
💬 “The tone at the investment conferences over the last two years has changed from everybody being super excited to get access to new sources of data, to now, much more focused and critical questions. There’s more demand for demonstrations, people want proof there is value in the data before they purchase it.”
This is a conversation with Stefan Jansen
🎙️ Stefan is the founder and CEO of Applied AI. He advises Fortune 500 companies, investment firms, and startups across industries on data & AI strategy, building data science teams, and developing end-to-end machine learning solutions for a broad range of business problems.
Before his current venture, he was a partner and managing director at an international investment firm, where he built the predictive analytics and investment research practice. He was also a senior executive at a global fintech company with operations in 15 markets, advised Central Banks in emerging markets, and consulted for the World Bank.
He holds Master's degrees in Computer Science from Georgia Tech and in Economics from Harvard and Free University Berlin, and a CFA Charter. He has worked in six languages across Europe, Asia, and the Americas and taught data science at Datacamp and General Assembly.
My co-host for this episode is Michael Berns, Michael is a Director at PwC where he leads the AI and FinTech Practice. He is an AI Thought Leader & FinTech Veteran, with 17 years of international experience on five continents.
🎧 In this episode, Stefan talked about the 2nd edition of his book Machine Learning for Algorithmic Trading: Predictive models to extract signals from market and alternative data for systematic trading strategies with Python.
There’s a significant amount of financial data to incorporate into machine learning models, and Stefan explained how to navigate this so that you can take action and makes decisions in the trading market. Stefan gives a retrospective view of what has changed with machine learning, freely available data, paywalled data and algorithmic trading over the last two decades.
The new edition of the book looks at modelling historical share prices developments over time to try out prediction models for future changes. Stefan told me that, beyond the trading models, finance generally attracts intellectually curious people, because it's sophisticated, there's math involved and when you add more varied datasets and computer science and machine learning to it, it takes this field of study to a whole new level.
For example he mentions new data sources such as satellite images that track how busy shopping malls are and the implications of this on retail and real estate share prices. This allows more creativity into this work too, he says. Innovation, technology and books like this from Stefan are enabling more democratic access to and use of information and this is enabling smaller investment shops to be more quantitatively driven. With his book, Stefan is not advocating for automated funds, but to help portfolio managers to be more data driven, systematic and create more sophisticated strategies.
Finally Stefan talks about the trends in data and how we’ve moved from a data land grab, to more sophisticated questions being asked and more proof of value being sought.
💬 “Companies can deploy APIs to analyse digital meetings and use machine learning on the language, intonation, facial expressions, and gestures to build up a picture of all of the conversations in their enterprise. This has incredible possibilities and of course incredible dangers in terms of security and privacy.”
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is @Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our reactions to this week’s episodes with @Max Knupfer and @Mark Sears. Our topics included:
💡 1.) the pros and cons of conversational AI
💡 2.) the developments in different types of User Interfaces
💡 3.) understanding your technology quotient
💡 4.) CloudFactory and their unique operating model
💡 5.) how to reduce blind spots in corporate innovation
💬 “When we talk about humanity, we've learned a lot at CloudFactory. We’ve learned that we’re all poor and that we're all rich in different ways. And when we can pull together a huge number of diverse people who are passionate, to grow together, you can see amazing things happen.”
This is a conversation with Mark Sears
🎙️ Mark is CEO and Founder of CloudFactory. He’s a computer scientist who is driven daily by his passion for technology, business, and people. CloudFactory helps companies to automate and outsource routine back-office data work. They aim to connect 1 million people to online work, while raising them up as leaders to address poverty in their own communities. Their workforce is recruited from talent “hot spots” around the globe such as Nepal and Kenya where they say they can hire the best and brightest in areas where there are thousands of talented people, but limited opportunities for meaningful and sustainable employment.
🎧 In this episode, Mark tells the CloudFactory story that started in a café in Nepal with his wife and led to a thriving company with over 5,000 employees. I actually learned about CloudFactory many months ago and wanted to bring Mark onto the show to explore the company’s history and its ethos. I was fascinated by the way that CloudFactory is leaning towards social good, and I wanted to explore what this meant for their culture and especially their ability to think, act and innovate differently to their peers. Does a company that helps people to earn, learn and serve in developing countries have better foresight, broader perspectives, and less blind spots? Mark was very gracious with us, to allow vulnerability and honestly into this conversation. What he has done is a superb achievement, literally incredible, but in this conversation, he was humble about what they are doing and the challenges a company like this has to find ways to completely support their employees.
💬 “Middleware is going to be the greatest growth area for technology in the next few years. It is where AI is going to deliver its greatest benefits because it will be the layer that allows us to stitch together all of the disparate technologies that we interact with and allow us to put them together in a way that will make our lives easier, better, simpler and more fun.”
This is a conversation with Max Knupfer
🎙️ Max is Chief Strategy Officer at Volume.ai. Helping business apply technology imaginatively to problems that matter. Volume is a company that specialises in the development of Conversational AI platforms and the AI middle-ware that helps businesses self-manage and scale their chatbot real estate.
🎧 In this episode, Max talks about the opportunities for efficiency and productivity in our lives and our work by exploring middleware – middleware is software that acts as a bridge between an operating system or database and applications. He says that this is the layer that allows us to stitch together all of the disparate technologies that we interact with and allow us to put them together in a way that will make our lives easier, better, simpler, more fun. We spoke about how to adapt and integrate new technologies into our lives and the importance of outsourcing everyday tasks to machines so that we can effectively change with the times. Max also spoke about how the ways we are interacting with technologies is changing including how we may move beyond the keyboard into further into voice input.
💬 “Sometimes in data and in AI and data scientists, a lot of the job descriptions are quite gender-coded. So they'll say we're looking for Ninja. We're looking for a rock star, we're looking for a quarterback. And these descriptions can cloud what the job is, and it discourages women from applying to certain posts.” Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is @Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode, Naeema and I discussed our reactions to this week’s episodes with @Violet Snell and @Kim Nilsson. Our topics included:
💡 1.) whether we need more engineering than science to solve global challenges
💡 2.) computer vision opportunities
💡 3.) diversity and bias in AI teams
💡 4.) AI hype
💡 5.) AI ethics
💬 “There’s great curiosity in the data science community to learn what to do when we feel morally compromised. To help with this, there has been calls for accreditation. I think that’s a good idea, although I’m not sure who would come up with it or agree on it, but then at least ethics would be part of such an accreditation.”
This is a conversation with Dr. Kim Nilsson
🎙️ Kim is an Astrophysics PhD, MBA and Entrepreneur. She is the CEO of Pivigo; supporting organisations to innovate with data by connecting them with a global community of the best and brightest freelancing data scientists. She is passionate about people, data and connecting the two.
🎧 In this episode, Kim described the real-world daily work of a data scientist. How they have to spend their time at present, mostly trying to fix data problems, but also what might change in the future. I asked her what makes a successful data scientist and how we might introduce more ethical thinking into the profession. Talking about ethics led onto a fascinating conversation about Cambridge Analytica and the recent A levels scandal here in the UK. I asked Kim to tell us in her own words want went wrong on both of these occasions. I asked her whether companies engage her businesses services to try to reduce their blind spots, biases and stereotypes and whether she thought open-innovation programmes such as crowdsourcing data scientists to solve problems was worth exploring for corporates. Finally, I asked Kim what inspiring message she had for new and aspiring data scientists.
💬 “There are some AI reasoning systems and there are some data-driven learning systems and we haven't quite cracked hybridizing them. But there are some interesting developments, in some very technical areas, which combined elements of reasoning with data-driven learning. So I think we'll get there, it is still very early days.” @Violet Snell
This is a conversation with Dr Violet Snell
🎙️ Violet has a doctorate in computer vision and machine learning and a background in video processing and software development. She is currently leading a team of researchers producing deep learning solutions for traffic safety applications.
🎧 In this episode, Violet talks about her work as Head of AI at Jenoptik Traffic Solutions UK, I asked how good the current crop of road safety cameras are, even when faced with partially hidden number plates and we spoke a little about the development of this particular type of computer vision technology.
The conversation moved to facial recognition, can cameras see through window screens to identify the driver and whether satellite-based camera systems will replace the local camera networks that we currently use.
Another specialized area for Violet is diversity in AI teams, I asked her to explain why this is so important. She said it’s actually critical for successful AI projects to scale out into the real world. She identified one particular challenge that COVID-19 has caused to distributed teams of data scientists and I asked her whether companies could benefit from hiring more psychologists and ethicists to work in or with AI teams.
We moved onto Violet’s core subject which is engineering – she has a master’s degree in Engineering and Computing Science from the University of Oxford. We talked about the engineering challenges associated with AI such as when is good enough, good enough, trade offs, and where do you draw the line. I asked Violet to explain how humans and machines learn, the differences and the similarities and the possible future of logical machines. I think you’ll enjoy this brief exchange between Violet and I about whether and why we should be trying to build human level AI.
💬 “We all saw Jack Ma and Elon Musk sitting on the stage together. Next time will we see a European person there as well? But what story are they going to tell? China has their AI story, the US has theirs and maybe it seems like they are building walls with AI. Rather than Europe building a wall, can it build a table that more people can sit at?” Richard Foster-Fletcher
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is @Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our reactions to this week’s episodes with @Michael Kanaan, @Frits Bussemaker and @Ryan Moore. Our topics included:
💡 1.) the ongoing challenges experienced by distributed teams
💡 2.) breaking down siloes to deliver successful AI projects
💡 3.) AI geo-politics and the place for Europe
💡 4.) Rethinking AI and China
💡 5.) AI and its impacts on human liberties
💬 “When I first started off with data science projects, I had this big poster up that said ‘if it makes money, it makes sense’. And every project, we were measuring it against that. When I look back, I realize that was a mistake and that ethos prevented us from seeing anything other than ROI. When we present the business case now, there's around seven business benefit areas included, because financial KPIs alone don’t cut it anymore.”
This is a conversation with Frits Bussemaker and Ryan Moore
Frits is the Chair of the Institute for Accountability in the Digital Age and Ryan Moore is Head of Data and Analytics at Aiimi.
🎧 In this episode, Frits and Ryan discuss their experiences with talking about AI in the Enterprise. The challenges they have witnessed around different language, context and nuances that can derail a successful project. We talk about the lack of data literacy in the boardroom, how to think about an AI strategy and how to avoid hype. The conversation moved on to accountability and specifically accountability by design. Both Ryan and Frits talked about the need for self-governance by organisations on their AI projects. Ryan talked openly about how we used to think in a very binary fashion about projects and their return on investment potential and why he no longer feels like this. How he has changed his mind about what matters. I finished the episode by asking these experts what is the biggest misconception about AI in the Enterprise. I hope you enjoy hearing their answers.
💬 “Our focus now together as a society is on having a holistic and collective conversation to ensure that AI is only implemented in ways consistent with fundamental human dignity and only for purposes consistent with each of our personal democratic ideals and liberties. The call to action is I hope you'll be a part of that conversation because I don't want future societies or future groups to say. I wish our eyes had been more open on that topic when it mattered.”
This is a conversation with Michael Kanaan
🎙️ Michael is the co-chair of Artificial Intelligence for the US Air Force at the Pentagon. In that role, he guides the research, development, and implementation strategies for AI technology and machine learning activities across Air Force global operations. He is currently the Director of Operations for Air Force / MIT Artificial Intelligence. In recognition of his fast-rising career, he was named to the 2019 Forbes “30 Under 30” list and has received numerous other awards and prestigious honours—including the Air Force’s 2018 General Larry O. Spencer Award for Innovation as well as the US Government’s Arthur S. Flemming Award (an honour shared by past recipients Neil Armstrong, Robert Gates, and Elizabeth Dole).
🎧 Michael Kanaan is the author of T-Minus AI: Humanity’s Countdown to Artificial Intelligence and the New Pursuit of Global Power. In this episode, Mike talks about why he wrote the book, and he shared his thoughts on the confusion and misinformation around what is artificial intelligence. Especially what aspects of our lives will be changed by AI? Which of those changes will be beneficial and which have been harmful? And what can we do to ensure that AI is only used in legal, moral, and ethical ways?
How do we cultivate a reasonable understanding to the point in which we can all partake in meaningful conversations about the use of AI and to recognise the problems that Science Fiction and myths about artificial general intelligence have had on the value of these conversations.
Michael talked at length about biases and how these are represented in machine-based decision making and how we can review the impact of AI-based on plotting it on a graph for worldview and impact.
We spoke about the different lenses that people around the world see AI through depending on the use of it and the major technology corporations Head Quartered in their countries.
Michael compared the use of AI in the West to how it is deployed in China.
He closed with his call to arms for more people to get involved in understanding artificial intelligence so that they can join this important conversation.
I’ll quote his final comments that you will enjoy hearing again from his own voice at the end of the episode.
Our focus now together as a society is on having a holistic and collective conversation to ensure that AI is only implemented in ways consistent with fundamental human dignity and only for purposes consistent with each of our personal democratic ideals and liberties. The call to action is I hope you'll be a part of that conversation because I don't want future societies or future groups to say. I wish our eyes had been more open on that topic when it mattered.
