FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe: Recent Episodes
Bruce McCabe
FutureBites is a podcast exploring promising and exciting pathways to a better future. Hosted by Dr Bruce McCabe, a futurist and keynote speaker who travels the world presenting his unique insights and research on the future to corporations, governments, and audiences in all industries. In each FutureBites episode, Bruce meets with an inspiring leader in science, technology, economics or the social sciences to talk about ideas, game-changers and opportunities to create a better future.
With wealth-inequality now worse than it was in ancient Rome, and the uber-rich exchanging wealth for power and applying that power to circumvent democracy and amass even more wealth, what can we do to break out of the loop and create a more equitable future?
I met with the wonderful Carl Rhodes, Professor of Business & Society at the University of Technology Sydney, to try to answer that question.
Over the past ten years, the richest 1 percent have gained at least $33.9 trillion in wealth in real terms, enough to end annual poverty 22 times over. Since the US elections in November 2024, billionaires have accumulated wealth at a rate three times faster than the previous five years. In the twelve months to March 2026, the billionaire class accrued $4 trillion in new wealth, a full one-fifth of their total accumulated wealth.
The consequence of neoliberalism is accelerated social and ecological destruction. We have all the technologies we need to halt global warming and feed the planet through peak population. We have all the money we need to end poverty and provide universal access to healthcare. If we make better collective choices. But ‘we’ are not making them, not when the uber-rich are parleying extreme wealth for extreme influence. Policy skews to the rich; the rich get richer; the toll worsens.
Carl dissects the myths around 'good' billionaires, explains the system that got us into this mess and – more importantly – how we might get out of it.
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As always, check out the companion article with additional takeaways and the full transcript on the FutureBites page. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
If you enjoyed these insights, please subscribe so you don’t miss out on what’s next, and help spread the word by sharing this episode with your friends and colleagues.
Insect-like drones that tend crops, perform aircraft inspections and find gas leaks are here ... and they’re only the beginning!
Today I’m diving into the future of bio-inspired drones with the one and only Professor Guido de Croon, head of the Micro-Air Vehicle Lab at Delft Technical University in The Netherlands.
Guido shares the latest insect-inspired research developments in vision-systems, energy-efficient intelligence, height-sensing, autonomous navigation, swarming, energy-harvesting and speedy decision-making. We discuss early commercial applications and spinout companies, and how the MAVLab team is building on it’s victory in the 2025 autonomous drone racing championship in Abu Dhabi to take agility to a whole new level.
It’s the stuff of sci-fi, except … it isn’t. MAVLab creations now flap their wings like birds and dragonflies, carry sensors that process information and facilitate ‘event-based’ decisions much like eyes, ears and brains do in the natural world. They emulate the navigation ‘algorithms’ of bees and ants. They swarm to accomplish collective goals based on how insects do it. Will robot insects one day harvest energy from their environment, thereby extending their missions indefinitely? You’ll have to listen to find out!
As you’ll hear, I’m thrilled to be catching-up with Guido. He’s one of my favorite scientists. He’s happy, positive, and bursting with ideas to help industry -- and it's infectious! Ever since we first connected in 2021 I’ve enjoyed featuring MAVLab creations in my presentations. Why? Because these tiny drones ‘push the limits’ of what’s possible by drawing inspiration from nature, an approach that will continue to unlock new opportunities for decades, and because (despite being tiny) they inspire audiences think BIGGER about the future!
Thank you Guido, for your passionate, joy-filled insights on the future of tiny drones.
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As always, you'll find additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript on the Future Bites page soon.
More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
I podcast my conversations with future-makers so more people can find pathways to a better future. If you enjoy these insights, help spread the word by liking, subscribing and sharing with others!
Vancouver, Dublin, Los Angeles, Sydney – in so many cities I visit, skyrocketing rents and prices are making housing a struggle for ordinary people. For younger people especially, it is a generational challenge that limits their future prosperity.
But all over Europe communities are using collaborative housing to pool capital and enjoy a host of shared financial and social benefits in return. Is this a better way?
In this episode, I'm in The Netherlands exploring collaborative housing with Darinka Czischke, Professor of Housing and Social Sustainability at the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).
Darinka debunks a few myths associated with the oft-repeated phrase ‘housing crisis’ before diving into the motivations behind these communities and the shared benefits that transcend affordability. She details where and why collaborative housing projects thrive, the importance of scale, how scale has already been achieved in places like Zurich, and the national and cultural factors that support collaborative housing. We discuss multi-generational approaches, and how community-based options unlock more benefits than “aging-in-place” strategies. City governments are identified as key enablers, and Darinka shares what policymakers can do to help.
My favorite part? Darinka’s first-hand observations from collaborative housing projects she has stayed in.
There’s something for everyone in this conversation. Darinka is a passionate advocate for a better future; her insights are practical, universal, and VERY topical.
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
If you enjoyed this episode, why not share it with friends and colleagues? Getting more people aware of real projects for equitable and socially sustainable housing has to be one way to contribute to a better future!
Microscale robots will be conducting medical procedures inside our bodies sooner than you think. That’s the big takeaway from this fascinating conversation with Prof. Bradley Nelson, head of the Multi-Scale Robotics Lab at ETH Zürich, and for those of us who grew up watching Fantastic Voyage, that's a stunning statement!
Brad walks us through the lab’s tiny bio-inspired prototypes and associated innovations in propulsion, power-delivery, external control and biocompatibility. He discusses the special challenges of fabricating and operating robots at micro- and nano-scales, and how all these developments are now converging into tiny robots capable of performing real-world procedures such as thrombectomies and precision drug deliveries to tumors inside the brain.
