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THE GOOD FUTURE

People • Purpose • Planet • Prosperity

Nice to see you here!

I'm a Futurist and a Humanist, and I work as a Keynote Speaker, Advisor, Workshop-Leader  and Film-Maker. I have written a few books, as well:).

My credo is “People, Planet, Purpose & Prosperity” and I strive to share foresights and ‘practical wisdom‘ with my audiences. Every keynote is customized and unique.

In my keynotes, I focus on creating powerful and unique experiences, delivering penny-drop moments  and actionable narratives.

I am an advocate of  The Good Future: I take an optimistic, hopeful and practical view of the future. We may not have less problems but we have much increased capacity!

The Good Future

yes we can!

Fuelled by deep geopolitical shifts, complex conflicts and regional wars, the accelerating climate emergency, the mind-boggling pace of technological transformation and the confusion that comes with the meteoric rise of AI, the world is changing faster than ever. What used to be unthinkable or impossible is increasingly becoming the new normal, and science fiction is often becoming science fact. The excitement is real but worries about the future are at an all-time high, as well. So how can we rebrand the Future as ‘good', and how could it become a reality? How can humanity go beyond the amazing science and the cool tools towards more telos? I believe that The Good Future is real and attainable – and I'm ready to explore it with you!

I often take a meta-level view of the next 10 years, covering many different sectors such as society, policy and business, technology (in particular, artificial intelligence), climate change and ‘green futures‘, the future of jobs, work and education, learning and human resources. For some good examples, have a look at these videos: “The next 10 years and the Future of AI and Humanity.

My keynotes can be held virtually i.e. remotely, as well, using my unique and critically acclaimed ‘keynote television approach. All talks are customised for every client and their audience.

Please have a look at my essential topics below, or fish for my best video quotes using my new video search engine. Try my new chatbot at TheGerd.ai, or just reach out to me directly to discuss a possible collaboration.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY

BOOKING INQUIRY MORE DETAILS HERE

THE GOOD FUTURE – WHY IT'S REAL, AND HOW TO DESIGN IT

Why and how People-Planet-Purpose and Prosperity is the key to the Good Future

Fuelled by by recent geopolitical conflicts, the urgency to address the accelerating climate emergency and the mounting societal challenges of technological hyper-transformation (in particular, AI). the world continues to change at a mind-boggling pace, and confusion reigns.

Once unthinkable climate-emergency measures such as new carbon taxes (e.g. for aviation or for eating  meat) are increasingly likely as concerned citizens (GenY, especially) around the world push for real change. CEOs are touting their commitments to stakeholder values but many doubt that corporate leadership towards a better future is sincere enough; increasingly resulting in a political power-shift that benefits autocratic regimes.

What kind of future do we want?  Is our current economic logic even suitable for the future? Will the traditional model of ‘free and open markets' deliver solutions for these complex global issues? Is this approach ‘fit-for-the-future'?

I believe that we must look beyond socialism, capitalism or liberalism and design a new economic logic, and reboot our stock markets as we transition from the suicidal single bottom-line of GDP-Growth to what I call the 4Ps: People, Planet, Purpose and Prosperity.  This keynote will dive into my latest learnings on The Good Future, and show the way forward.

Watch my Good Future films and videos here.

BOOKING INQUIRY    MORE DETAILS HERE

THE 10 ESSENTIAL FACTS ABOUT THE FUTURE

The most important future foresights, delivered straight-up yet with optimism and inspiration

In these confusing times, where AI-infused media is increasingly spreading disinformation and fabricating fake realities, it is essential to learn how to see through the hype and unmask false promises. In this talk, I share my constantly updated list of ‘facts & truths' about the future, such as:

  • Science and technology alone will not save us – we need the tools AND we need the telos!
  • Understanding the future is both an art and a science, imagination & intuition beats knowledge
  • AI tools are fundamentally labour-replacing, and we must prepare accordingly
  • Transcending our human limitations by technological means will not makes us fundamentally happier (transhumanism is a dead end).
  • Until we change our reasons (the purpose), we won’t really change our actions (and the resulting problems): We need to rethink our economic logic
  • A technology-centric, reductionist approach of dealing with human realities will inevitably fail
  • When it's about ‘intelligent digital entities', we should focus on competence (IA) not on consciousness (AGI)

BOOKING INQUIRY  TruthAboutTheFuture.com

GERD'S CRUCIAL FORESIGHTS FOR THE NEXT 10 YEARS

What to understand about the immediate future, today

This talk is constantly updated to reflect the latest developments

BOOKING INQUIRY YT Short

THE 3 REVOLUTIONS: ARE YOU READY?

The next 10 years will bring more change than the previous 100 years.

We are going warp-drive into a future characterised by these 3 Revolutions:  The Digital Revolution (including AI), the Green Revolution (Sustainability & Decarbonisation), and the Purpose Revolution (a new economic logic ‘beyond GDP', based on what I call People Planet Purpose and Prosperity, the 4Ps). Big Blue, Big Green, Big Purple (video)!