💬 “If people are displaced by digital automation, then a leader needs to understand the mindset of the organisation. Things like the scarring effect of this decision on the rest of the organization. This can affect the culture of a business. An automation strategy needs to include technology, culture and impact on moral.” Dr Naeema Pasha
🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is @Dr Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School partly focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.
🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our reactions to this week’s episodes with @Ahmed El Adl, @David Gull and @Liliya Andonova. Our topics included:
💡 1.) The three pillars of trust in business: Organizational credibility, Respect and fairness
💡 2.) The differences between closed systems and open systems of AI
💡 3.) Intelligent process automation
💡 4.) The exciting use cases of AR and VR
💡 5.) The effects of AI hype
💬 “In the short term, we have absolutely no risk of any loss jobs whatsoever from AI. If we embrace the green economy, we've got trillions of dollars to spend and millions of jobs to be created in the efforts to completely decarbonise our work. That is a massive job that we have to do right now for a decade and it involves everybody. And so, we shouldn't be talking about universal basic income or demonetising necessities or any jobs going away, until we have a completely green, clean and sustainable economy.”
🎙️ I was recently interviewed about Artificial Intelligence and the take-up by businesses by @Liliya Andonova, a masters student at King's College London. I wanted to share our conversation with you, to share my thoughts on this and also to show the journey that I am undertaking to further and deepen my understanding of this complex area of technological and business development. Countless times, I have had to reframe, rethink and adjust my views. This reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw Quote: "Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything."
I hope you enjoy this episode, 'a primer on business and AI'. Thank you Lily Andonova for your questions and your kind permission to publish this.
💬 “For virtual reality mass adoption, it's about driving the price points down, increasing the user experience and reducing the friction. Within five years you'll have really amazing worlds to be explored. And then within 10 to 15 years, you'll have simulations that are essentially capable of being indistinguishable from reality.”
This is a conversation with David Gull
🎙️ David is the CEO and founder of Outer Realm. A business helping lead the platform shift from 2D screens to immersive spatial computing in the Real Estate industry. He has a unique combination of Design & Technical Expertise as a Licensed Architect and Technology Executive.
🎧 In this episode David talks about some of the important use cases for augmented and virtual reality including the reduction of waste, enriching our understanding of the environment around us, supporting our design capabilities and helping to make better purchase decisions. He talks about the new information that can be digitally layered onto our world and describes how virtual business meetings are evolving right now using face and emotion scanning technology to represent you accurately as an avatar in the virtual meeting space creating co-presence and connecting. He explains that an abstract avatar is just as convincing as a real avatar, and David sees great applications for this in education. Finally, we talk about the future of virtual reality and immersive, new experiences that we can literally step into.
💬 “10 years ago everyone talked about big data, how to collect it, store it, secure it, manage it and use it. Today we are not talking about big data analytics. We are talking about how to gain the most insight from the data, which is a different world. It will see businesses move from analysing big data with machine learning to working out how they can apply reasoning capabilities to drive insights from smaller, but more useful data.”
This is a conversation with Dr Ahmed El Adl.
🎙️ Ahmed is a technology and business innovation leader with a proven track record of global scale achievements in envisioning and building intelligent technologies and applying them to solve real-world problems to accelerate the digital and cognitive transformation of businesses, workforce, services, and machines. His main focus is the right industrial and business adoption of AI/ML, IIoT, and the concept of Cognitive Digital Twin (CDT). Ahmed has Ph.D. and Post Doc. in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence and Industrial Robotics.
🎧 In this episode, Ahmed explains what it takes to make machine learning algorithms safe and secure, but also how very simple changes to external stimuli, for example in confusing computer vision can lead to at best silly errors and at worst disasters.
For example, Ahmed explains how a rogue actor that puts a heat source near to a sensor in a power plant, could trigger the algorithm into shutting down the plant. He goes on to explain how it is possible to mitigate for this.
Ahmed goes on to explain that currently we are still having to hard code reasoning logic into machines and AI projects fail because project architects can’t connect the different systems and layers, not because the machine learning algorithms weren’t good enough.
Ahmed talks about how valuable TikTok’s data will be to Microsoft and how they may use it if they acquire the platform’s North American user base.
Finally, we come full circle on the point of the episode, that business opportunities with be uncovered when businesses move away from the big data and analytics mindset to the insight mindset. From analytic and big data and machine learning to reasoning.
🎙️ Insights and observations from Week 32 on the @Boundless Podcast with my Friday co-host @Dr Naeema Pasha.
We discuss the ideas and stand-out moments from this week's shows:
Episode 86: @Dr Jeffrey Lee Funk, Technology Economics Thought Leader: The great technological slowdown
Episode 87: @Jo Bhakdi, CEO of Quantgene: AI and precision genomic diagnostics
Episode 88: @John Thompson, Global Head, Advanced Analytics & AI: Harnessing analytics and AI for business improvement
Episode 89: Ashton Addington, Associate Director TechNET - Immersive: The rise of immersive technologies
💬 “I'm in the surgery and I'm stood over somebody's spine and prodding around the muscle tissue and the bone structure. I can actually feel, touch and even engage with doing surgery on them. It was absolutely surreal and when I took the VR headset off my mind was blown. When I think back on the experience, it feels like a memory, not a virtual experience, but a memory; that I was actually feeling, touching and interacting with that human body.”
This is a conversation with Ashton Addington.
🎙️ Ashton is an Associate Director of @TechNET Immersive. He is aligned with the specialised needs of the XR industry and is passionate about the potential of spatial computing. The XR industry incorporates Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, Mixed Reality, Volumetric Capture, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision and Gaming.
🎧 In this episode, Ashton talks about the evolution in remote communications from Zoom and Teams to interactive 3d avatars. How the game Fortnight could be the leader in virtual spaces in the future and he speculates on what we may do inside these virtual worlds. Ashton explains what XR is and the industry and hiring trends in this space. Finally, he talks about the trend of computer game developers crossing over into augmented and virtual reality businesses as the need for real-looking worlds becomes more important.
💬 “McKinsey has done some intriguing research showing that the early adopters of artificial intelligence are reaping outsized benefits from it in revenue, customer retention and efficient operations. But the laggards say there is little to no benefit to using AI. So we’re seeing the leaders accelerating and the laggards falling further behind in AI because they're trying to justify their lack of engagement and investment.”
This is a conversation with John Thompson.
🎙️ John is an international technology executive with over 30 years of experience in the business intelligence and advanced analytics fields. Currently, John is responsible for the global Advanced Analytics & Artificial Intelligence team and efforts at CSL. Prior to CSL, John was an Executive Partner at Gartner, where he was a management consultant to market leading companies in the areas of digital transformation, data monetization and advanced analytics. Before Gartner, John was responsible for the advanced analytics business unit of the Dell Software Group. John is the author of the new book – Analytics Teams: Leveraging analytics and artificial intelligence for business improvement. The book was published in June 2020 and outlines how to hire and manage high-performance advanced analytics teams.
🎧 In this episode, John talks about the failings of country leaders to understand and interpret COVID-19 data and the impacts of this. I asked him to compare country leadership to company leadership on data literacy. We talk about data collection devices related to COVID data and John talks about some success stories. Our conversation moves to business and how in some cases the line of business managers are moving faster and smarter than corporate leaders to find ways to make better decisions based on data. John shares the processes he used to write his bestselling book and is very open and honest about what it took to write it quickly and efficiently, but also how he used social media to crowdsource ideas and sense check some sections with the analytics community. Finally, John shared his thoughts on some of the failings in how we are educating our youth and how this is a shared issue for all leaders in society that needs to be solved through collaboration and fresh thinking.
💬 “I encourage everyone to think twice about who you work with in the genetics field. The data that your genes contain can save your life, but it also contains all the secrets about your body. It comes down to the question; what do you think about the moral and ethical framework of the company that has your data? Ask yourself, to what extent can I trust this company and do they really have my back?”
This is a conversation with Jo Bhakdi.
🎙️ Jo is the founder and CEO of Quantgene. His work in machine learning, sequencing technology, and DNA extraction procedures defines the cutting edge of genomic diagnostics, early disease detection, and precision medicine. Jo holds a Masters in Economics and Psychology from Tubingen University, with a focus on financial theory and statistics. Beyond his focus on technology and the future of medicine, is dedicated to bringing together the best and brightest and transforming them into pioneers, pushing the boundaries of health, life, and innovation for all.
🎧 In this episode, Jo talks about the journey from the human genome project to today’s work in precision genetics and diagnosis. He explains what genetics data is available and for what purposes it is used and the way he is building his company called Quantgene so that there is transparency for all users as to how, where and for what their data is being used for. In this case, he makes it very simple, to keep you healthy and nothing else. Jo gives us a guide as to how to recognise a trustworthy company. Our conversation turned to how soon your genetic profile will affect your chances of dating and mating and we discussed life extension and even the eradication of death.
💬 “Today's startups aren't doing as well as they did in the past because there are fewer breakthrough technologies. For example, rideshare is not a breakthrough technology. It's a taxi service that is a little more convenient, but it's still using the same type of cars on the same kind of roads. There's no productivity change. These cars are not handling more people, they're not travelling faster. There's a lot of these “technology” companies that probably should never have achieved the valuations that have.”
This is a conversation with Dr Jeffrey Funk.
🎙️ Jeff has a PhD from Carnegie Mellon working mostly as a professor but also as an engineer and consultant in the U.S., Japan, and Singapore. He was one of the first to recognize the potential for smart phones during the late 1990s and early 2000s in Japan, and helped several mobile service providers succeed.
🎧 In this episode, Jeff talks about the reason that so many modern start-ups are not turning a profit and far fewer are becoming unicorns that in previous decades. The reason, he says, is that we are not getting the major technological breakthroughs any more like we used to have with chips and transistors. He uses the example of how the predictions for autonomous vehicles were overhyped and how this may have prevented Uber from achieving profitability. I asked Jeff if this could change as new technologies come out of the lab and into businesses, things like 5g, Massive IoT, Virtual and Augmented Reality. I also challenged him on whether we even want unicorn businesses anymore. He had a great answer.
Reflections and insights with Richard Foster-Fletcher and Dr. Naeema Pasha on this week's podcasts:
Episode 81: Dr. Daniel Araya, Consultant and Policy Analyst: The velocity and scale of AI-driven disruption
EP82: Irena Cronin, CEO at Infinite Retina. Robert Scoble, Founder, Scobleizer.blog: The future of spatial computing
EP83: Prashant Natarajan, Analytics & Data Science Translator: The magic of thinking big using data
EP84: Ivana Bartoletti, Data, AI and Privacy Leader: An Artificial Revolution: Power, Politics and AI
🎙️ Ivana supports businesses in their privacy by design programmes, especially in relation to Artificial Intelligence and blockchain technology.
She was awarded Woman of the Year in 2019 in the Cyber Security Awards in recognition to her growing reputation as an advocate of equality, privacy and ethics at the heart of tech and AI.
Ivana’s first book, An Artificial Revolution, was released this year and focuses on how technology is reshaping the world, and the global geopolitical forces underpinning this process. As countries respond to the COVID crisis, the book demonstrates how important it is to ensure we do not sleepwalk into technosolutionism, algorithms replacing policy and computing replacing the law.
🎧 In this episode, Ivana asks if rather than technology adapting to us, are we being forced to adapt to technology.
She makes the case that despite the weight of pressure on AI to be explainable, that this wouldn’t be a desirable outcome for individuals.
We talk about how corporates are inviting legislation for data and AI, so they can innovate more freely, but some governments in the West are failing to establish trust themselves as to what data they are collecting and how it may be used in the future. Ivana says that whilst AI explainability may not be what we desire, product and service transparency is. We have a right to know the environmental and social impact connected to the supply chain of a product, even down to the environmental footprint of large data centres running AI models.
Finally, she says companies can and will adapt successfully to new AI legislation, we have seen this over and over again in other industries that offer blueprints for how to transform and change.
Ivana's book 'An Artificial Revolution: On Power, Politics and AI' is out now at https://amzn.to/39NXyGu
“The true value of AI is not just automation. Automation is a starting point, but the true value of AI comes in being able to leverage AI in order to amplify and augment. By amplify, what I mean is supplementing humans and by augmentation, what I mean is complimenting humans.”
This is a conversation with Prashant Natarajan, Prashant strives to demystify technology & make it accessible, understandable, and usable by everyone in business contexts. He’s worked for organisations including Unum, Deloitte, H2O.ai, Oracle and McKesson and is the best-selling author of books that demystify data, analytics and applied Machine learning.
🎧 In this episode, Prashant explains why companies have reacted and responded so differently to the challenges of COVID-19, some thriving, some not surviving. He examines the correlations being how effectively a corporation responded to COVID to how capable they are of delivering and scaling an AI project. Prashant goes on to explain that the largest benefits of AI in companies are beyond automation, when they can think about augmenting and amplifying human intelligence and activities.
“I'm a cheerleader for the Apple AR products, they’re going to be pretty awesome. When they come out they will deliver a new ecosystem for other companies to build into and around. And with increased machine learning and millions of people using it, it'll get better and better.”
This is a conversation with Irena Cronin and Robert Scoble.