He also explores targets for first procedures, future aspirations, the regulatory approvals journey and the ‘democratization of surgery’ benefits that will be unlocked by adding telesurgery and more autonomy.
Prof. Brad Nelson has spent more than 40 years researching and building robots and has won numerous awards in robotics, nanotechnology, and biomedicine. He was named to the "Scientific American 50" list for outstanding acts of leadership in science and technology. His lab is undefeated international champion in Robocup's Nanogram Soccer League and he is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the "Most Advanced Mini Robot for Medical Use!
My special thanks to him for hosting me and sharing his insights, and also to Oliver Brinkman, who took time away from his blood vessel navigation experiments(!) to show me around the lab.
It’s an inspiring journey into the near future of medicine. Enjoy!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
If you enjoyed these insights, why not subscribe so you don’t miss out on what’s next, and help us spread the word by sharing this episode with colleagues!
Will A.I. use up the worlds electricity? Or will A.I. contribute more upside than downside by helping us solve the world’s sustainability problems?
In an era of ‘exponential AI,’ the answers have huge implications for our future, but they are far from clear, because ICTs contribute in many complex ways to energy savings AND use.
I meet with IT & sustainability guru Dr Vlad Coroama for an in-depth look at both sides of the ledger.
After exploring direct impacts, Vlad takes the discussion up a level by exploring indirect secondary effects (detrimental and beneficial) to get me thinking MUCH bigger about the dynamics shaping our future. We have a lot of coffee-fuelled fun going back and forth over his ideas! And of course Vlad draws on his meticulous research to offer some overall assessments of where we are today and where we are going in future with respect to AI, data centers and energy.
Vlad Coroama heads the Roegen Centre for Sustainability (RC4S) where he assists governments in using digital technologies to save energy and emissions, and in reducing the direct footprint of digitalisation. Much of his work focuses on the rapidly increasing energy/carbon footprint of AI and data centers. He has researched the complex relationships between computing and sustainability for 20 years in Switzerland (ETH Zurich, Empa), Brazil (University of São Paulo), Portugal (Instituto Superior Técnico, Coimbra University), Sweden (KTH Stockholm), and Germany (TU Berlin).
You will enjoy Vlad's company. He is a BIG thinker, he builds his arguments thoughtfully, based on careful analysis, and he has a way of cutting through complexity using simple, powerful examples. The world needs 10,000 more like him!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be up on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
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First generation surgical robots, such as the Da Vinci set new benchmarks for precision and accuracy. With A.I. and robotics developments racing ahead at breakneck speed, what new capabilities are in the pipeline? How might next-generation surgical robots impact the future of healthcare?
I visit Prof. Philipp Fürnstahl, a global leader in this field, to unpack how his robots are going beyond vision to listen and feel and apply other senses as they operate. He compares orthopaedic and soft-tissue systems, explains why preop plans must be supplemented by real-time context, dives into spinal surgery as an early use-case for his next-gen robots, and explains the systems challenges of integrating the new innovations with teams, operating room workflows, telemedicine and training.
And as you will hear, Philipp gets me thinking much bigger about which patients will benefit and why. With procedure demand rising and surgeons in short supply, the opportunity is more than safer and more precise surgery, it's scaleable surgery.
Prof. Fürnstahl has authored more than 150 publications in computer-assisted surgery. As well as heading the lab at Balgrist, he is Professor for Research in Orthopedic Computer Science (ROCS) at the University of Zürich. He invited me to visit him at the Computer-Aided Surgery Lab at Balgrist University Hospital where we toured the full-scale surgical theatre used to test the robots.
My thanks to Philipp and his colleagues for so generously sharing their insights and answering all my questions.
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a review to help more listeners find FutureBites.
Will we worship A.I.? How are religions already rejecting, adopting or adapting to A.I.? How could A.I. re-shape the future of organised religion?
Could the questions get any bigger?
My conversation today is with THE global expert on the AI and religion, Prof Beth Singler. Beth explores adoption, rejection, and adaptation responses from organized religion, gives vivid examples of chatbot “priests” and theomorphic robots already being used in religious rituals, and helps me think much more expansively about the future implications and dangers.
We also discuss the secular world and how utopian dreams and quasi-religious metaphors fuel the pressure to “accelerate” A.I. without bounds.
Beth discusses harmful outcomes she is seeing, and the boundaries and safety considerations we should all keep in mind. We also look at how A.I. can help prick the bubble of human exceptionalism and teach us some much-deeded humility. As you will hear, once you start exploring A.I. and religion, you cannot help but reflect more deeply on how A.I. will impact all aspects of our lives, spiritual and otherwise.
It's a fun conversation (Beth is truly brilliant!) and at the same time deals with serious, high-stakes issues that we all need to be discussing about our (near) future.
Prof Beth Singler has written multiple books and produced a series of documentaries in her long and distinguished career researching AI and religion. She is Assistant Professor in Digital Religion(s) and Co-Director, University Research Priority Programme in Digital Religion(s) at the University of Zurich (UZH). What a joy and privilege it was to learn from her!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
How do we model the climate? How to make predictions at a local level? What role does AI play? What do our models predict about the future of extreme weather events?
We sit down with world-leading atmospheric scientist Prof. Andreas Prein to pull back the curtain on how weather and climate models really work. Andreas describes the evolution of weather and climate modelling, the mechanics of prediction, where AI shines and struggles, the complex interconnections with other earth systems, and the important considerations when undertaking 'climate change attribution' for extreme weather events.
