Gerd Leonhard

THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION: THE POST-CORONA FUTURE
What to expect in the next 3-5 years

Our world has been dramatically rebooted by the covid19 crisis – and there is no ‘going back to normal’, anytime soon. This crisis feels devastating to many of us but I think it also creates a unique opportunity for what I call The Great Transformation! This keynote (remotely or in-person) will address topics such as:

• Impact of future of jobs, work, commerce and trade
• The geopolitical impact: Europe, the U.S., and China
• The future of capitalism: finally, sustainable?
• The environmental impact and climate-change

• The impact on medical & healthcare
• The impact on technological domination
• The personal impact: solidarity vs loneliness
• The impact on investing: divestment in fossil fuels?

WHY AND HOW SUSTAINABLE WILL BE THE NEW PROFITABLE
NEW 2020 speaking topic

We must now face the fact that wide-ranging and disruptive carbon taxes are inevitable. Yet after the initial shock waves – and if done right – carbon taxes might not only inject Trillions of $/€ into climate change adaptation and mitigation measures (a huge opportunity in itself) but may also fund up to 100 Million new jobs in all sectors related to sustainability. In addition, the much-debated shift to shareholder- (not just shareholder-) value is likely to reboot stock-markets around the world in the next 5-7 years, as we transition from the quickly outmoding, single bottom-line of PROFIT to what I call the quadruple bottom-line: People, Planet, Purpose, and Prosperity (sustainable capitalism). Lastly, I think 2020 marks the beginning of a New Renaissance as responsible investing – and rapid divestment from fossil fuels, in particular – is quickly becoming a #1 topic with every fund and every family office, around the globe. In this talk, I often venture beyond climate and energy issues to also address related topics such as the humanly sustainable use of technology (if desired).

A NEW RENAISSANCE
NEW 2020 speaking topic

The first Renaissance was a European movement away from feudal dogma to human artistry and independent thought, led by polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci. Today, the new dogmas – Technology, Data, and Connectivity – are endangering human agency, threatening to literally reprogram us. Something must and can be done. Based on almost two decades of global experiences and insights as a Futurist, Gerd now outlines his vision of a new human renaissance – essentially an embrace of human sovereignty over medieval dogma – and how we can reassert the human being over its artificial substitution and replacement. For this bold new talk, Gerd rediscovers the spirit of the Renaissance to offer you a new vision based on the human genius and human values. Instead of a tech-dominated dystopia full of bots and ‘thinking machines’, Gerd suggests that the future can be one of liberated expression and human mastery.

HAPPINESS IN THE DIGITAL AGE
NEW 2020 speaking topic

I have spoken a lot about happiness in my talks since 2015, and it’s an important chapter in my book Technology vs Humanity.

Trust isn’t digital. Machines don’t do relationships. Happiness is not a download, and it can’t be automated or digitized. Yes, technology is great at giving us more or less hedonic pleasures such as free phone calls, access to unlimited music, TV Shows & films, networking opportunities for business, or shopping online. Yet at the same time, unhappiness appears to be rising around the world (as are mental health issues and opioid addiction), and the power-users of social networks are said to the highest suicide rate of any population segment. Is technology, done wrong, ‘bicycles for the mind but bullets for the soul’?

Does ‘too much technology’ (#toomuchmagictech) lead to unhappiness? Does too-much-tech prevent us from being open to true happiness? If so, how will we balance technology and our need for real happiness? As big tech offers its hedonistic pleasure traps, how can we protect and pursue those deeper forms of happiness (eudaemonia) that involve what I call the ANDRORITHMS such as empathy, compassion, and consciousness? And what about digital well-being? Technology is very good at giving us what we want but very bad at giving us what we need. Technology is not what we seek but how we seek. We will not find real happiness on a screen or in VR, or the cloud.

HUMANITY AND TECHNOLOGY WE ARE DEFINING OUR FUTURE, TODAY!

Scientific breakthroughs, exponential technological progress, economic growth, and jobs often dominate the discussions when we ponder the future. However, as the world is going rapidly digital, I believe it is our humanity that needs the most attention, and it is our humanity that will make all the difference in a world dominated by algorithms and smart machines. Our future is to become more human, not less, and the biggest danger today is not that machines will eliminate us, but that we become too much like them!

Consider how quickly the world is changing: data is now really the new oil, artificial intelligence is becoming the new electricity, and the Internet of Things could well be the world’s new nervous system. Digital giants and social media platforms have replaced banks and energy conglomerates as the most powerful companies in the world. Algorithms, AI, and bots are gearing up to run the show in every industry. What will happen to humans when machines become truly intelligent? What about privacy, secrets, mystery, serendipity, emotions, intuition, imagination, consciousness, and…free will?

THE FUTURE OF WORK
THE AUTOMATION OF EVERYTHING, THE RISE OF SMART MACHINES AND AI: WHAT IS THE FUTURE IMPACT ON JOBS AND EMPLOYMENT?