🎙️ Irena and Robert the authors of the new book Infinite Retina. Irena is the CEO of Infinite Retina, a company based in Pasadena, California that helps businesses enter and succeed in Spatial Computing. She has advised many decision-makers on business strategies related to Spatial Computing which includes AR/VR, Artificial Intelligence, Facial Recognition, Robotics, Autonomous Vehicles, and other related technologies.
Robert is a technology journalist and advisor. Over the course of his career, he has interviewed thousands of entrepreneurs and has been the first to see the creation of many new technology companies, from Siri to Tesla.
🎧 In this episode, Irena and Robert talk about what it’s going to take to bring spatial computing into the mainstream and which tech company they believe could make this future possible. We explore the challenges that Magic Leap faced, a virtual reality headset company that raised nearly $3bn and hasn’t yet managed to release a fully saleable, scalable product. We talk about how and what AI devices like Alexa are learning, what data will be collected by spatial computers and the privacy challenges associated to this.
“Automation will displace all bureaucracies, all cognitive work, all routine labour that's not creative. This idea that management jobs are protected because there'll be referring to AI and data is just silly. AI is going to be much more effective at guiding and leading than any manager's ever been in a Fortune 500 company.” Dr. Daniel Araya.
🎙️ Daniel is a consultant and advisor with a special interest in technological innovation, public policy, and governance. He is co-founder of Ay-en Advisors and a Senior Fellow with the Centre for International Governance Innovation. He is a regular contributor to Forbes, The Brookings Institution, Futurithmic, and Singularity Hub. His newest books include Augmented Intelligence from 2018 and Smart Cities as Democratic Ecologies from 2015. Daniel has a doctorate from the University of Illinois and is an alumnus of Singularity University’s graduate program in Silicon Valley.
🎧 In this episode, Daniel shares his views on the intersection of technology, geo-politics and sustainability at this moment in history. He talks about a burning desire for new economic and societal models that will replace the maximisation era and move companies and nations beyond a pursuit of growth at all costs to something new. Rather than being a reasoned and logical progression to something better, in fact Daniel says this is cyclical and the end of this cycle is beginning. This tallies to John Maynard Keynes who predicted in 1930 that after 100 years we would have fully benefited from the economic models that lifted nations into prosperity. At this time those who chose to use these models for growth would no longer need to exploit and destroy our fellow humans or nature to escape poverty. 90 years has passed, and certainly it seems like change is the air this decade and beyond.
This is Boundless. Insights and Observations Week 30 with your host Richard Foster-Fletcher
This week was about mostly about synching up with MKAI – the Milton Keynes Artificial Intelligence hub as we explored themes around ethical use of data and corporate mindset on responsible AI.
I didn’t think these interviews would change my mind about data, but there was some moments that made me stop and question my views. More on that in just a moment.
Before that I interviewed Dr Vijak Hadaddi. I really enjoyed the chat with him, he’s got a special energy about him. I will be following his work. The things I remember from our chat; I felt that he was saying we’ve got to stop calling this industry 4.0, it’s not another step in industry. It’s a revolution. A seismic shift in the business, economics and societies. Vijak is another person telling me we are coming to the end of a cycle. Ade McCormack also says this, as does Daniel Araya.
We’re still waiting to learn on this show exactly what work checkout assistants and truck drivers are meant to be transitioning to. Vijak says unless we figure this out, we may lose a whole generation of workers.
Vijak also talked about Europe, since we don’t have a massive AI company here. The US has Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, these companies dominate AI innovation across the Western world and represent the most powerful lobby for AI regulation within the world's liberal democracies. By comparison, AI innovation and regulation in the East, specifically China, is dominated by Tencent, Baidu, Alibaba. Europe does not have a major technology player and Vijak says this may give Europe has a chance to do something differently and try to turn this defeat into a virtue. Europe can decentralise data and create platforms where everybody will share their data together and this could lead to some very progressive ‘next level’ type of models that could become viable alternatives for the rest of the world. That said, none of the US or Chinese companies that I reference started out as AI companies. Maybe BP can become a trillion-dollar Greentech company?
Coming back to the MKAI synch ups, we talked about the role of the DPO and the CDO and whether either could fully succeed in any organisation that doesn’t have a data champion on the main board. We reflected on what lessons data leaders could take from their colleagues in cybersecurity, ways of convincing senior business leaders that protecting data and using it ethically offer strategic advantage and business growth.
One thing that Ashley Mason talked about how the health industry is geared up to keep 80% of people healthy 80% of the time. Getting to 90% carries exponential cost
Always been unknowns in the long tail of the data. We can idealise to have explainable, ethical AI from ideation to implementation, but we also have real-world problems to solve and if it takes years to refine models to a level that is completely acceptable, we may lose years of benefits. Perhaps this is akin to how we are pushing ahead with Covid-19 vaccine trials, necessity is the mother of all inventions, not just for innovation, but for flexing regulation and legalisation where needed for the greater good.
But what is the greater good? What is good? What is AI for good? We still can’t agree.
But it doesn’t stop us trying to do our best.
I’ll leave you with the insightful words of David W Orr “The planet does not need more successful people. But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind.”
Hope you enjoyed this week's episodes. Thanks to my amazing guests. Have a fantastic weekend and we’ll be back next week to learn more about how we can design a digital future that is inclusive, sustainable and equitable.
Stay positive. Stay well.
Thanks to
Peter Fleming, Head of Strategic Consulting, Aiimi
Dr. Richard Benjamins, Chief AI & Data Strategist, Telefonica.
Professor Christoph Lütge, Director of the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence
Ashley Mason, Data Scientist at Data Reply UK.
Adi Manjunath, AI & Innovation Consultant at Data Reply UK,
Joaquin López Herraiz, Associate Professor at UCM
Dr. Vijak Haddadi, Visioneer & Advisor:
💬 “When a retailer recommended toys to children, what we saw in the past is that they were tending to recommend pink toys to girls and blue toys to boys. But are we thinking about the wider implications of recommendations like this? Yes, you've got a responsibility to your stakeholders to make money. But at the same time, we all have a responsibility to society to try and do things in the best way we can and make things ethical and fair."
This is a conversation with Ashley Mason & Adi Manjunath.
🎙️Ashley is a Data Scientist and Adi is an AI & Innovation Consultant, they are both at Data Reply UK, part of the Reply Group.
🎧 In this episode, we discuss the efforts that businesses are going to, to reflect on how their AI work can be fairer and explainable, without losing sight of the performance of the models. Ashley and Adi share their thoughts on current trends in data and levels of diversity in AI teams.
With: Dr. Richard Benjamins, Chief AI & Data Strategist, Telefonica. Professor Christoph Lütge, Director of the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence at the Technical University of Munich. Ashley Mason, Data Scientist at Data Reply UK. Adi Manjunath, AI & Innovation Consultant at Data Reply UK, Joaquin López Herraiz, Associate Professor at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Director of Engineering-International Mentor Program (IMFAHE).
“The Chief Data Officer (CDO) has the ability to understand how information and data should be embedded within the business strategies, values and vision. Data drives successful customer outcomes, and I see no reason why today’s CDOs could not be tomorrow’s CEOs.”
🎙️Peter is a Principal Management Consultant at Aiimi, with experience leading consultancy teams and establishing and growing consultancy practices. He specialises in the development of Data and Digital Strategy and the management of Strategic Change Programmes.
🎧 In this episode, Peter talks about how good Data Governance is about finding the balance between both supporting innovation and maintaining the integrity of the data being used. He says that if we can get this right, data engineers, scientists and analysts will see governance as a positive thing and contribute further to making data trustworthy, accurate, timely and relevant, so that we can rely on the results whether that’s from a report or the output of an AI model.
💬 “With having giant AI corporations, Europe has lost out to China and the US. But I think Europe has a chance to do something differently and try to turn this defeat into a virtue. Europe can decentralise data and create platforms where everybody will share their data together and this could lead to some very progressive ‘next level’ type of models that could become viable alternatives for the rest of the world”
🎙️ This is a conversation with Dr. Vijak Haddadi. Vijak’s passion is contributing to the beneficial emergence of what has been called Meta-Intelligence: a planetary scale integration of human, artificial, and meta-systemic intelligences. He takes an active interest in the fields of humanistic intelligence, decentralized AI, human enhancement, and eventually full-fledged human-AI symbiosis. His PhD thesis in Philosophy, obtained at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy was on the systematic relation of consciousness and logic. He is currently the Lead Visioneer for 1SOCIETY.
🎧 In this episode, Vijak talks about how big the challenges are to transform corporates and workers to the new digital economy. A transformation so seismic in impact that he is calling it a revolution. He contemplates whether a generation of workers, that are most vulnerable to change, will be able to make the leap into the new economy and how decentralised web and blockchain platforms could be a partial answer to a more inclusive future.
💬 “In the future people will have to go into jobs that are more specifically human, with human qualities like curiosity and creativity. So I think in the future, it won't be possible to not love your job. This is where AI could take us; pushing us towards discovering our true passions and being more creative.”
🎙️ This is a conversation with Maxime Gabella. Maxime is the founder of MAGMA Learning, a startup with the mission to enhance human learning with machine learning. His research is at the crossroad of theoretical physics, mathematics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
🎧 In this episode, Maxime talks about how AI is causing job displacement, but how also AI will reskill workers. Not trying to transform truck drivers into data scientists, but using self-learning AI models to personalise individual learning paths and the accrual of new knowledge and skills. Beyond this his start-up Magma wants to revolutionise learning and even compress and optimise the time spent acquiring and retaining information.
💬 “With AI on a global scale, certain developing nations could leverage the ‘leapfrog effect’. This can occur when a late technological entrant has the two distinct advantages of learning from first movers and of not living with legacy.”
🎙️ This is a conversation with Samiran Ghosh. Samiran has held leadership roles with IBM, Microsoft and McKinsey and he’s worked on the world's largest digital identity program. Samiran has authored chapters on blockchain and AI in books published by Wiley and is a TEDx speaker and Forbes Tech Council member.
🎧 In this episode, Samiran talks about why embedding ethics and morality in machines is so difficult despite having a thousand years of common law. We discuss whether it’s fair that we hold AI decision making to higher standards than human decision making and how difficult it is to ever say whether technology is doing good or bad.
💬 “The democratization of technology has pluses and minuses next to it. Where you've got the ability for anyone to tell their story, but it also gives anyone the ability to tell any story. And anyone the ability to refute any story.”
🎙️ This is a conversation with Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Jon Thor is a regular guest on the Boundless Podcast. And those that have heard him will understand why. He explores how technology interacts with moral and ethical philosophy. Jon Thor is a broadcaster and educator who cares about helping people to explore better questions and search deeper into information.
🎧 In this episode, Jon Thor talks about the challenges with navigating truth and accountability in a world with more data being produced daily than a single person could review in their entire life. He discusses how AI can help us to get us expand our knowledge and understanding, but only if we take steps to make this happen. The algorithms naturally will try to keep us engaged, clicking and buying from within our echo chambers.
💬 “One of the concepts that I'm really interested in is a concept called decentralization. It's actually a world that doesn't have companies anymore. It might not even have countries. Where everybody can boot up an idea, and then everybody else has the ability to frictionlessly contribute to the idea to drive forward that product or that service and be paid fairly for that contribution.” Daniel Hulme
🎙️ This is a conversation with Dr Daniel Hulme. Daniel is the CEO of Satalia and he’s on a mission is to create a world where everyone has the freedom to spawn and contribute to innovations, and have those innovations become free to everyone.
Daniel has Doctorate in AI from UCL, and is UCL's Computer Science Entrepreneur in Residence. He is also a lecturer at LSE's Marshall Institute, focused on using AI to solve business and social problems.
🎧 In this episode, Daniel talks about why capitalism isn’t working and how a marketplace of micropayments could address the limitations of our current economic model. He shares his vision for a borderless world that allows billions more people to innovate, and contribute to solving problems and how we could homogenize workers across borders leading to more equitable distribution of wealth.
AI must be part of the ‘DNA’ of your business now. You may get the cheaper technology if you wait for the innovation curve to progress, but you will be way, way behind that curve and most significantly you will have missed the opportunity to have established AI in your ‘DNA’"
This is a conversation with Dr Djamila Amimer. Djamila is the founder of Mind Senses Global, her business helps organisations apply Artificial Intelligence (AI) and unlock its full potential. She has developed novel AI techniques that help to deal with uncertainty in project evaluation and she spends time exploring what the next wave of AI will do. Djamila is passionate about AI for good and making AI accessible to everyone.
In this episode, Djamila talks about the importance of quantity and quality in data for AI projects, about why businesses should embed AI in their company DNA, and a future where more powerful AI can apply Causal reasoning and potentially requires far fewer data to achieve equal or better results than today’s models.
“We are all positively or negatively biased towards certain people. It is a natural phenomenon. We cannot think of everything we do and say, and so automatic processes run in the background, and these are unconsciously biased. Artificial intelligence (AI) can detect these types of biases and show individuals (and society) where they have a negative model about certain types of person. AI can help us to mitigate the effects of these types of biases and reduce conflict.”
This is a conversation with Professor Alessandro Vinciarelli. Alessandro is a full Professor at the University of Glasgow. He’s with both the School of Computing Science and the Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology. His research interest is Social Signal Processing, the computing domain aimed at modelling, analysing and synthesizing non-verbal behaviour in human to machine interaction.