Inspired by first-hand experiences of extreme weather in his youth, Andreas dedicated his career to improving the understanding atmospheric systems. Nowadays he leads the High-Resolution Weather and Climate Modeling group at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science (IAC), part of the Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich).
It’s a fascinating and wide-ranging conversation. We've all wondered what’s behind the predictions about the biggest force of change shaping our future, and this episode has the answers!
Enjoy the podcast!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
Digital disinformation and the declining quality of newsmedia is one of the most important challenges of our time. Everyone is aware of it, and its easy to get overwhelmed and conclude it’s can’t be solved.
But there ARE pathways forward, and sometimes it takes a fresh evidence-driven perspective to illuminate them.
Enter Mark Eisenegger, Professor of Public Sphere and Society, Department of Communication and Media Research at the University of Zurich, who leads a research program which has now accumulated 15 years of solid data on media quality and consumption trends in Switzerland. What can the Swiss context teach us? A lot, actually!
Join us as Mark dissects the trends, discusses differences between countries and – most importantly – explores what actions we can take to preserve a healthier “news future.”
It’s a wonderful conversation backed by evidence, and with more than a few surprises to share!
Enjoy the podcast!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
Why does the most cited fisheries scientist in the world call modern fisheries a global Ponzi scheme?
Welcome to part two of our dive into the future of oceans, where my focus is still on the pathways we can take to preserve ocean ecosystems and fisheries for the future, but this time I’m putting my questions to Daniel Pauly.
Daniel is Professor of the Institute of Oceans and Fisheries at the University of British Columbia, and Principal Investigator of the Sea Around Us Project, winner of the 2023 Tyler Prize (the "Nobel prize for environmental achievement") and author or co-author, over his distinguished career, of more than 1,000 science papers, articles, books and book chapters.
And he does NOT pull punches.
In this brutally honest conversation about the state of our oceans and the impact of modern fishing practices, Daniel speaks plainly about:
- The beginnings of the technologically-enabled “War on Fish” in 1880
- Current global trajectory for overfishing
- The absurdity of having one-third of commercial fishing value subsidized, allowing unprofitable operations to continue despite dwindling stocks
- How ending subsidies would be a giant step towards a fix
- Marine sanctuaries: government promises versus enforcement inaction
- How modern technology could easily be used to enforce regulations
- Distinctions between sustainable and highly destructive forms of aquaculture
- The devastating ecological consequences of changing ocean currents
- Why deep-sea mining must be stopped
Take a moment to meditate on Daniel’s insights, then share them. Our oceans are so vastly important to our future, and yet most people spend NO time thinking about them. All the technology to preserve our oceans exists. The solutions are clear. The only missing piece is the will to implement them.
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
How do we feed another 2 billion AND preserve the future of ocean ecosystems?
In 2025, over three billion people rely on seafood as a significant source of protein. Over 80% of the world's biodiversity comes from oceans. A multitude of ocean ecosystems are in crisis mode.
By 2086, the global population is projected to increase by another 2.2 billion (from 8.1 today to 10.4 at peak). How can we feed them and make future fisheries sustainable?
This is a topic of VAST importance in determining our future, and yet most of us know almost nothing about it!
Join me in Vancouver, Canada, for an insightful and wide-ranging discussion with William Cheung, Director and Professor of the Institute of Oceans and Fisheries and Principal Investigator for the Changing Ocean Research Unit at the University of British Columbia and one of the world's foremost experts on this subject. Professor Cheung explores the current state of the oceans, threats to ocean ecosystems, the key trade-offs in managing and conserving marine resources, the impacts and advantages of different types of aquaculture, and of course the positive pathways we can take to shape a better, more sustainable future.
Professor Cheung considers it fundamental to strengthen public connectedness to ocean ecosystems, which is what this episode is all about!
Enjoy the podcast!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
How do we create a happier future? What are the factors that influence happiness? What can we do as managers and leaders to enhance happiness, and why is this fundamental to achieving ALL our goals?
Join me for a deeply insightful discussion with John Helliwell, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia, and editor of the World Happiness Report 2025.
They can be no more universal theme than this. Happier organizations are more productive. They are more innovative. They are more resilient. Happier societies are safer and healthier and more giving. A deeper understanding of the factors helps us make more effective personal and professional decisions. Happiness benefits EVERYONE. With laughter and good humour and vast knowledge of his subject, John shares a ton of actionable advice for leaders.
If you only listen to one FutureBites episode, make it this one.
And when you're finished, I urge you to download and read the report.
Because we CAN influence happiness, and because moving happiness back to centre-stage in our measures of progress is one of the surest pathways we can take to a better future.
Enjoy the podcast!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
Forget cars, what does the transition to electric FREIGHT look like? How capable are HEAVY vehicles? What’s the future of charging infrastructure? What changes for shippers and logistics companies? How should they think and plan?
On this episode of FutureBites, I travel to Cambridge University to ask Professor David Cebon, a visionary in the electrification of heavy vehicles.
David is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge University. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Director of the Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium, and -- his principal focus for the past 15 years -- Director of the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight.
In short, he is THE global guru on the electrification of freight.
We discuss:
- Intelligent charging in cities, and why top-up charging in urban freight is a BIG win.
- How electric trucks are already good enough for 80% of journeys and getting better fast
- The compromises necessary for weight-limited Loads, and how electric vehicles are close to a drop-in replacement for diesel for volume limited loads.
- Why charging at truck stops is NOT the future
- The triple-win of static charging at warehouses and factories
- The biggest bottleneck in static charging: cabling up all the connections
- Why hot-swapping batteries is a plausible, but less likely part of the future
- Why dynamic charging (charging on the move) is a huge win and a BIG part of our future
- The pros and cons of competing approaches to dynamic charging
The opportunities are HUGE.
