Bertrand Piccard

Bertrand Piccard Speaker Biography

BERTRAND PICCARD - Be a Pioneer in your Life: Around the World in a Solar Airplane.

Exploration to change the World
With each of their great "firsts", the adventurers of the last century constantly pushed back the limits of the impossible. Today, the drive to make new discoveries must go on, with the aim of improving the quality of life on our planet. On July 26, 2016 Bertrand Piccard completed the mission of flying around the globe in a Solar Airplane!

By writing the next pages in aviation history with solar energy, and voyaging around the world without fuel or pollution, Solar Impulse’s ambition is for the world of exploration and innovation to contribute to the cause of renewable energies, to demonstrate the importance of clean technologies for sustainable development; and to place dreams and emotions back at the heart of scientific adventure.  

By going beyond the question of energy, Solar Impulse would also like to encourage each and every one of us to become pioneers in our own lives, in our ways of thinking and behaving.

Around the World in a Balloon
After his round-the-world flight with the balloon, Dr. Bertrand Piccard became a sought-after speaker both by the public and by big companies who invite him to address their management, employees or clients.
He knows that his audience isn´t there to learn how to fly a balloon, but rather to find in his experience a source of inspiration for their private or professional lives. 

Using his aerial exploits as a backdrop, Bertrand Piccard illustrates his concept of the psychology of life, human communication, team-work, motivation, pioneering spirit, as well as how to deal with stress, uncertainty and crises. At the request of some audiences, he also covers medical topics such as the use of hypnosis and self-hypnosis.

Since 1992, he has featured at several hundred public or private gatherings in America, Asia, Europe and Africa. In his headline lecture entitled "Adventure is a state of mind: the metaphor of the first around-the-world balloon flight", Bertrand Piccard explains how flying in a balloon symbolizes a new relationship between humans, technology and nature.

In this metaphor of life, the balloon is prisoner of the air currents, just as man is prisoner of his convictions, problems or fate. But in the same way as a balloon changes altitude to find the currents that will drive it in a new direction, man can rise professionally, psychologically, philosophically or even spiritually, to become responsible for the direction of his life.

The first ever non-stop balloon flight around the world brought Bertrand Piccard fame as the "scientist-adventurer."

Born into a dynasty of explorers and scientists who conquered the heights and the depths of our planet, Bertrand Piccard seemed predestined to pursue one of the greatest family adventures of the 20th century. As a psychiatrist, aeronaut, internationally renowned public speaker, president of the "Winds of Hope" humanitarian foundation and Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations, Bertrand Piccard aims to combine his family´s scientific legacy with his commitment to exploring the great adventure of life.