In this episode, Alessandro talks about his work to educate a new generation of AI practitioners that are endowing artificial agents with social intelligence; attitudes intentions, feelings, personality and expectations. We explored the capabilities and limitations at this time of emotion-creating/reading machines and the current use cases. I asked Alessandro what relationships between humans and machines will look like in the future.
“The AI engine gives a very holistic view as to which investment opportunities are likely to be attractive. A lot of different heterogeneous data sources are fed into the system that interact in a very complex fashion. We don't really know which data sets will prove most valuable in terms of assessing the attractiveness of an investment opportunity. That’s what the AI engine tries to do. It tries to use all of these different data points and combine them in an optimal way.”
This is a conversation with Yasin Rosowsky, Todd Bridges and Michael Neumann of Arabesque. My co-host for this episode is Michael Berns, Director of AI and a FinTech Leader at PwC.
In this episode, Michael and I discovered more about Arabesque S-Ray, an Arabesque company that combines big data and environmental, social and governance (ESG) metrics to assess the performance and sustainability of companies worldwide. The business empowers investors to make more sustainable decisions with a mission to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable future.
“For Amazon, Alexa is less about capturing personal information and more about how people use it. What kinds of things do they prefer to do with it? What kinds of things do they try out and then drop? Amazon wants to know what sorts of differences Alexa is making in people's lives”
This is a conversation with Phillip Hunter. Phillip is a technology product designer. He’s played pivotal roles in consumer voice and multimodal applications at Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, and four start-ups. Phillip also led product design efforts for Amazon Web Services.
In this episode, Phillip explains how Amazon innovates so successfully. He compares and contrasts to his time at Microsoft and talks in detail about the work he did with the Alexa product. Finally, Phillip says how important it is now for companies to make a positive change for the environment, rather than waiting to be forced into change.
“I’m not ok with powerful AI being in the shadows. There needs to be more clarity about where it's being used and how. That's exactly the reason why I do all these courses and wrote this book; to democratize artificial intelligence. To avoid AI being a black box, hidden from everyone.”
This is a conversation with Hadelin de Ponteves. Hadelin is the co-founder and CEO at BlueLife AI. He is an online entrepreneur who has created more than 50 top-rated educational e-courses on topics such as Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain. These courses have achieved over one million sales with students in almost every country in the world.
In this episode, Hadelin explains that overarchingly AI is benevolent and that we shouldn’t lose sight of this despite the current societal challenges arising from the misuse of data, unexplainable models and biases that can arise. We find out why Hadelin’s AI courses are so popular and about his incredible new book published by Packt publishing titled AI Crash Course.
“Do you what else happened during this crisis? It created a wealth divide even more! In the last two months, the world's 25 richest billionaires have gained $225 billion. This is not linear growth, it’s exponential, a big hockey stick. To get a more equitable society and fair society we need to democratize and decentralize health. Right now.”
This is a conversation with Cyril Lutterodt. Cyril is a Software Engineering and Psychology major turned roboticist. He has built multiple autonomous vehicles and systems and worked on the incorporation of artificial intelligence in real world applications. Cyril is fascinated by the advancements in neuroscience and neuropsychology and now working on his new venture, a HealthTech company with the grand vision of making sickness a thing of the past.
In this episode, Cyril talks about his big ideas for his work and for the whole of humanity. He describes the body scanning technology he is bringing to market, which led us into a conversation about Covid-19 spread prevention and the role of ethics in software and AI development.
“The rare metals in the quantity and the quality that you need to produce Electric Vehicle batteries are almost exclusively produced in China. So imagine for a second, the power China will have, for any specific economical or political reason, to influence the global production of cars.”
This is a conversation with Esaú Flores. Esaú is a trusted Executive Advisor on Funding Management, Commercial Excellence and Business Strategy.
In this episode, Esaú talks about the impact that COVID-19 is having on investment, risk profiling and ESG. He explains that corporates and fund managers are entrenched in historical processes when it comes to investment strategies, how we might see a green revolution led by finance, but how electric vehicles are solving one problem and creating another.
“If we can’t make better decisions, we're screwed. Climate change, geopolitical conflicts, war. We can train ourselves to be more compassionate already without tech. But as a transhumanist, I believe that as technology gets more powerful, it will help us become better problem solvers. Let's use this to solve the problems worth solving; like how we can be kinder and more altruistic to each other, and our planet.”
This is a conversation with Dr Martin Dinov. Martin is the CEO of Maaind, a company developing mental state feedback technology using Artificial Intelligence. He is passionate about applying science and technology for the betterment of the individuals and society.
In this episode, Martin talks about his views on transhumanism – specifically human-machine augmentation and what that could mean for our decision making abilities and problem solving approaches.
“This is a conviction and I could be wrong, but I believe that the corporations that replace humans with AI are going to regret it. It’s a bad move. But the companies that use AI to remove monotony from smart individuals and then advance their abilities with training. Those are the companies that are going to win, and they'll progress humanity the best,”
This is a conversation with Thom Ives. To serve his passion to build things, Thom has continually sought, throughout his life, to grow his predictive modelling skills. He hopes to positively impact humanity with his creations, his implementations, and his teachings on the same.
In this episode, Thom talks about what he hopes to see happen in data science during his lifetime, and shares advice for new practitioners entering the field of AI. He explains why facial recognition AI can be so racially biased, and what politicians need to know about machine learning. Thom shares what changes he would like to see in educational approaches and why we need to teach our children about preparing data for models as early as possible.
“I hope we can see a world more driven towards all of humanity. It doesn't make sense to have capital just generating capital. The point of cash is to deploy it to do good things. And that doesn't mean doing up houses and selling them to rich people. That means putting it to work for the people that need it the most and we don't see enough of that.”
This is a conversation with Thomas Power. Thomas is an authority in business dynamics, reporting and discussing how technologies, data, market forces, corporate strategies and investment are shaping companies and societies around the world.
In this episode, Thomas talks about the problems that emerge when we can’t trust or react fast enough to new data. He shares his thoughts on how capital needs to flow and to where and whom. In essence, he gets to the heart of what really matters and what needs to change for us to have a fairer and most inclusive future.
In a recent interview that I did with Susanne Chishti from FinTech Circle. Susanne asked if she could turn the mic around, so to speak and asked me a couple of questions around artificial intelligence and our future. It's not normal that I share my own words on this podcast. I tend to take the opportunity to share and celebrate the words of others, but I thought I'd publish the conversation that we had, and I hope you enjoy it.
“There's been an awful lot of attempts at mimicking the human creative process in artificial intelligence. But the replication of the creative process remains really tough. Those flicks of the synapse on the subconscious, just throwing things out, is something that is uniquely human.”
This is a conversation with Kate Baucherel. Kate is a business development and emerging technology consultant with a focus on blockchain and distributed ledger technology. She has held senior technical and financial roles in businesses across multiple sectors. Her writing includes Blockchain Hurricane: Origins, Applications and Future of Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (2020) and the SimCavalier scifi series you can find her work at www.katebaucherel.com.
In this episode, Kate takes about the hype and hope of blockchain particularly in helping to reduce losses in supply chain and the success that distributed ledger technologies have already had on reducing unnecessary insurance claims that were putting great financial stress of farmers in developing nations. We went on to talk about Artificial Intelligence and creativity and the future of jobs.
This is a synch up conversation with Rudradeb Mitra of Omdena, Jack Lawton of Aiimi, David Troy of 410Labs and John Kamara of the Machine Learning Institute of Africa as we prepare for their talks about Using AI for Good at MKAI’s Expert Forum this Thursday 25th June 2020.
The wide-ranging discussion with these four global influencers turned to whether bottom-up business models create more positive impact than top down regulation, when it comes to good and fair use of AI.
“When you think about discrimination, so far it has been from one person to another, the danger of AI is that it scales this up. AI solutions have such an important impact on our societies, perhaps they need be approved. Maybe we can learn something from the medical world where medicine has to be approved before it can be launched.”
This is a conversation with Susanne Chishti. Susanne is the CEO of FINTECH Circle, Europe's first Investor Network focused on fintech investments. She is also the Co-Editor of "The FINTECH Book" which has been translated into 10 languages. Her other titles, compiled with crowd wisdom include The WealthTECH Book, The InsurTECH Book, The PAYTECH Book, The LEGALTECH Book and The AI Book.
In this episode, Susanne talks about how AI could scale up discriminatory decision making in FinTech and beyond, how AI is so powerful, impactful and unexplainable that it may need medical level approval. She also tells the story of crowd sourcing the authors for the AI Book which was published in 2020 by Wiley and features a chapter by yours truly about AI and our financial future.
“We talk about the ‘snowflake’ generation, but actually what they are is more awakened. There are many things that we can learn from younger people; how they operate and what they want to see in the business and from a business. It's not the same as 20 years ago, there's lots we can learn from them.”
This is a conversation with Yvette Lamidey. Yvette is a business growth and innovation expert. Her client work has spanned strategy, innovation, growth, efficiencies, change and implementation. She coaches and mentors board members and leadership teams to facilitate change and deliver sustainable business growth.
In this episode, Yvette talks about how we have an opportunity in business now to learn from early Quaker led companies that operated on the principals of human kindness, employee wellbeing and sharing success. An opportunity to become heart centred businesses. To still make tough choices, to have high standards and to thrive profitably in business, but making sure that at the same time, every decision is connected to the heart and carried out with kindness.
“’We attracted some criticism for allowing cameras in when visitors were banned from visiting the hospital. And I entirely understand people's reactions and concerns, but it was about getting across to people the very serious messages of what was going on. And from the feedback I received, I think the decision was absolutely vindicated. It gave a very human side of what was going on at the hospital. That transparency and open culture is, to me, absolutely essential.”
This is a conversation with Simon Lloyd. Simon has a background in law and previously worked as the Chief People Officer for Santander UK, He leads the Board of Directors and Council of Governors in developing Milton Keynes University Hospital as a world-class health facility.
In this episode, Simon talks about the experiences of being the Chairman of a major UK hospital going through the Covid-19 pandemic. How people pulled together under strong executive leadership, what technology they used and what challenges lie ahead.
“As a CEO, the first thing I would be asking my team is ‘who are our regular users?’ Then I’d take these personas and map out what experiences and journey they now need. Taking nothing for granted, I would showcase the new customer journey map to these customers. I’d get the advocacy and the buy from them in advance. I’d be asking them ‘does it look right?’”
This is a conversation with Murray Grubb Jnr. Within Oracle, Murray heads up the Aviation Sector to drive Digital Transformation, User Adoption and Acceptance of modern digital services. He is a former Elected Politician, Speaker, Panellist, Judge and Industry Expert on all forms of Digital Engagement.
In this episode, my second conversation with Murray. He talks about how companies, particularly those that have had their doors closed for some time need to completely redesign their user experience before they open their doors. Not only this, but they also need to get buy-in in advance from the customers that they want to serve. They can’t leave a new customer experience to guesswork.
“Technology now seems to be intertwined very closely with politics. Growing up as a software developer I never expected this day would come, but here we are, it's 2020 and we’re talking about how technology should be policing the president of the United States on Twitter”
This is a conversation with Swathi Young. Swathi is the CTO at Integrity Management Services Inc., a healthcare services company. She is the Washington DC Ambassador for Women in AI, an international non-profit organization whose goal is to increase diversity in the field of AI.
In this episode, Swathi talks about the challenges of building ethical AI frameworks for the US Government that support both regulation and innovation. I asked her if it’s possible to prevent technological developments moving overseas when local legislation gets too stringent and whether Chinese developments affect US thinking on AI regulation.
“When it comes to giving all people in technology a voice, I think we're starting to see a change for the positive. Much of this has been triggered by recent events and people waking up to the fact that there isn't anywhere here as much diversity as they thought there was.”
This is a conversation with Ellen Ward. Ellen is a technology delivery lead with 10 years of experience working on business transformation projects. The past five years have seen her lead hugely successful AI programmes and strategy, and launch her own social enterprise, Elbridge AI. She is passionate about tech for good, speaking on and actively increasing diversity in the tech sector, and runs the Women in Tech initiative at Cranfield University in partnership with Barclays Eagle Labs.
In this episode, Ellen talks about her AI for Good projects, that are focussed on using technology to solve real world problems. She shares how well she feels we are closing the gender gap in computing and how event organisers, and podcast hosts can be more inclusive.
“We are coming full circle. In the early days it was about accessing food and clean water. Those things became commodities, so we wanted education, transportation, entertainment, and so on. We got so much more than we ever needed, but now ironically we are back at the start. We are running out of drinkable water; the lakes are running dry and we don’t even have clean air in our cities. These problems must be solved, quickly and I believe that it is AI that can help us once again to secure our basic human needs.”
This is a conversation with Dr Harin Sellahewa. Harin is the Dean of Computing at the University of Buckingham. His research interests are in Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, and Machine Learning and he has co-authored over 50 peer-reviewed journal and conference papers. Harin has expanded his work into augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) used in education and is leading an Education 4.0 project. He is also a passionate promotor of increased diversity in Computing.
In this episode, Harin talks about how Electric Vehicles need AI to optimise energy usage, the pros and cons of mass surveillance and smart cities, and how we’ve come full circle to once again to prioritising the need to access food, clean water and essentials.