Listen to hear David’s exceptional insights not only on the future of electric freight, but on the calculations and compromises every organisation needs to make to get there. And once you see the future of electric garbage trucks, buses, and long-haul big rigs, you can’t help but think more deeply about the electrification opportunity in ALL contexts.
Enjoy the podcast!
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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
What is driving the NEXT generation of autonomous vehicles? How are scientists upping the innovation rate? Why are AVs utterly inevitable, everywhere? How will they transform industries, cities and even economies?
To get a deep sense of where we are headed, I checked in with Paul Newman, a trailblazer in robotics and autonomous systems. Paul is BP Professor of Information Engineering at Oxford University, Founder of the Oxford Robotics Institute, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IEEE in honor of his outstanding contributions to robot navigation, and Founder of Oxa (formerly Oxbotica) a mobile autonomy company involved in commercial deployments around the world.
Paul is a BIG thinker about the future of AVs!
We discuss:
- How “driving many somewhere’s” leads to a future of “driving autonomously everywhere,” and how this builds assurances that AVs are robust and safe in each and every context.
- Paul’s ‘universal autonomy’ approach, building an AV ‘operating system’ spanning many platforms, and partnering with industrial users and original vehicle manufacturers in joint ventures with shared IP – greatly accelerating the innovation process.
- Oxa’s varied deployments across shuttle-buses, airports, mines, buses, delivery vans and more.
- AI supervising AI, and how a multi-level approach with a ‘higher order’ layer making over-riding decisions when a decision is not safe enough, not only massively improves safety, but also makes it possible to innovate faster.
- The big gains being made in AI teaching, and how ‘adversarial learning’ is accelerating and scaling teaching by generating tens of thousands of scenarios to train and test other AIs.
- The future of vehicle-to-vehicle data sharing, the obligation to share data, and the big questions to be tackled on how much to share.
- How AVs will re-shape industrial ecosystems, and transport networks, and cities, in all kinds of big ways (just wait until you hear his comparison with reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone!)
Mostly, we talk about OPPORTUNITY.
What I love best about Paul is he is profoundly optimistic about the potential for AVs to drive huge positive change.
We are only at the beginning of the AV revolution. Do you consider widescale AV deployments inevitable? I do. Listen to Paul and understand why.
Enjoy!
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As always, additional commentary and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
Can carbon pricing incentivize a sustainable future?
Join us for a compelling conversation with Professor Cameron Hepburn, the Battcock Professor of Environmental Economics and co-Director of the Economics of Sustainability Programme at Oxford University, as we unravel the power of carbon pricing and its potential to incentivize decarbonisation across industries, economies and countries.
What lessons have early-movers learned about acceptance and building momentum? How to neutralize the politics? How to do a better job of implementing carbon pricing in practice? What are the implications of the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on other trading blocs, and what does the future hold?
We dissect the hurdles and triumphs at the intersection of economics, energy and sustainability, and explore Professor Hepburn's surprisingly upbeat assessment of the future.
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As always, additional commentary and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com
Imagine a future where, based on a diagnostic in your teens, your doctor gives you a customized infusion with a top-up every 5 to 10 years that “dials down” your genetic risk factors for all kinds of diseases WITHOUT making permanent changes to your DNA.
Welcome to the world of epigenetic editing, a frontier that will unlock a new universe of gene therapies that are both potent and reversible.
My guest today is Dr Ben Oakes, Co-founder, President and CEO of Scribe Therapeutics, a company that’s focused on designing and applying CRISPR-derived tools that, not only edit genes directly and permanently, but also control and fine tune the conditions that decide whether a gene is turned on or off.
How does epigenetic editing work? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the current and future disease targets? If we think about the long-term future of medicine and healthcare, what might be possible? I asked Ben these questions and more. In a fascinating exploration, he discusses the journey to effective interventions, and why multipurpose genetic editing tools will revolutionize the future of medicine.
And it’s NOT far off. While complexity challenges are high, this is an active and vibrant field with many players and many pathways forward. The science is moving fast. We’ve come a long way with DNA editing in 12 years; I expect FDA-approved epigenetic therapies will transform the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in 10-15 years. Ultimately, therapies that target multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease have the potential to help billions.
You’ve been hearing a lot lately about gene therapies based on editing DNA. Now hear about the ‘next-level’ in gene therapies.
The future of medicine is truly an amazing place!
And as always, you'll find my personal takeaways, links to some of my related blog posts so you can take a deeper dive, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
How can we build a more secure digital future?
Cyber-attacks and data-breaches are escalating, attackers are employing all manner of sophisticated tools, AI is transforming the ‘arms race’ for both attackers and defenders. We see the headlines, but is this a future we have to accept? What are the pathways to a more secure digital future?
I asked Bruce Schneier, the biggest name in cybersecurity.
Bruce is a DEEP thinker. He’s been researching and writing prolifically on cybersecurity since 1998, has authored more than 12 books, is a Fellow and lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy school and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and is also Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, a data-security venture co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.
Who better to shed light on pathways forward?
What I like best about him is this: he thinks about cybersecurity as the product of social, political, economic AND technical factors. He's a realist. Added to which, he has a wonderful turn of phrase: his razor-sharp one-liners slice right to the heart of an issue.