Automation is everywhere, already: from electronic bridge-tolls to connected cars with dash-cams and self-parking capabilities, to digital wallets and mobile payment platforms, to networked medical devices and quantified-self applications, to sensor networks for traffic control and robotic nurses for the elderly – and this is only the beginning. The next 5 years will bring rapid advancements in all areas of AI, robotics and the
Internet of Things and almost all of them will bring more automation to every sector of our society (and I am sure this will not always be a good thing, either). I believe that in the near future we need to focus on human-only jobs and non-routine tasks that only humans can undertake, focusing on creativity, design, tacit pattern recognition, negotiation, and other ‘soft skills’, on right-brain capabilities or emotional context (EQ). However, unemployment is very likely to soar, regardless, as ever smarter and cheaper machines increasingly automate all routines. So will we see the rise of a minimum guaranteed income (i.e. get paid without working) in some developed countries such as Switzerland? The very concept of work and ‘earning a living’ will need to be reimagined, and soon. The end of the routine is not the end of human work!

EXPONENTIAL CHANGE
THE TOTAL TRANSFORMATION OF BUSINESS AND SOCIETY

Successful businesses always maintain a constant conversation about the future: what lessons need to be operationalized today to avoid future irrelevance or worse, extinction? For one thing, it is essential to understand that everything that can be digitized, automated, or virtualized, will be. Cognification, automation, disintermediation, and robotization and 7 other Megashifts are now taking place across all industries, globally, not just in B2C sectors like media, content, and marketing. Digital transformation – going from an industrial society to a digitally-native world – is certain to be the #1 challenge-opportunity in the next 5-7 years. How can people and their organizations become better at understanding the new challenges and opportunities, and move faster to develop the mindset and implement the transformations that are required? How will a company prosper in a world that is quickly becoming hyper-connected and interdependent? What skills and mindsets will we need, and what should remain human even if it is inefficient? Watch this excerpt from a recent keynote on digital transformation, or this complete talk.

FROM TRANSFORMATION TO HUMANISATION
CULTURE STILL EATS TECHNOLOGY FOR BREAKFAST!

We have reached peak ‘digital transformation’ – if you haven’t heard about why you and your business need to ‘go digital’ or ‘transform into a digital organization’ you just may have lived under a rock during the past 5 years:)

But now that this initial “transform or die” hype is winding down we are entering an era where it is no longer just about upgrading your IT-systems or investigating new business models. Now it is all about making sense, staging experiences, and creating tangible human benefits.

We must, therefore, TRANSCEND TECHNOLOGYso that we can focus on what matters: human flourishing and (customer) happiness. We must invest as much in humanity as we invest in technology. Today’s unique opportunity is to re-humanize technology so that it serves a deeper purpose.

When humans are treated like algorithms the loss of trust is pre-programmed – and losing trust is something no organization can afford. If you don’t want to end up like some of the global social media platforms who are now facing a jaw-dropping loss of trust, regulation, and anti-trust legislation put the HUMAN back into the center of everything you do, and the future will be yours!

UNDERSTANDING THE MEGA SHIFTS
TRANSFORMING YOUR ORGANISATION

The top 20 global technology brands and digital platforms are growing exponentially while many incumbent enterprises and former household-name-brands are forced to ‘pivot’ and dramatically reinvent themselves, or face sudden disintermediation and irrelevance. Witness the media industry, or recently, the incumbent car industry giants in Europe. In this eye-opening session, Gerd looks at how to evolve into a future-ready organization based on understanding and exploiting The Megashifts, a key meme first presented in Gerd’s recent book Technology vs. Humanity. The Mega shifts include digitization, automation, datafication, virtualization, robotization, and others (for a total of 11), and understanding them is the ticket to future success. The Mega shifts are fuelled by a multitude of game-changers such as The Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, deep learning and robotics, new human-machine interfaces (such as voice-control and intelligent bots). In this riveting talk, Gerd depicts the key trends, reveals the likely minefields, and identifies the key opportunities, dishing up a mixture of future-shock and awesomeness to stimulate some serious thinking. Watch this related video. Download the free Megashifts chapter from my book ‘Technology vs. Humanity'

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: THE NEXT 10 YEARS

AI has become a global buzz-phrase that hogs our attention everywhere – yet the very idea of AI is being frequently misinterpreted, misunderstood, and misrepresented. Hopefully, this presentation can clear up this confusion! From a non-academic perspective, I explain the differences between what I call IA (intelligent assistance), AI and AGI (artificial general intelligence), and what each of them could mean for our near future. I depict what is real and what’s not so real (yet), and where things are going in the next 5-7 years. Examples are usually drawn specifically from a client’s domain or industry. This talk also includes some elements from the Technology vs. Humanity talk, as outlined above, and often
addresses the impact of AI on work, education, and jobs, as well. Be sure to watch my popular 2018 film: we need to talk about AI.

THE TOP 10 THINGS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT THE FUTURE
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THOSE WHO CAN HEAR IT COMING!

In this fast-paced talk, I cut to the chase. Only my most important future-observations make it into this presentation. Culled from my firehose-like mix of recent reads, news, reports, research, videos, and films, and influenced by the many brilliant people I meet and speak to, this constantly updated keynote lays out the top10 things I find most relevant for our immediate future. This talk is highly customizable and can cover almost any desired segment within business, society, technology, and humanity.