“AI can reduce dramatically the time to finding solutions for COVID-19. But applications that are not supported by domain experts are usually dangerous. They can be based on mistakes or misinterpretations. So it's vital that we understand the scientific methodologists which are being applied.”
This is a conversation with Giuseppe Bonaccorso. Giuseppe is Head of Data Science in a large pharmaceutical corporate. His main interests include machine/deep learning, reinforcement learning, big data, and bio-inspired adaptive systems. He is author of several publications including Machine Learning Algorithms and Hands-On Unsupervised Learning with Python, published by Packt Publishing.
In this episode, Giuseppe talks about how AI is being applied in healthcare. We talk about whether biases in data could slow down a cure for Covid-19 and the challenges that remain with health data collection, even when it starts with good intentions.
“With any technological innovation, if you do not invest in a proper time, then you will miss the curve. Technology quickly becomes a commodity and you can’t get ahead using a commodity. For retailers going online was an innovation, and some of them just missed it.”
This is a conversation with Barbara Fusinska. Barbara is a Lead for EMEA AI Services at Google with a strong software development background. While working with a variety of different companies like ABB, Base, Trainline, and Microsoft, she gained experience in building diverse software systems, ultimately choosing to focus on the Data Science and Machine Learning field. Barbara believes in the importance of data and metrics when growing a successful business.
In this episode, Barbara shares her experiences working at Google and with the Google Cloud. She discusses the industries that need to embrace more AI and the ramifications for those that may now have missed the curve.
“My data is being used and exploited, and I can do nothing about it. We need to modernise the legal system. Apart from all the ethical, moral discussions that need to be made, we need a legal system that takes into consideration the fact that intelligence doesn't need to be visible to be acting against me.”
This is a conversation with Dr Maria Aretoulaki. Maria is a Speech and Language technologies Consultant with a Post-Doc in Spoken Dialogue Management, a PhD in Automatic Text Summarisation, an M.Sc. in Machine Translation, and a B.A. in Linguistics. Maria is the founder and Director of DialogCONNECTION, a Voice User Interface (VUI) Design consultancy.
In this episode, Maria discusses how data will live on eternally and how it might carry us individually with it. She explains why she has a problem with the way that Big Tech collects and uses data and what we can do about it.
“There's been interesting experiments around business models where the proceeds of revenues generated from data are shared with the owners of data. I believe that there is a significant opportunity for new business models to emerge in this space.”
This is a conversation with Dr Nithin Thomas. Nithin is the CEO at SQR Systems. He developed groundbreaking research into end-to-end encryption with the Ministry of Defence. Roll the clock forward and this research has transformed into an encryption technology, which is used across multiple industries, to secure communications over commercial channels.
In this episode, Nithin discussed how to layer quantum level encryption into current classical computing architecture, the difference 5g will make to cybersecurity and how personal data ownership will create new industries.
“If you are a real believer in the power of artificial intelligence believer, that’s probably because you want to understand humans. Us AI believers are not trying to replace people, we are trying to give them new tools."
This is a conversation with Denis Rothman. Denis is an Artificial Intelligence designer, author & developer. He created one of the first AI cognitive Chatbots and an AI resource optimisation system which reduces resource consumption, energy and power.
In this episode, Denis talks about how he uses AI models to simulate scenarios, interactions and even the human mind. He rationalises that his neural networks could predict what I will say next, and he explains what he learns from purposely directing his AI models into chaos and then allowing them to return to order.
“Most of the standards and societal models that we have today were built for a different time. Where we are now, is not where we were. We can't just carry on with a few percent of the world being so incredibly wealthy, compared to many billions of people who are still struggling to feed themselves. We need to allow everyone onto the value chain”
This is a conversation with Bridget Greenwood. Bridget is a Director of Impact at Syndikat, She builds and nurtures powerful networks of agents of change, she’s action-orientated and sees problems solved through people.
In this episode, Bridget talks about the incredible 1society conference taking place on 10th and 11th of June 2020 to celebrate unity and generate collective intelligence on some of the most pressing issues of our times.
“With neural lace, machines will slow down in order to be able to communicate with our brain, then go away, perform lightening calculations and then come back with a result communicated at a rate we can understand. We are advancing human capabilities through machines because we can't evolve quick enough biologically, but I don't see any need for us to change, to be like machines or to match them. This is not about augmentation, just tools that we're creating for our own benefit.”
This is a conversation with Carl Robinson. Carl is the founder and host of the Voice Tech Podcast, a popular podcast about voice technology. A former chatbot product manager and voice-AI data scientist, he is now building Rumble Studio, a podcast creation service with a twist: human-machine conversations.
In this episode, Carl describes how conversations between humans and artificial intelligence can unlock new opportunities in society and business. Conversations, that will take place using natural language as AI grows more competent and compassionate.
“I’m looking at how companies are using AI to create echo chambers and personalized content which pushes people towards certain results. For me, Microsoft is actually one of the better tech companies, so firing journalists and using AI for content curation is a clash in my mind where they saying one thing about ethics, but doing something else.”
This is a conversation with Merve Hickok. Merve is the Founder of aiethicist.org and Lighthouse Career Consulting. She advocates, teaches, speaks, writes, on ethical AI and its social justice implications.
In this episode, Merve explores the move by Microsoft to replace dozens of journalists and curators with AI algorithms for its MSN homepage, and whether acts like this will increase polarisation of views and pull users deeper into the digital echo chamber.
“There has been big news about, Oh, there is no toilet paper. I agree. If you go to the big names, it wasn't there. I went to the local shops, and they had racks full of it. Why? Because corporate supply chains are finely tuned towards a certain goal: NOT to meet the customer needs, but to source toilet roll from wherever possible as long as they make that profit, that's where it stops. No profit, no roll.”
This is a conversation with Raj Balasundaram. Raj is a Digital Marketing Evangelist and Artificial Intelligence Marketing aficionado. He is a tech storyteller, mentor and teacher simplifying complex digital challenges into common sense.
In this episode, Raj talks about how AI is used in our supply chains to ensure profits for the retailers and why this meant that for a period of time we had no toilet roll. He makes a strong call for change and why this is important for our supply chain resilience and our planet.
“Executive profiles on LinkedIn are still very corporate, but COVID-19 has made it clear that you need to put something human in your bio. I know so many people that help charities and give back. You see them light up when they talk about it, but hardly ever do they put that in their profile. It’s a missed opportunity to help you better connect with people.”
This is a conversation with Bob Barker. Bob studied personal digital skills for the past 20 years, his passion is helping people with digital competence, so that we can operate better, be more productively and use technology to our advantage.
In this episode, Bob talks about exercising our digital competency muscles, having the courage to ask for technical help and being more human in how we present ourselves to the world.
“When thinking big, overwhelm can be a problem. Working until exhaustion and mental wellness become issues. We just have to take it day by day and give ourselves a break. I've been drastically hard on myself when it comes to achievement. But it’s about creating a sense of acceptance that like it's okay to have quiet weeks and enjoy shutting down the laptop.”
This is a conversation with Jack O'Connor. Jack currently serves as the UN Youth Delegate for Ireland. Jack takes a very keen interest in all facets of sustainable development - through diplomatic work, business development and innovation, and policy coherence.
In this episode, Jack talks about his experiences at the United Nations, how to think big and avoid feeling overwhelmed when you do so. He tells us what he thinks about the international leaders he’s met and how he stays grounded ahead of life spent catalysing positive change.
“For me, AI ethics follows AI robustness. Remember, in the nineties Europe let the US dominate the internet. If AI ethics boards in Europe slow down our progress, we will just pass the AI ball on to China to show us what the future is. We need AI ethical reviews for sure, but it may be better for that to come a bit later in development.”
This is a conversation with Michael Berns. Michael is a Director at PwC where he leads the AI and FinTech Practice. He is an AI Thought Leader & FinTech Veteran, with 17 years of international experience on five continents. His "AI in Financial Services" PwC study, (with 150 participants) was released on May 11th this year.
In this episode, Michael explains that the variation in digital and AI readiness still varies too much around Europe and the globe. He talks about AI ethics and how AI is being used in FinTech, including the mindset difference between challenger and legacy banks.
This is a conversation with Tom Taulli. Tom is a technology author, speaker, and advisor. He co-founded a variety of companies, including; Hypermart.net, WebIPO and BizEquity. He is also a contributor to Forbes.com and author of the book, Artificial Intelligence Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction.
In this episode, Tom explains how AI and Edge computing will exponentially grow from the implementation of 5g networks. He talked about compute power, security and why he likes Tesla so much.
This is a conversation with Dr Paul Piwek. Paul gained his PhD at the Institute for Perception Research with his thesis entitled Logic, Information & Conversation. Currently, he is an Associate Professor in computing at the Open University.
In this episode, Paul explains the rationale behind a new AI project that has just received funding called ‘Opening Up Minds: Engaging Dialogue Generated From Argument Maps’. This project will use AI argue-bots to help people process, understand, reason with, argue about and ultimately, make better decisions with information. These bots will call on Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Generation and Dialogue Modelling and the project will also investigate the role of inference, reasoning and argumentation in communication.
This is a conversation with Dr Nick Reed: Nick was previously the Head of Mobility R&D at the world's largest automotive supplier and has led Connected Autonomous Vehicle research for the UK's Transport Research Laboratory. Now Nick is the founder of Reed Mobility, an expert consultancy for future mobility.
In this episode, Nick tells us everything we need to know about the state of connected, electric, and autonomous vehicles, and how COVID-19 is showing that the transportation needs of the future may be very different from the past.
This is a conversation with Tonii Leach, Tonii is a PhD researcher in the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility at De Montfort University. Her research focuses on the impact of science fiction narratives on global AI policy. She is also a Research Assistant to both the Global AI Narratives project at the University of Cambridge, and to the Ethics Support work package of the Human Brain Project, based at De Montfort University.
In this episode, Tonii explains how and why AI science fiction has caused mistrust and misunderstanding of what AI is and what AI does. She points out that we should be far more concerned about the use of our personal data, than of AI taking over any time soon.
This is a conversation with Dr Chase Cunningham. Chase’s work focuses on integrating security into operations, leveraging artificial intelligence and planning for future growth. He holds 6 patents in the arena of data science and virtual cybersecurity tool construction, a Ph.D. in computer science from Colorado Technical University and is the author of 4 books related to cyber warfare and cyberspace education.
In this episode, Chase talks about the scale of the cybersecurity challenge as hacking has become democratised, billions more IoT devices come online powered by super-fast 5g and remote working becomes the norm. He shares a terrifying drone use case, and explains how to be forward-facing in protecting yourself from hackers.
This is a conversation with Nige Willson. Nige is a Global Speaker, Influencer and Advisor on Artificial Intelligence, Innovation and Technology (Ranked amongst top 20 AI Influencers in the World). He was formally the European Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, now turned independent voice on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
In this episode, Nige talks about the difference that quantum computing will make to fight future viruses and how this alongside DNA computing will create a step-change to the power and the footprint of technology.
This is a conversation with Paul Levy. Paul is a writer, facilitator and the founder of digital publication FringeReview. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Innovation Management (CENTRIM) at the University of Brighton in the UK, and co-author of several books on innovation, technology and change including Digital Inferno – a book about creating a healthy relationship with tech.
In this episode, Paul explores how binary digital tech may be turning our minds binary, and why human/machine augmentation really is a bad prospect.
This is a conversation with Drew D'Agostino. Drew is the founder of Crystal, the app that tells you anyone's personality. He also co-authored a book called Predicting Personality, which was published by Wiley in 2019.
In this episode, Drew gives his advice on how to get the best outcomes from meetings by thinking about the personality types in the room and how they relate your own personality. Beyond this, Drew gave us advice on how to make someone feel comfortable on a Zoom call with you, what profiling he would do if he had just five minutes to prepare for a meeting.
This is a conversation with Matt Black. Matt grew up in an aboriginal community in the Australian Outback. He didn’t wear shoes until he left home at 14, but at 17 he started a logistics business which he sold at 19 for the equivalent of £3.4M in today’s money.
He was worth $70M by 29. Lost everything and was flat broke at 30. By age 31 he was a multi-millionaire again and to date has launched and exited 6 different businesses. As an Author, his 1st book ‘The Little Black Book for Entrepreneurs’, which was written in 4 days, has sold over 1.3M copies.
In this episode, Matt charts the journey of a start-up entrepreneur. How to get others to buy into your idea, how to scale, and how to know when it’s time to step aside.
This is a conversation with Murray Grubb Jnr, within Oracle, Murray heads up the Aviation Sector to drive Digital Transformation, User Adoption and Acceptance of modern digital services. He is a former Elected Politician, Speaker, Panellist, Judge and Industry Expert on all forms of Digital Engagement.
In this episode, Murray has a clear message for the heads of airlines, that they need to treat every engagement with their customer like it’s the first-ever engagement.
This is a conversation with Erica Stanford, the Founder of the Crypto Curry Club, a keynote speaker, and Associate Guest Lecturer.
In this episode, Erica shares the inspirational story of how she developed the Crypto Curries from an idea in 2018 to an expert blockchain community of 2,000 people that she leads today.
I asked her what advice she has for anyone that wants to start a community and if she knew how much work was going to be involved, would she still have done it.