We discussed incentives, why government intervention is crucial for correcting market failures, IoT laws, the benefits of data decentralization and compartmentalization, disrupting cryptocurrencies to disrupt ransomware, treating superfluous data as a toxic asset, the unknowns of the post-quantum world, the need for crypto-agility, the benefits of zero trust authentication and more. I know you will enjoy his insights!
As always, you'll find my personal takeaways, links to some of Bruce’s related blog posts so you can take a deeper dive, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
The fifth largest economy in the world is smashing renewables records! For 41 of the past 49 days, California's grid has met more than 100% of electricity demand using solar, wind and hydro generation supplemented by grid-scale batteries. Supply is frequently exceeding 140% of demand, with the excess exported to neighbouring states. On some days renewables have supplied more than 100% of demand for more than 9 hours. These outstanding milestones for the atmosphere, the US economy and for consumers, are taking place earlier and faster than expected, with energy prices projected to fall steeply as California races towards the ultimate milestone: 100% solar, wind and hydro 24/7 365 days a year.
What factors are responsible? What lessons can be learned? What does this tell us about future of energy?
I asked Professor Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University.
Mark is a GIANT in his field. As well as being the current #1 cited scientist, he is a prolific public commentator and regularly cited as one of the world’s most influential people. When it comes to the science, engineering and economics of the global transition to renewable energy, I consider him the most respected voice on the planet. His leadership, as a tireless educator to the public as well as to policy-makers, as he helps steer all 8 billion of us towards a better, healthier, safer future, is an inspiration. What a privilege to listen to his insights!
As always, you'll find my personal takeaways, a ton of links to further resources, data and reading kindly supplied by Mark, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
Enjoy the conversation, and see you in a cleaner, greener future!!!
Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with Michael Barnard, global energy expert and consultant to the biggest investors on the planet. In this episode we discuss biofuels, long-range shipping, carbon pricing, nuclear reactors, geothermal, grid-scale energy storage and more, and we wrap up with Michael's Short List of Climate Actions That Will Work. There's a ton of insight and wisdom to help you target the real energy opportunities. We also had a ton of fun. Wait until you hear some of Michael's one-liners as he eviscerates projects that fail on both science and economics -- priceless!
Michael lives and breathes energy tech. He is utterly pragmatic, laser-focused on cutting through the nonsense, and backs all his assertions with science and comprehensive, quantified, costed analysis. He is also passionate at debunking the myths and spreading the word about where the real opportunities lie. He shares these messages via his Redefining Energy – Tech podcast, and publishes prolifically in Clean Technica and Forbes Magazine. All of which explains why he's the perfect person to discuss what the future of energy generation will look.
For further reading, you'll find a list of Michael's go-to articles on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
What will the global mix of energy generation look like in 2060? Which technologies are dead ends and which should we be paying more attention to? What will power long range ships and aircraft? What about nuclear?
Who better to answer these questions than Michael Barnard, global energy expert and consultant to the biggest investors on the planet.
Michael lives and breathes energy tech. He is utterly pragmatic, laser-focused on cutting through the nonsense, and backs all his assertions with science and comprehensive, quantified, costed analysis. He is also passionate at debunking the myths and spreading the word about where the real opportunities lie. He shares these messages via his Redefining Energy – Tech podcast, and publishes prolifically in Clean Technica and Forbes Magazine.
All of which explains why I like him so much. Honestly, he's a standout. I endorse him fully and unequivocally: the more organizations and investors who consult Michael the better -- for their balance sheets and for our future.
For further reading, you'll find a list of Michael's go-to articles on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
What does the future of medicine look like when microchips and nervous systems speak the same language?
I asked Dr Elisa Donati, a Senior Scientist working at the cutting edge of neuroscience and engineering at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at University of Zürich and ETH Zürich.
It starts with mimicking the way neurons work in nature. Real neurons are analog, not digital. They process information event-by-event, not in lock-step with computer clocks. They transmit and process large volumes of information in parallel, and dispatch complex tasks using astonishingly little energy.
By re-thinking medical computer chips, Elisa and her colleagues are designing prosthetic hands that let wearers to feel pressure and texture and temperature through their fingertips. They are making cochlear implants with more fidelity, and pacemakers that take cues from our respiratory system as the heart does in nature. They are creating implants that bridge severed spinal chords.
And that’s only the beginning. By improving communications with the autonomic system, they aim to create new ways to manage type 2 diabetes and other hormonal imbalances, obesity, erectile dysfunction, depression and more. Elisa hopes to one day unlock new treatment pathways for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The future of healthcare is an amazing place!
We recorded our conversation outdoors, at a beautiful seaside location at the 2023 NeuroEng Workshop hosted by the International Centre of Neurmorphic Systems, so you may hear the occasional walker or vehicle passing us by :-)
Don't forget to check out all the other interviews and insights on the FutureBites page on my website, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
Affordable age-reversal drugs. Xenotransplants to eliminate organ shortages. Revolutionizing health economics. Keeping methane sequestered under the tundra. Editing livestock and crops to be resistant to ALL viruses ... What are the genomics pathways to a better future? Which are closest? Where could we be in twenty years? I asked George Church, the greatest genomic pioneer in the world.
George is a professor of genetics at both Harvard and MIT, the developer of the first direct genomic sequencing method, an initiator of the Human Genome Project and the Personal Genome Project, inventor of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, array DNA synthesizers and many many more tools that help us investigate, analyze, edit and synthetize life.
His contributions, both directly and indirectly, via the accomplishments of the students and colleagues who have passed through his lab, have improved the lives of hundreds of millions, and will soon improve the lives of billions.
Who better to clarify how genomics can create a better future for HUMANITY?