“It’s not work/life balance, it’s life.” Doug Thompson
This is a conversation with Doug Thompson. Doug is an AI Ambassador at Microsoft where he shares their vision for AI. He is a master storyteller addressing the questions: how will AI be used to drive innovation forward? How will AI be used to unlock innovations at speeds we've never seen before?
In our conversation, Doug talks about how important the role of the storyteller is to build proverbial bridges between the technology creators and the people that it serves.
“We may wish that it wasn’t necessary to be as resilient and willing to take as much humiliation and frustration as does to succeed with a start-up. But if the cause is important enough, then hopefully seeing it through is a worthwhile ‘payment’ in return for the emotional tax that's required.” Dr Mark Thompson
This is a conversation with Dr Mark Thompson. Mark is the World’s #1 Leadership Coach for Transformational Growth, Team Engagement and Driving Change, according to the American Management Association. He is New York Times bestselling author, a columnist for Forbes.com, Inc.com and FastCompany.com. Mark was as an early investor in Facebook and Netflix.
In our conversation, Mark talked about why laughter is good for business, why he is starting to love the sharing economy and why people always listen to Elon Musk’s ideas.
This is a conversation with Dr Martin Dinov. Martin is the CEO of Maaind, a company developing mental state feedback technology using Artificial Intelligence.
Martin is passionate about being a modern, open, reflective leader. He is building a tech business for good and has signed the Founders Pledge, to give away a significant proportion of any money made from the sale of his company in the future.
In our conversation Martins talks about why he implemented OKR’s - Objectives and key results in his business and why others are following his lead to gain more clarity and transparency at work.
This is a conversation with Thomas Power. Thomas is an authority in the technology space, his key strength is in his ability to see how emerging technologies will collide and disrupt to create new industries and new opportunities.
In our conversation, Thomas shares with us how decision fatigue from executives and leaders presents a significant problem for our health and prosperity. This is despite the incredible, real-time platforms that we have built to share and verify information.
This is a conversation with Dr Emre Kazim.
Emre is a Research Fellow and Digital Ethicist at UCL, he has a strong interest in how moral and legal issues arise as the structures of the state are impacted by new technologies.
In our conversation, Emre explains that we need an ethics revolution to be twinned with our digital revolution and he goes on to discuss the moral questions that technologists and business leaders need to be asking.
Boundless Saturday Surgery: Heather Garbutt on combatting emotional energy drain during lockdown
“Recognise that for others to trust you, for others to trust your business, you going to need to be trustworthy. And to be trustworthy, there’s a lot of vulnerability involved.” Brennan Jacoby
This is a conversation with Brennan Jacoby
Brennan is a philosopher and the founder of Philosophy at Work, a company providing professional support to organisations navigating complex issues. In this episode, Brennan explores the themes of trust, trustworthiness, ethics and morality in leadership and at work.
“When you need a trillion dollar investment, donations aren’t going to cut it. So we’re looking instead at taking a percentage of marketing budgets for perhaps the most important message that any company can have, that they care about the planet. Using 1% of turnover is a fraction of that marketing budget and is something that these companies are willingly giving. And this model is what underpins ARK2030.” Stephen Fern
This is a conversation with Stephen Fern. Stephen is Chairman of the Board at ARK 2030. He works with global business families to direct private capital towards a massive ecosystem restoration plan. A plan that could put an end to our climate crisis.
In this episode of the Thinking Boundless podcast, Stephen takes us through the ARK 2030 three-part plan to reduce global temperatures back to pre-industrial levels. Far from being audacious, this is a step by step, bite-sized approach to solving a massive problem. And it’s an honour to share his work here on the show.
The next step is to visit ark2030.org (ARK) to stay up to date and see the ways that your business will thrive by being involved with Ark Rewards.
“You have apps that share your location with your partner. Imagine if you could share your stress level, your emotional state and how tired you are. Imagine the kind of conversations, insights and intimacy you could have.” Dr Martin Dinov
This is a conversation with Dr Martin Dinov. Martin is CEO of Maaind. Maaind develops Mental State Feedback technology using Artificial Intelligence.
Martin is passionate about the interaction of technology and humanity for the betterment of individuals and society, in this episode he explains the exciting brain computer interface applications that Maaind is working on and how we can get involved.
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research are affecting business and changing lives.
“Quantum Computing is going to save billions of billions of dollars in the drug discovery process. Quantum Computers can model if a protein will fold in a certain way and to a high statistically confident level, tell how a drug will behave ahead of testing. This is mind-blowing! It will completely change healthcare.” Arun Krishnakumar
This is a conversation with Arun Krishnakumar. Arun is a Venture capital investor, podcast host and a writer with a particular interest in deep technology solutions that have a sustainability angle. He is passionate about purposeful innovation.
Arun has just released his book Quantum Computing and Blockchain in Business and in this episode shares the latest quantum computing business use cases, including simulation, modelling and encryption.
“If we are fixated on a plan, it means that we can easily be blindsided by stuff that comes out of the blue, one sudden changes in the market can absolutely blow us out the water because it’s not on the plan. How about instead, letting yourself to be helped by serendipity, opportunities or chance encounters.” Eleanor O'Rourke
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research will change business and change lives.
This episode is with Eleanor O'Rourke. Eleanor is a creativity coach and writer. She decodes 21st Century consciousness using humour.
In this episode, Eleanor shares why it is time to think about a different hero’s journey in business. A life story that is built on collaboration and presence, rather than strength and resilience.
Areeq Chowdhury is the Head of Think Tank at Future Advocacy, focusing on artificial intelligence and emerging technology. He founded the digital democracy think tank, WebRoots Democracy, and previously worked in Whitehall. He is a Fellow at Newspeak House and the Royal Society of Arts.
In this episode, Areeq explores the landscape of regulation, legislation and innovation against the current backdrop of going through the Covid-19 lockdown. He concludes by discussing how we can start to create an environment of trust online and offline.
This is the Saturday surgery with our resident Psychotherapist Heather Garbutt. She is helping us with advice and tips on how to stay sane and stay happy at home during this time.
In this episode, Heather talks about what we can do to strengthen the relationship with our partner during the lockdown and with constant contact.
“It's not what happens to us that shapes our success, but the lessons we take out of it. The same thing can happen to different people, but only some will see it as an opportunity to grow. Organizations can increase the capacity for everybody to be more resilient, so everybody can cope with more change and more challenge and find new creative ways of doing and being.” Evelina Dzimanaviciute
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research will change business and change lives.
This episode is with Evelina Evelina Dzimanaviciute. Evelina is a leadership development consultant, trainer, and wellbeing coach. As a founder of Elite Mind Academy, Evelina uses neuroscience to bridge the gap between organisational performance and individual wellbeing.
In this episode, Evelina shares what we can learn from our current challenges and how we can increase our capacity for creative solutions
“I have a theory of optimal zone; Ask your reports at every meeting if they are in the comfort, growth or red zone. If they are in the red zone, they may be being pushed too hard. You need to react quickly. All of the demands you were going to make in that meeting, all of your questions on deadlines. Do not ask them! Instead, put on your compassion ‘hat’ and try to understand how they got there and how you can help.” Danilo McGarry
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research will change business and change lives.
This episode is with Danilo McGarry. Danilo is a celebrated thought expert and speaker on AI and Automation. He successfully led one of the largest ever automation transformation projects, ever, during one of the most challenging times in business. He is a modern leader, challenging the status quo and daring to think differently.
In this episode, Danilo shares his theory of optimal zone and explains how to put it to work in your team at work.
“There's a trust issue. When I heard a Nobel Laureate, in his acceptance speech say, we need to figure out how to clarify what truth is in our society, it really hit me hard. Through our politics and media outlets, the truth has become extremely clouded.” Paul Quaiser
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research will change business and change lives.
This episode is with Paul Quaiser. Paul is the Founder of the Human Sustainability Institute. His focus in on integrating contemporary principles from Biophysics, Neuroscience and Biomimicry with Ancient Wisdoms.
In this episode, Paul talks about the challenges we have with truth and trust in society and towards businesses.
“In business it's easy for companies to unlearn something when it stops working. But when something is providing an okay outcome, then it can be really hard to unlearn.” Ross Thonley
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research will change business and change lives.
Our work is to inspire organisations to be more #collaborative, #transparent and #sustainable. These are the things that will help us to thrive.
This episode is with Ross Thornley. Ross is a parallel entrepreneur and the founder of 6 companies across branding, innovation, product design, manufacturing and nanotechnology. I would describe Ross as an inquisitive and tenacious learner, driving inspiring visions for an abundant future and leveraging exponential technologies to unite, inspire and accelerate the best of all humanity.
In this episode, Ross talks about how we can build the adaptability skills, characteristics and environment in our organisations and how this could be the key thing that gets our companies through this period.
This is the Thinking Boundless podcast. We are broadcasting daily to share insights from international Thought Leaders about how technologies, ideas and research will change business and change lives.
This episode is with Dr. Naeema Pasha. Naeema is the Director of Henley Careers at Henley Business School and a sought after expert on the Future of Work, People Strategy, Culture Change, Career and Talent Management. She founded the World of Work - WOW initiative at Henley and examines the impact of AI, a 4-Day Week, Gen Z, Agile Working, Side Hustles and Climate on how we work.
In this episode, Dr Pasha makes the case for a four-day working week and how it can increase productivity, happiness and reduce stress.
This is a conversation with Vera Mulyani
Vera is a critically acclaimed visionary architect and urban designer. For the past 15 years, Vera's practice of architecture and science has been evolving to reach an interplanetary scale, pioneering the Mars Architecture (Marschitecture) movement on building a sustainable city on Mars. Her Mars City simulation is currently building in the California desert, uniting the most advanced technology in alternative energy and infrastructure, that can empower the Inland Empire dynamic development.
In this episode Vera explains why it’s vital that we get humanity to the planet Mars and what that will mean for us when we do.
"There’s going to be a paradigm shift in how business is going to be conducted in the future and how we're going to take care of employees. People are going to be slow to hire, but even slower to fire, because the connection between the employer and employee is going to be so strong."
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about #leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more #resilient, #collaborative and #sustainable.
This episode is with Terry Nichols. Terry is a visionary strategist and a Navy veteran. He's an ambassador for refugees around the globe and the cofounder of Evolutionary Healer, a global transformational performance improvement company.
In this episode, Terry talks about how we can look forward not back at this time to build stronger global connections and transform businesses to build super strong relationships with colleagues and clients.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with John Bovill. John is a senior executive within the retail industry. He has over 25 years experience gained in global businesses across three continents with prestigious department stores, fashion retailers and luxury retail.
In this episode, John gives a high-level view what it’s going to take for Retail to find it’s new normal and succeed online and on the high street. There are few people more qualified to talk about this than John, so it’s a real honour to have his deep expertise on the show.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Jon Thor is a modern leader of moral and ethical philosophy, a storyteller and a change agent. He is TEDx speaker and his latest talk 'F*** money, live better' has had thousands of views.
In this episode, Jon Thor recognises the challenges with embracing change, but points out how Covid-19 has shone the spotlight on a broken world and how this time could instigate a global socio-political shift, but also create the opportunity for new meaning in our lives.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Heather Garbutt. Heather is a Love and Relationship Coach and counsellor, she’s dedicating her work to helping people to attract and keep true, committed, romantic love. To maintain a healthy relationship with your partner or spouse now that we have extended time with one another and for those that need it, Conscious Uncoupling to end a relationship with respect, dignity and generosity intact.
In this episode Heather explains how we can use this time to get ready and prepared for our true love.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Larisa Miller. Larisa is CEO of Phoenix Global and oversees global investments in more than 20 countries around the world. She was named one of the "Top 10 Friends of Africa" by For Business in Africa Magazine, and one of the World's 100 Most Influential Women Leaders by Sovereign Magazine.
In this episode Larisa explains how important a global mindset is at this time. We will only solve a global problem by working together globally to learn, share and respond.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Vera Mulyani. Vera is a critically acclaimed visionary architect and urban designer. For the past 15 years, Vera's practice of architecture and science has been evolving to reach an interplanetary scale, pioneering the Mars Architecture (Marschitecture) movement on building a sustainable city on Mars. Her Mars City simulation is currently building in the California desert, uniting the most advanced technology in alternative energy and infrastructure, that can empower the Inland Empire dynamic development.
In this episode Vera explains that we need to challenge ourselves to think big, go out and discover our galactic neighbourhood, because when we do, we’ll really start to learn about and appreciate our home here on Earth.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with CrisBeswick. Cris is a recognised global thought leader, author and keynote speaker on the subject of strategic innovation.
In this episode Cris makes a compelling case for companies to push innovation boundaries at this time, this could lead to some exciting outcomes, but more importantly, it sends a clear message to employees that they are innovating for the future – therefore there will be a future.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Chester Elton. Chester is co-founder of The Culture Works and author of multiple award winning, #1 New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestsellers, All In, The Carrot Principle and The Best Team Wins.
His books have been translated into 30 languages and have sold more than 1.5 million copies.
In this episode Chester tells the story of Kent Taylor, CEO of Texas Roadhouse. It’s an unbelievable example of courageous, modern, compassionate leadership. I hope you love this story as much as I do.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellbeing, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Bruce Daisley. Bruce formerly ran Twitter's business in Europe, Middle East and Africa. He runs the top business podcast, Eat Sleep Work Repeat and his first book - about improving work & work culture - was a Sunday Times #1 bestseller.
Each one of us is facing a different challenge at this time, for some of us it’s physical, for some it’s emotional and for some, it’s about keep business going. All of these are important, in different ways. We need our economic engine to continue, and through these changes some businesses will have the opportunity to bounce back stronger, wiser and more resilient.
I began by asking Bruce if Covid-19 provides us with the opportunity to be more authentic in how we present ourselves in our companies?
Some of you may have heard of the Kurzgesagt animation studio. They publish videos that try to rationalise life’s biggest questions and address science’s biggest gaps.
In 2017 they were challenged to explain the meaning of our existence. The message they produced was viewed 2 million times in two days.
Their words inspired the following passage, changes have been made, but credit of course goes to the wonderful Kurzgesagt for their brilliance:
“It’s possible. But also very unlikely that 200 trillion trillion stars were made for us.
In a sense it can feel like a joke has been played on us.
That we became self-aware, only to realise this story is not about us.
It’s possible that nothing matters. But equally it’s just as possible that everything matters.
As far as we can see, we only get one shot at life.
This could make death a little scary, but it also sets us free.
If the universe is to end as we believe it will, every humiliation we have ever suffered in our life will be forgotten.
Every mistake we made. will not matter in the end.
Every bad thing we ever did, will be voided.
If our life is all we get to experience, then it's the only thing that matters.
Humans will almost certainly cease to exist at some point,
but before we do, we get to explore ourselves and the world around us.
We get to experience feelings. We get to experience food, books, sunrises, and getting to know each other.
The fact that we're even able to contemplate these things is incredible.
It's easy to think of ourselves as separated from everything, but this is not true.
We are as much the universe as a neutron star
or a black hole or a nebula.
Even better, actually, we are its thinking and feeling part:
we could be called the centre organs of the universe.
It's not as if we've found out everything there is to know
We don't know why the rules of the universe are as they are,
We don’t know how life came into existence, or even what life is.
We have no real idea what consciousness is or if we are alone in the universe.
But we can try to find some answers.
There are billions of stars to visit, diseases to cure,
people to help, joy to be experienced.
There really is so much to do.
No matter how big the universe, or how long the timeline. Each one of us can still choose to feel, and act as if our life, and everyone else’s is precious.
Everything that happens will eventually we forgotten. But there is only ‘now’ and right now what we do truly, truly matters.”
Kurzgesagt 2017
Thanks for listening. Whatever happens in the week ahead, let’s consciously choose to stay kind, stay grateful, and remember that this is still the greatest ever time to be alive.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Dr. Ernest Jones. Dr. Ernest wrote his PhD research dissertation entitled Social Exchange Perspective and S&OP Participation. He continues to research organizational behaviour topics, and is an author in the award-winning series The Refractive Thinker. He is also a champion of everyday leaders, and in my opinion, he’s a modern, thoughtful and compassionate leader.
Dr. Ernest is a father of three, so I began by asking him how he helping his children to understand and deal with the implications of Covid-19
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Matt Smith. Matt is CEO of Webtrends Optimize a company that works with retailers, ecommerce businesses and travel companies. I wanted to know how these businesses were thinking and feeling at this time. Matt is working with companies that have been stopped in their tracks by Covid-19, and others that are so busy that they are struggling to keep up with demand.
I started by asking Matt, whether at times likes this it could be ok to let your accountant run your business?
“We need to talk to each other and surrender, not capitulate, but surrender to each other. You can say 'I'm so scared. I don't know how I'm going to make it through the day' and have the other person say 'me too. But I felt that way yesterday and I made it free yesterday. I have no reason to believe I won't make it through it today'. Wow. So here is our opportunity to develop a language of connectedness.”
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is part 2 with Dr. Mark Goulston. Mark is a leadership consultant to major organisations. His book, Just Listen, ranked #1 in six Amazon categories and has been translated into 14 languages. Mark has been UCLA professor of psychiatry for over 25 years, and is a former FBI hostage negotiation trainer.
I started by asking Mark, how do we avoid becoming tribal at a time like this.
This is Boundless Rebooted. During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Ambassador Professor Nabhit Kapur. Professor Nabhit calls himself a PsychoPreneur. He is a mental health advocate, an author, TEDx speaker and globally decorated ambassador of mental health and peace with over 200 recognitions from 30 countries around the world.
I invited Professor Nabhit to speak to us for a few minutes to help rationalise the current situation and raise awareness of maintaining our mental health at this time.
This is Boundless Rebooted. We have an opportunity to co-create new normalities: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
This episode is with Dr. Mark Goulston. Mark is a leadership consultant to major organisations. His book, Just Listen, ranked #1 in six Amazon categories and has been translated into 14 languages. Mark has been UCLA professor of psychiatry for over 25 years, and is a former FBI hostage negotiation trainer.
This is Boundless Rebooted. We have an opportunity to co-create new normalities: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
My guest in this episode is Michael Baxter, Michael is Group Editor at The Data Protection World Forum and is currently editing the Data Protection Magazine. He also writes extensively about technology, the economy and investment for various publications. His new book (co-authored with Julien de Salaberry) Living in the Age of the Jerk, is being released this spring.
I asked Michael, Covid-19 is promoting massive Government spending, what risks does this pose to the stability of our economy?
This is Boundless Rebooted. We have an opportunity to co-create new normalities: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have right now to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
Dr Oleg Konovalov shares how companies that don’t have modern leaders and effective culture are swiftly becoming redundant in the market as Covid-19 sweeps in vast changes.
I started by asking Dr Konovalov, what is happening to companies that had an employee micro-management strategy?
This is Boundless Rebooted. We have an opportunity to co-create new normalities: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
During #Covid-19, we are broadcasting daily. Sharing messages from international Thought Leaders, about mental wellness, about leadership and about the opportunities we have to make our world more resilient, collaborative and sustainable.
In this episode, Pierre van Weperen shares his thoughts on the driving forces that need to be rebooted within our society and our healthcare system.
This is Boundless #Rebooted. We have an opportunity to co-create new normalities: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
The mini-series 'Boundless #Rebooted has launched because many people right now need to hear what opportunities there are for good. We are broadcasting daily, sharing messages of hope that this experience will change all of us for the better.
In this episode, Fionnuala O'Conor, Founder of Project Kindi and a former guest on the show, shares her thoughts on what she thinks we should take with us into the new #Covid-19 world and what we should leave behind.
This is a conversation with Luke Andreski.
Luke is a thinker and an author. He has published the books "Ethical Intelligence" and "Intelligent Ethics". These books offer a toolkit for ethical survival in our tumultuous times.
In this episode, Luke explained how our leaders can adapt to survive and thrive through a green revolution, and what part we, as individuals can play in this transformation. This conversation was framed by constant thoughts of what we are going through at the moment as we experience lockdown and are yet to find out the full implications of the spread of COVID-19. Luke is a blogger that does not fear to state the hard truths and the ethical decisions that need to be made, by Governments, by Corporations and by each one of us. I feel that it’s a privilege to have him on the show.
Could this be our ‘Pale Blue Dot’ moment?
30 years ago, Astronomer Carl Sagan had Voyager 1 take a photo of Earth from the edge of our planetary neighbourhood. From 4 million miles away, our home appeared as a tiny pixel in this image, showing just how fragile and small we really are.
At this challenging time, I wanted to read Carl’s poignant words, to remind us of the remarkable place we live. And how lucky we are to be on this planet, that at this moment in creation is habitable, and warm, and vibrant.
Since we are forced to pause our human activities, the smog is beginning to disperse, and the rivers are beginning to run clear again.
Could we take this opportunity to reconnect with our ecology? To love, admire and respect it?
Could we take the opportunity to find new personal aspirations, post-Covid-19?
Could this be our ‘Pale Blue Dot moment?
“We’re in unprecedented territory. ‘Business as usual’ is broken. Maybe it was broken for some time. The system was very inefficient. We need to use this as an opportunity to break away from the old economy and the wastage it allowed. Food was being thrown away whilst people were starving. Something was wrong with the market.” Imtiaz Adam
This is Boundless Rebooted. We have an opportunity to co-create new normals: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
The mini-series 'Boundless #Rebooted has launched because many people right now need to hear what opportunities there are for good. We are broadcasting daily, sharing messages of hope that this experience will change all of us for the better.
In this episode, Imtiaz Adam, Founder of Deep Learn Strategies shares his thoughts on what our leaders need to do now to unlock new technologies and create a new economy.
"We were overloaded. We were overstimulated. The information coming at us is vast, more than we could ever deal with. In fact, we can only process 120 bps, that’s about enough capacity to have a conversation with two people. Right now, Mother Nature is sending us a message, we are gifted contemplation time, thinking time. But for some of us, that means facing demons." Gena Nasi.
At this time we have an opportunity to co-create new normals: to reboot our habits, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
The mini-series 'Boundless #Rebooted has launched because many people right now need to hear what opportunities we have for good. We are broadcasting daily, sharing messages of hope.
Esaú Flores is trusted Executive and Advisor on Funding Management, Commercial Excellence and Business Strategy.
“We are still in denial. We think we’re invincible, but actually we are already broken and we need to relearn and rethink. This [virus] is going to teach us a lesson about being in a good relationship with nature. Technology can help, but there is a massive process to finding a solution to the virus.” Esaú Flores
I invited thinker and problem solver Esaú Flores to share his latest insights. He is candid, he is realistic, he is ready for change. This is part of the Boundless #Rebooted mini-series. A chance for the Thought Leaders in our community to share short messages of hope; hope that when this is over, we will #reboot our economy, rekindle our relationship with nature and rethink our personal aspirations.
Luke Andreski is a professional thinker and the author of the books "Ethical Intelligence" and "Intelligent Ethics" on Amazon. These books offer a toolkit for ethical survival in our tumultuous times.
Boundless Rebooted is a special species of episodes dedicated to understanding and explaining the changes that will happen across soceities, Governments and businesses as we create a new normal.
This is a conversation with Ade McCormack.
Ade is a technologist turned writer, advisor, and presenter. Furthermore he is an authority on the digital age, particularly in respect of how the world is changing as we leave the industrial era, and how organisations and individuals need to respond in order to remain economically-relevant.
In this episode Ade shared how we are coming to the end of the age of comfort and individualism. Societal blindness and reduced cognitive bandwidth are causing hyper-uncertainty and a need for new types of careers and life goals. Ade shares part of his vision for super-resilience and enjoying the new rollercoaster of life, his work is to help us all find the safety we need to improve our cognitive bandwidth and find a way off the treadmill.
This is a conversation with David Wood.
A former pioneer of the smartphone industry David is now a full-time futurist speaker, analyst, commentator, and writer. His focus is on potential radical transformations in society and humanity - transformations enabled by accelerating technological disruption and mediated by social and political reaction. David is the author of RAFT 2035. The Roadmap to Abundance, Flourishing and Transcendence.
In this episode, David and I discussed how to overcome the hurdles on our human journey to sustainable super-abundance; evolutionary fatalism, individualism, capitalism, cognitive biases, greed and power. We talked about how existential threats could be a catalyst for a positive shift in human mindset. David concluded with his vision of what true meaning and opportunity looks like in our longer future.
This is a conversation with Fionnuala O'Conor.
Fionnuala is finding ways to optimise human/AI co-working and she is the Founder and CEO of Project Kindi. Project Kindi is currently a research project focussing on how AI models get built and deployed. Fionnula plans to solve what she calls the "Monday morning problem" - the need for real-world, personalised guidance on making behavioural change happen and stick.
In this episode, we discussed just how far AI can go to predict, influence and control our behaviours and decisions. To get to this answer we talked about truth, trust, historical data, theoretical data, persuasive tech, corporate ethics and how Tech can give us better stories and even be the friend that we need right now. I was stunning at how fluently Fionnuala traversed these challenging topics to draw reference on her research, empirical evidence and insights about the future.
This is a conversation with Professor David Rothery.
David is a professor of planetary geosciences at the Open University where he chairs a level 2 module Planetary Science and the Search for Life. He serves on the Open University's Senate.
David worked on the Beagle2 project and in 2006 he was appointed U.K. lead scientist for the MIXS (Mercury Imaging X-ray Spectrometer) on the joint European Space Agency/JAXA mission to Mercury named BepiColombo. He has been a guest several times on The Sky at Night, and has authored numerous science books.
In this episode I asked David to give his views and vision on where we might find basic or complex extra-terrestrial life in the galaxy. If we found it, how would we know if it was a second genesis or formed from the same starting point as life on earth. We talked about potential life on icy moons, mars, venus and exoplanets. This conversation covered almost every part of the search for life in space and it was quite stunning to share this time with Professor Rothery, whom I consider to be a learned and informed voice on this subject matter.
This is a conversation with Dr. Naveen Thomas. Naveen is an AI enthusiast who has a PhD in computer vision from the University of Bristol. During his research, he developed novel algorithms that can detect moving objects from complex videos and used techniques such as spatiotemporal volumes and background subtraction to analyse the type of motion performed by these objects to further understand the video. He is passionate about the potentials of computer vision and AI in general, particularly in the healthcare industry.