It’s a wide-ranging discussion. The opportunities to revolutionize medicine and agriculture in particular will astonish you, as will the pace of progress. Some of this is coming SOON! And if that isn't enough to inspire you, how about a sprinkling of de-extinction and interstellar exploration to consider? What a joy it was talking to him.
Enjoy the podcast!
For additional comments, and to read the interview transcript, check out the FutureBites post on the website.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
The future of medicine is one where all cancers are either 100% curable or turned into manageable diseases. You’ve heard me tell the story in my keynotes for many years. Now it’s time for you to hear from one of the heroes of that story, Bruce Levine.
Bruce and his colleagues pioneered CAR T-cell therapy, one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of medicine, where your own immune cells are reprogrammed to attack and destroy your cancer. They developed it, applied it, saved the first lives, achieved the first FDA approvals, and perfected a therapy that has now been applied to tens of thousands of patients around the world and will soon be hundreds of thousands.
Now Bruce is targeting solid tumors. And he’s moving CAR T-cell production INSIDE the human body to slash the costs. And he’s not stopping at cancer …
Which makes CAR T-cell therapy not only one of the most important breakthroughs in the history of medicine, but also one of the most important platforms for the FUTURE of medicine.
Enjoy the podcast. As always, I’ll add a post to the FutureBites page soon with additional thoughts and further reading, as well as a copy of the full interview transcript.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
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Will AI exacerbate inequality? Can we stop that from happening? As the world grapples with guardrails to protect us from future dangers of AI, I thought it timely to talk to an ethicist who has spent a lifetime pondering these challenges. Enter, Wendell Wallach, Carnegie-Uehiro fellow at Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, where he co-directs the Artificial Intelligence & Equality Initiative (AIEI). He is also Emeritus Chair of Technology and Ethics Studies at Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, a scholar with the Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics, a fellow at the Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technology, and a senior advisor to The Hastings Center.
We recorded our discussion over cups of tea in his lounge room in Hartford CT. He was grounded and thoughtful and had a refreshingly broad perspective on the many complex forces shaping our future. Most importantly, while worried about bad corporate behaviours and all the ways A.I. can make things worse, he was also optimistic about the actions available to us to re-shape the trajectory for the better.
Enjoy the podcast!
As always, I’ll add a post to the FutureBites page soon with additional thoughts and further reading, as well as a copy of the full interview transcript.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
The story of cancer medicine is multi-threaded. It’s a story of early detection, of surgical removal, of radio- and chemo-therapies, of understanding lifestyle factors, of sequencing and pinpointing genetic factors, and lately of immunotherapies, but instead of one succeeding the other, each overlaps and complements and adds more weapons to the armory, and many of these weapons can be deployed in series or in combination.
In this episode of FutureBites, I’m talking to Dr Ben Stanger about adding three more entire armories.
Dr Ben Stanger is the Hanna Wise Professor in Cancer Research at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. He’s also Director the Penn Pancreatic Cancer Research Center and a member of half a dozen other prestigious Institutes. What a guy! In addition to his many prestigious academic positions, he still practices AND makes time to write science for a popular audience. We met in his office, and in our half-hour conversation, he shared his optimism for three new frontiers in cancer medicine: the advancement from liquid to solid tumors, the development of mRNA cancer vaccines, and the latest work being undertaken in ‘cancer interception.’
As always, I’ll add a post to the FutureBites page soon with additional thoughts and further reading, as well as a copy of the full interview transcript. Enjoy!
Ben's latest book is From One Cell – a Journey Into Life’s Origins and the Future of Medicine. I've enjoyed every page and thoroughly recommend it.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
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Is this the most important gene therapy in the world? At the Perelman Center for Advanced Medicine, a cutting-edge facility at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr Kiran Musunuru is developing something truly extraordinary, a ‘one and done’ gene therapy to prevent heart disease, which happens to be the number one killer on our planet today.
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker, where we interview scientists and explore pathways to a better future. I visited Dr Kiran Musunuru at his office in Philadelphia (it was an exciting time, as two of his colleagues had just won the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine that very morning!) We discussed his journey so far, the Stage 1 human trials currently underway, and his BIG future goals to tackle cardiovascular disease planet-wide. Then we talked about how his ‘programmable medicine’ toolkit will be repurposed to tackle all manner of genetic diseases. This might be the most important interview I've recorded. Make no mistake, Dr Musunuru is rewriting the future of medicine.
As always, I’ll add a post to the FutureBites page soon with additional thoughts and further reading, as well as a copy of the full interview transcript. Enjoy!
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
Insurance companies must deal with the financial realities of climate change. They must make quantitative decisions and translate risks into dollars. They must do it for today’s impacts as well as making quantified predictions about future impacts. And behind the insurance companies are the reinsurance companies, who must act as shock absorbers to the industry and do all of the above on a global scale. Who better to go to for insights on how climate change translates into real dollars?
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker, where we interview scientists and explore pathways to a better future. In this episode, I’m speaking with Trent Thomson, CEO of the Australian and New Zealand arm of the second largest reinsurer in the world, Swiss Re. We cover the changes they’ve seen over the last 30 years, future projections, the factors contributing to cost and risk, the challenges of covering climate “hot spots,” and the future role of reinsurers in providing risk data transparency to governments and communities.
Trent was amiable, honest and forthright. He offers a fascinating and different point of view that compliments the scientists I talk to. I know you’ll find him interesting, and I can’t help thinking that we’ll be revisiting this topic – companies like Swiss Re have treasure troves of data just waiting to be tapped!
As always, I’ll add a post to the FutureBites page soon with additional thoughts and further reading, as well as a copy of the full interview transcript. Enjoy!
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
I’m calling neuromorphic computing the most important computer engineering research in the world. That’s right, more important than quantum computing (you heard it here first!)
So what is neuromorphic computing? How is it inspired by biology? Where is it taking us? Why are the opportunities so vast? How is it fundamental to future directions in artifical intelligence? And why does it matter SO much to the future of this planet?
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker, where we interview scientists and explore pathways to a better future. In this episode, I’m talking to Dr Alexandre Marcireau at the International Centre for Neuromorphic Systems (ICNS) at the University of Western Sydney. Alex generously took me on a tour of his lab to see his inventions, including neuromorphic cameras that are currently circulating in the International Space Station. Afterwards he sat down with me to share his views on the future. He’s an extraordinary invidividual, and very much tuned-in to all the planet-scale benefits his technology has to offer. I know you’ll enjoy this one.
And when I say most important, I mean it. Its early days and there is a LOT of hard work to be done, but if you are investing in computer engineering, or studying it, or building AI systems (who isn’t?) or you happen to be manufacturing computer chips, this IS your future.
As always, I’ll add a post to the FutureBites page soon with additional thoughts and further reading, as well as a copy of the full interview transcript. Enjoy!
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
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Innovation is a deeply, deeply social phenomenon that requires many people to come along for the ride. It’s not easy! So, where to start? What are the principles? How to think about it? If you want to make the world a better place by building new products or services, or simply by creating better ways of doing things inside your organization, then this episode is for you!
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker, where I interview scientists and leading thinkers to explore pathways to a better future.
In this episode, we're talking to Dr Ken Dovey about how to make innovation happen. Ken is the deepest thinker on innovation I know. He led an elite Master of Business and Technology program and dedicated a career to researching, teaching and leading innovation. From leading multi-racial sporting teams in apartheid South Africa to working alongside CEOs attempting to turn around megafactories, he’s made the mistakes, celebrated the wins, and learned his innovation lessons the hard way – by being there!
Ken is also a great friend, and 100% committed to helping others and contributing positively to the world, which means he always ‘tells it like it is.’ There are so many gems in this wide-ranging conversation. Get ready for a treasure-trove of honesty and wisdom. Enjoy!
You’ll find the full interview transcript, together with a list of the sub-themes we covered and links to papers for further reading on the website here.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
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Has Martin Green done more than any other human to safeguard our future? For fifty years – yes fifty – he’s dedicated his life to pushing the boundaries of photovoltaics so they convert more sunlight to electricity and produce more electricity for less money. He and his team have held the world record for solar cell efficiencies for 30 of the past 39 years, and his technology is now imbedded in – wait for it – no less than 91 percent of worldwide solar cell production.
And he isn’t stopping!
So, how much more room for improvement is there? What happens if we can halve the price of solar again? Big questions for our future!
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, global futurist and keynote speaker, where we interview scientists and explore pathways to a better future. In this episode, I ask Professor Martin Green at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who I’m now calling the God of Solar, “How far can we go?” and we spend a happy hour exploring the myriad ways we can extend the solar contribution to our future.
Enjoy the podcast!
And for further commentary and a full transcript of our conversation, see the accompanying FutureBites post on my website.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
Designer babies, agricultural mishaps, extinction via gene-drive. Now CRISPR has placed into our hands the awesome power to "edit life" in all its forms, how to keep the good while preventing the bad? How to safeguard our future? Is this even possible?
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker, where we interview scientists and explore pathways to a better future. In this episode, I ask Jennifer Kuzma, global expert on biotech responsibility, to shed light on one of the most important governance challenges of our time: how to put guardrails around CRISPR.
Jennifer is Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences and co-founder of the Genetic Engineering and Society Center at NC State University, and contributes frequent public commentary in the New York Times, Wired magazine and countless other magazines and journals. She cares, and she’s working hard to create a better future!
It’s such an important topic and our conversation covered a lot of ground, so I’ve put compiled a fulsome post on the website with links to the examples and case-studies we discussed, and tons of further reading to explore. You’ll also find the full interview transcript there.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
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What comes after Lithium-ion? It’s only one of the most important technology questions in the world! Everything in the future of electronics, road vehicles, renewables, the electricity grid and even commercial aviation hinges on the answer. So I went looking for a true expert, a realist, a deep thinker and someone working at the absolute global cutting-edge of energy storage science and engineering. And I found Dr George Crabtree!
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker. In this episode, we're examining the future of batteries with George Crabtree, a deep thinker at the absolute global cutting-edge of energy storage science and engineering. George is Director of the Joint Center for Energy Storage Research (JCESR) at Argonne National Laboratory.
There are lots of highlights to this conversation. As well as batteries, we touched on superconductivity, minerals supply, long-haul trucks, aviation, ultracapacitors, the hydrogen economy and more. But the one I like best is George's confidence. Argonne and the JCESR scientists are aiming BIG. And while there are formidable challenges, it looks like those step-change improvements to Lithium-ion batteries and large-scale grid batteries are only a matter of time!
For additional comments, and to read the interview transcript, check out the FutureBites post on the website.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
Rejuvenation and regeneration, hope versus hyperbole, healthspans and lifespans. Such is the frenzied focus on the potential for new drugs to extend our lifespans right now, I cannot deliver a keynote on the future of healthcare or even the future of the world in general without addressing the possibility of ‘age reversal’ therapies. But it’s a complex field, with more than a few charlatans and opportunists promising new drugs that’ll buy you 150 years and more, which makes sifting through the rhetoric for the reality extra challenging.