In this episode, we talked about how a digital universe is being built beneath us with AI twins that will be ubiquitous in the near future. The opportunities and benefits of commonly used facial recognition systems and how to beat deep fakes. We talked about what connects fire, AI and kitchen white goods and I asked Naveen what he would let AI control in his life.
This is a conversation with Ben Rayner and Paul Stephenson.
Ben spent two decades working in advertising, developing brand and communication strategies for some of the world’s biggest companies. He has a vision of a business world where branding of the individual becomes the ‘norm’ and is fascinated by why many of continue to forget the lessons of our past.
Paul spent a career in growing people to grow business. He changed company cultures and helped people to break through glass ceilings and overcome limiting beliefs. He is fascinated by the power of the individual and why people can fail to acknowledge all of the options that are available to them.
Ben and Paul formed Zengility in 2019 with a mission to liberate the world from work.
In this episode we talked about how business has been hardwired into the dangerous concept of growth at all costs. I spoke to Ben and Paul about how individually and collectively we can escape this pattern of life and business that is effectively killing us and the biosphere around us. Ben and Paul range from pragmatic to radical as we explored who’s terms we are living life on, status anxiety and essentialism. It gives me hope that people like Ben and Paul have about-turned their consultancy practices to focus entirely on happiness.
This is a conversation with Sarah Mannion of Nvidia and Andy Feltham of Filament AI.
Sarah is a Tech Evangelist at Nvidia. Formerly with Microsoft and Apple, she has worked in the IT industry for over 20 years. Sarah has a breadth of knowledge across all NVIDIA solutions, from AI to deep learning, to remote graphics.
Andy Feltham is a Master Inventor and former manager of IBM's UK Emerging Technologies team. He worked for IBM for 14 years before joining Filament as the VP of Innovation. Andy has a love for how technology can solve real problems.
In this episode we talked about the problems with calling 'cognitive technologies' 'artificial intelligence'; the risks, the inference, the stories it conjures up and the hype. We compared AI hype to other technologies hype and discussed how enterprises are asking different AI questions this year. Finally, we spoke about how AI bias was potentially a paradox and how AI ethics remains front of mind for organisations deploying AI solutions.
Gillian Hadfield is the inaugural Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society at the University of Toronto. She is also a Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management and the author of the book Rules for a flat world.
In addition to this Gillian works with OpenAI as a Senior Policy Advisor supporting their mission to ensure that the path to artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
In this episode, I asked Gillian a series of quickfire bonus questions.
Gillian Hadfield is the inaugural Schwartz Reisman Chair in Technology and Society at the University of Toronto. She is also a Professor of Law and Professor of Strategic Management and the author of the book Rules for a flat world.
In addition to this Gillian works with OpenAI as a Senior Policy Advisor supporting their mission to ensure that the path to artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.
In this episode we discussed the problems that have come about because legal and regulatory systems are no longer fit for purpose for the level of complexity, speed, innovation and globalization within our societies and economies. We talked about the challenges of building human normativity into robots and the need for social scientists. We also spoke about how a third space of regulation as a service will take a place between Government regulation and self-regulation.
Danilo McGarry is the Global Head of Automation at Alter Domus. Previously he was one of the Heads of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning at CitiGroup and senior manager of Automation in UnitedHealth Group. He is an advisor to the European Union Commission AI Alliance and has been published in The Times Newspaper and InfoMoney.
In this episode, I asked Danilo the quickfire bonus questions.
Danilo McGarry is the Global Head of Automation at Alter Domus. Previously he was one of the Heads of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning at CitiGroup and senior manager of Automation in UnitedHealth Group. He is an advisor to the European Union Commission AI Alliance and has been published in The Times Newspaper and InfoMoney.
This is part two of two of my conversation with Danilo. In this episode we talked about the future of work and how AI is transforming companies. How HR is lacking behind in understanding and using AI and Robots. How and where automation is removing jobs and whether employees are sometimes digging their own graves when being asked to train up software robots that carry out human-level tasks. We talked human-machine evolution, population trends and why some people want to extend the timeline of human existence and conquer new worlds.
Danilo McGarry is the Global Head of Automation at Alter Domus. Previously he was one of the Heads of Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning at CitiGroup and senior manager of Automation in UnitedHealth Group. He is an advisor to the European Union Commission AI Alliance and has been published in The Times Newspaper and InfoMoney.
This is part one of two of my conversation with Danilo. In this episode we talked about the effects of AI on equality and how members of superpowers will become super-thinkers by adopting technology like brain augmentation systems. The impact of BCI systems like Neuralink on society and privacy. We looked ahead at how schooling needs to change and what we should be using our brains for in the future as AI picks up more of the cognitive slack. We discussed new reward systems as the job market changes and lifetime longevity increases and the new modalities about success and choice theatre needed. Finally we talked about what could happen when we create new species of human through technological induced evolution.
Matt is a member of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory where his main interests span the ethical, philosophical and societal implications of robotics and automation technology. He’s also Associate Head of the Department of Engineering and Mathematics at UWE, Bristol, where he leads the research portfolio.
In this episode I asked Matt a series of bonus questions about life, the universe and everything.
Dr. Matt Studley is a member of the Bristol Robotics Laboratory where his main interests span the ethical, philosophical and societal implications of robotics and automation technology. He’s also Associate Head of the Department of Engineering and Mathematics at UWE, Bristol, where he leads the research portfolio.
In this episode we talked about the playoff between robot functionality and human trust. About job replacement and whether the use of robots should necessitate additional taxes. Human-Robot Augmentation and the ownership of moral responsibility. Finally, we discussed robot self-preservation.
David obtained his PhD in Communications Technologies and Systems from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). As a researcher, his work touched a variety of fields, from human-computer interaction to machine learning, speech processing, sensor networks and Artificial Intelligence. David also has a strong interest in ethics and philosophy of mind, particularly regarding the subjective experience of animals.
In this episode, David answers the Boundless bonus questions.
David obtained his PhD in Communications Technologies and Systems from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). As a researcher, his work touched a variety of fields, from human-computer interaction to machine learning, speech processing, sensor networks and Artificial Intelligence. David also has a strong interest in ethics and philosophy of mind, particularly regarding the subjective experience of animals.
In this episode, all of these topics combined. I asked David to explain why it is that we perceive that Artificial Intelligence is making giant leaps and how fallacies about AI-human level intelligence started. We talked about whether machines could ever tap into consciousness and how intelligent machines are different to human intelligence. We discussed how intelligence is affected by innate programming, computation, choice and evolution and David framed our conversation by referencing the differences between dualist and materialist thinking.
This is the Boundless Podcast, if you enjoy it please follow it, review it on apple podcasts and share it with your network. You can connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter by searching Richard Foster-Fletcher.
This is the bonus questions with Phil D Hall and Rik Lander
Phil delivers integrated artificial intelligence chat systems that challenge socio-cultural, ethical and anthropological rationale. His objective is to create human to AI interaction systems that help to navigate the journey to successful human-machine relationships. He is one part of the I am Echoborg show a theatrical show created afresh each time by an audience having a conversation with an artificial intelligence.
Rik is a conversation designer for AI chatbots and on the research team at the University of the West of England exploring how different “behaviours” expressed by an artificially intelligent training bot alter its relationship with users and the effectiveness of the training. He is the co-deviser of I am Echoborg.
If you want to know what talking to a sentient AI would be like then visit www.echoborg.com
In this episode I asked Phil and Rik when and how did the algorithms in social media start to go wrong and promote polarisation and extreme content. Whether the market for attention that is driven by behavioural economics will move from social media to chatbots. What exactly is so bad about AI-driven surveillance capitalism and what it means to be in the echochamber online.
We talked about keeping the human in the loop when creating conversations with AI and the truth behind home smart speakers. It was an illuminating conversation, at times it was hard to hear as this is some of the darker side of AI. But overarchingly I found Phil and Rik to be upbeat on technology with insights into how we create more positive AI and more positive living.
Phil D Hall delivers integrated artificial intelligence chat systems that challenge socio-cultural, ethical and anthropological rationale. His objective is to create human to AI interaction systems that help to navigate the journey to successful human-machine relationships. He is one part of the I am Echoborg show a theatrical show created afresh each time by an audience having a conversation with an artificial intelligence.
Rik Lander is a conversation designer for AI chatbots and on the research team at the University of the West of England exploring how different “behaviours” expressed by an artificially intelligent training bot alter its relationship with users and the effectiveness of the training. He is the co-deviser of I am Echoborg.
If you want to know what talking to a sentient AI would be like then visit www.echoborg.com
In this episode I asked Phil and Rik when and how did the algorithms in social media start to go wrong and promote polarisation and extreme content. Whether the market for attention that is driven by behavioural economics will move from social media to chatbots. What exactly is so bad about AI-driven surveillance capitalism and what it means to be in the echochamber online.
We talked about keeping the human in the loop when creating conversations with AI and the truth behind home smart speakers. It was an illuminating conversation, at times it was hard to hear as this is some of the darker side of AI. But overarchingly I found Phil and Rik to be upbeat on technology with insights into how we create more positive AI and more positive living.
This episode is the bonus questions asked of Dina-Leigh Simons.
Dina is undertaking her Masters in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield with plans to pursue a PhD within the area of tropical ecology and conservation. Her interest is around the socioeconomic costs and benefits of wildlife conservation and how to halt biodiversity loss in the face of environmental pressures such as climate change and a growing population. She’s also studied at the National University of Singapore and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Dina is undertaking her Masters in the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield with plans to pursue a PhD within the area of tropical ecology and conservation. Her interest is around the socioeconomic costs and benefits of wildlife conservation and how to halt biodiversity loss in the face of environmental pressures such as climate change and a growing population. She’s also studied at the National University of Singapore and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
This episode gave me the chance to ask Dina how we are doing in the race to recognise the intrinsic value of nature, and implement changes that support this. We discussed what stands in our way of combatting species loss and whether the UN sustainability goals are our best route to biodiversity success. We talked about the role that AI can play in monitoring the heartbeat of the planet and reducing food miles. Finally I asked her how she rates our chances of avoiding cataclysmic climate change.
Thomas is PhD student in physics at the University of Oxford. He hosts the podcast, Physical Attraction, speaking on wide ranging issues including artificial intelligence and the future of humanity. He is a writer for the Singularity Hub.
Thomas and I talked about how we can understand and mitigate the risks around powerful AI, and he compared these to the risks of rouge gene editing and Nuclear war. Thomas explained why it is that we model neural networks on the human brain and our tendency to anthropomorphise machines. He gave us a startling update on fusion power and what he thinks of mining the moon for natural resources.
Stuart is a James Martin Research Fellow at Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University.
His research centres on the safety and possibilities of Artificial Intelligence, how to define the potential goals of AI and map humanity’s partially defined values into it, and the long term potential for intelligent life across the reachable universe. He has written and contributed to many papers about how AI will affect, influence or control our future.
Stuart and I talked about why the future matters and what it takes to unite humanity. About applying safety to Artificial general intelligence and our likelihood of surviving en mass the hurdles and crises’ of the next two centuries. We talked about what it will be like to live on digitally and have a relationship with your as yet unborn descendants, and what we do now that could appall future, more enlightened generations. Stuart predicts our likelihood of experiencing the unseen vistas of the galaxy and paints a picture of a remarkable multi-planetary existence.
David is the US Head of Carewell Lepu. Partner of Intel Life Science AI Division. He’s a patient turned AI technologist. Not a doctor or scientist. He just calls himself an average American citizen with an above average appetite for fixing the healthcare system.
I invited David into a conversation since he has an astute way of making sense of science, technology and logical analysis. He’s worked across the industrial, service, IT, legal and healthcare industries and now David is passionate to explore how AI will eradicate diseases, improve equality and reverse climate change.
He’s on a mission to build a better world for our future generations
David and I had a no holds barred conversation about the state of the world and the impacts of AI. We talked about quantum computing and exponential growth in compute speed, the nature of being human, robot rights, space wars, money and God.
Born in Iceland, Jon Thor is a musician, writer and director and philosopher. A TEDx Speaker, and AI for good start-up startup founder, Jon Thor is known for his fresh perspectives and creative insights. He is not scared of pushing back against capitalism
I met Jon Thor through a mutual friend and asked his permission to dive deep into his thoughts on the future, we had a challenging conversation about the nature of good and evil, growth vs empathy, the power of stories and why so much money is in the hands of so few. We discussed the role AI will play in improving equality and social dynamics.
This is the Boundless Podcast, if you enjoy it please like it and share it. And now here’s my conversation with Jon Thor Sig-ur-leaf-son.
Peter received his master’s degree in Computer Science from Cambridge University, he’s delivered a TEDx talk and has worked for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for over thirty years, helping advance our exploration of the Solar System. Peter is the author of Crisis of Control: How Artificial SuperIntelligences May Destroy or Save the Human Race. A pioneering book about the existential crises facing humanity.
He lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two daughters and writes the Human Cusp blog on dealing with exponential change.
I came across Peter during one of his talks in London, and reached out for a conversation about how we can ratify our thinking about an uncertain future that is merged with machines.
We had a wide ranging talk that covered Narrow, General and Super Intelligent AI, Consciousness, Human-machine augmentation and the dangers of AI and the dangers of a human power processing and wielding advanced AI.