So I asked one of the world’s leading geroscientists to help me out.
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker. In this episode, we're examining the promise of new therapies for human rejuvenation and 'age-reversal' with Jan Vijg, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Genetics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Jan offers one of the most accomplished voices on the subject. When he comments publicly, he does his utmost to stay grounded in the science and the data. The perfect person to cut through to the reality!
Jan was exceptionally generous in taking time out of his schedule to walk me through the complexities of his field. As you will hear, within minutes of shaking hands I also discovered he had a wicked sense of humor and shared a lifelong curiosity about broader trajectories in innovation.
It was a wonderful, brain-expanding conversation as we canvassed nothing less than tinkering with the future of our species!
For additional comments, and to read the interview transcript, check out the FutureBites post on the website.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
What does it mean for a robot to be conscious? Can a robot have feelings? Will we make robots that take care of one another, upgrade themselves, and reproduce?
I discussed these and other mind-bending questions about the future of robots with the brilliant founder of Columbia University’s Creative Machines Lab.
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker. In this episode, we're looking at the extraordinary future lives of robots with Hod Lipson, a global pioneer in both the ‘hard’ mechanics and the ‘soft’ AI underpinnings of robotics. A Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Data Science and founder and director of the Creative Machines Lab at Columbia University, Hod lives to push the boundaries of what robots can be and should be. He has BIG ideas about the future, and he and his colleagues prove out those ideas with real-world prototypes.
We met at his lab, and as he walked me through the happy chaos of robot limbs, spare parts and experiments-in-progress, it struck me that not one experiment was trivial. Each represented a potential game-changer.
Hod took me in unexpected directions and introduced me to many new possibilities. I particularly enjoyed his knack for distilling complex ideas into simple one-liners. We covered plenty of ground and could have gone on for hours. All the laughter on the recording gives you some idea of all the fun we were having!
I hope you enjoy listening to the podcast as much as we did making it.
For additional comments, and to read the interview transcript, check out the FutureBites post on the website.
Learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
Can lawyers save the planet? I asked the world’s foremost climate lawyer.
Welcome to FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe, futurist and keynote speaker. In this episode, instead of examining science and technology pathways to a better future, we're looking at the role of litigation.
Michael Gerrard is a globally-recognised leader in environmental law and a passionate lifelong advocate for sustainability. He is Professor at the Columbia Law School and Founder of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, has tried numerous cases in Federal and State courts, and is the author or editor more than 13 books on climate law, the most recent of which is Legal Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States.
In his book-lined office at Columbia University we discussed the current status of climate litigation, the delaying tactics of defendants, what's next, future scenarios, and the role litigation can realistically play in curbing the behaviours of greenhouse gas emitters and securing a pathway to a better future for the planet.
We also canvassed his personal journey, which goes back to the high levels of air and water pollution he encountered as a child in Charleston, West Virginia, courtesy of the petrochemical industry. Ever since, he has dedicated his entire professional life to environmental advocacy.
What a privilege it was to spend time with him!
For additional comments, and to read the interview transcript, check out the FutureBites post on the website.
Learn more about Bruce's work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!
Welcome to the second episode of FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe. In this episode, Dr Aykut Demirkol of the Harkness Eye Institute joins Bruce to talk about CRISPR gene-editing and the future of ophthalmology!
CRISPR is short for CRISPR-Cas9. The CRISPR-Cas9 system and a family of related tools have brought faster, cheaper, more accurate, and more efficient methods to genome editing. They are unquestionably one of the top technologies changing the world.
Dr Aykut Demirkol works in Professor Stephen Tsang's lab on new gene therapies to correct retinal diseases. This is SUCH an important area in the future of medicine, as so many people around the world are debilitated by eye disease. The team at Tsang lab have already used gene editing to successfully restore vision in mice suffering from retinitis pigmentosa, and used CRISPR to repair a genetic mutation responsible for retinitis pigmentosa in induced pluripotent stem cells derived from humans.
We discussed heritable versus non-heritable factors, the two-pronged attack on retinitis pigmentosa, and what the future might hold. For the hundreds of millions suffering from eye diseases, Aykut and his colleagues really are changing the world!
For additional comments from Bruce, and to read the whole interview, check out the FutureBites episode transcript.
Learn more about Bruce's work as a futurist speaker.
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Welcome to the first episode of FutureBites with Dr. Bruce McCabe. In this episode, Prof. Rodolph Barrangou of North Carolina State University joins Bruce to talk about CRISPR and gene-editing and the future of food!
CRISPR is short for CRISPR-Cas9. The CRISPR-Cas9 system and a family of related tools have brought faster, cheaper, more accurate, and more efficient methods to genome editing. They are unquestionably one of the top technologies changing the world right now.
Professor Barrangou was involved early in the process of proving out the science of the role CRISPR played in nature. He proved experimentally that CRISPR was responsible for the immunity effect in bacteria against phages.
Prof he has since co-founded five CRISPR-based companies spanning human therapeutics, food and agriculture. He is editor-in-chief of the CRISPR journal, and runs the CRISPR lab at NC state where he is working on transforming the future of food and agriculture.
The episode explores how much editing could take place in agriculture through 2050 should we choose, the almost unlimited new editing opportunities opening up (not least of which is playing a key role in making the planet sustainable), what must happen before we can create that future, resistance and changing societal attitudes, the unique experimental challenges and stupendous skills shortages compared to the application of CRISPR in human therapeutics, and more. The future of food and agriculture is an exciting place!
To read the whole interview, check out the FutureBites episode transcript.
Learn more about Bruce's work as a futurist speaker.
See you in the future!