If indeed “the future belongs to those that can hear it coming” we would do well to develop a ‘future mindset‘, question our assumptions about what's possible, and boost our ability to better respond to the framework changes (not just to the individual pictures).

The future is no longer about ‘tomorrow‘ – the future is already here; we are just not paying enough attention yet! By 2030, we will have approx. 9 Billion people connected at high speeds and very low cost, and virtual/augmented reality will be as normal as WhatsApp. Conversational AI and natural interfaces will be how we interact with computers, and the rapid convergence of online | virtual and real-life | physical worlds will upend how we do everything, from working to traveling to shopping to healthcare to banking.

The power of exponential, general-purpose technologies such as AI and VR will become almost limitless – which is why we must now start to focus a lot more on remaining human, and on ethics and values – in a way, purpose itself will become the new product (reminder: green is already the new digital!)

BOOKING INQUIRY  Youtube Video

GREEN IS THE NEW DIGITAL – AND SUSTAINABLE WILL BE THE NEW PROFITABLE.

Why and how the decarbonisation of our economies is the biggest opportunity in this coming decade

‘Digital transformation' is just business-as usual-by now.  The next really big topic is Big Green – the Decarbonisation of our economies and the ‘gradually, then suddenly‘ departure from the fossil-fuel era – and 2024 is when the gloves are coming off.

Get ready: wide-ranging new carbon taxes are inevitable (airlines, meat, personal carbon budgets etc) and fossil fuel subsidies will be turned into ‘nature positive' investments. During the pandemic we learned that being prepared for emergencies is totally essential – and that yes we can indeed compromise and collaborate (if we have to:)

I set forth that the circular economy is the only economy we'll have by 2030, and that ‘sustainable' is becoming the new ‘profitable' in the next 5 years (have a look at the stakeholder economy debates).

Any company that does not understand how this global move towards rapid decarbonisation will impact every segment of their business – from R&D to supply-chain, to production to distribution to marketing to branding – will wither and shrink or just fade away, and every individual that does not understand what it means as far as knowledge, skills and mindset is concerned, will quickly become dispensable.

In this talk, I explain why this tectonic shift is happening now, what it really means, and how to get behind it and prosper in this fork-in-the-road decade that's coming up. Visit my new Decarbonisation / Green Hub. Watch this short film.

BOOKING INQUIRY   MY POSTS ON SUSTAINABILITY

THRIVING IN EXPONENTIAL TRANSFORMATION AND PERMACHANGE

How Organizations Can Define and Create Their Preferred Future

While a rising tide lifts all boats, one-sided or blind disruption can capsize any organization. To create enduring, dynamic organizations built to last in today’s era of accelerating exponential technology, the most important thing is foresight and preparedness.

Now, companies and organizations – and their people – find themselves increasingly forced to pivot and reinvent themselves, or face sudden disintermediation and irrelevance. From music to the automotive industry, from big oil to big box retail and everything in between, the pace of change is increasing and only poised to accelerate further as the 3 Revolutions, the 10 Game-Changers and other Megashifts sweep across the industry and society, altering every aspect of daily life.

While organizations unprepared for the waves of change to come will not survive, those that ready themselves can take advantage of the enormous opportunities created amidst the chaos, from IoT and artificial intelligence to robotics and new human-machine interfaces (such as voice-control and intelligent bots).

BOOKING INQUIRY PermaChange Talk

THE FUTURE OF WORK, JOBS, EDUCATION & TRAINING

Awesome humans on-top of amazing technology

All too often, scientific breakthroughs, industry hype cycles, the latest technological achievements or economic growth targets dominate discussions about our future. Yet as the world is rapidly going digital and becoming increasingly virtual,  I believe it actually is our humanity that needs the most attention, and that it will be our humanness which will make all the difference. The now-thoroughly-deflated hype about the Metaverse makes for a good example: sometimes technology promises to give us everything we've ever dreamed of, but ends up giving us little of we really need?

Computers will inevitably outpace humans in mere processing power, logic and efficiency, and the resulting ‘End of Routine’ is a certainty. Thus, the ticket to our future is to become more human, not less, not to compete with the machines but to use their increased competence to handle those tedious commodity tasks better and faster. I think machines, computers and algorithms should have competence not consciousness.

What will happen to humans when machines become truly ‘intelligent’?  What about privacy,  mystery or serendipity? And what of emotions, intuition, imagination, consciousness (what I call, in my last book, the androrithms)? In this talk, I outline the challenge as well as some possible solutions.

Reminder: The biggest danger today is not that machines will eliminate us, but that we may become too much like them.

BOOKING INQUIRY Conversation on the Future of Work

WHY AND HOW THE FUTURE IS BETTER THAN WE THINK

10 Reasons to be optimistic, 5 Strategies and 3 Actions

For decades, film and TV studios have flooded the public with visions of  dystopian futures – no wonder that many people fear AI and robots. Add the streaming platforms, social media, pandemics, (re)globalisation, automation and geopolitical upheaval to the mix, and the result is a widespread belief that the future is mostly bleak (read more about that here).

Yet the fact is that our world is not irrevocably destined to become a  dehumanized hellscape ruled by AI, or some other Black-Mirror-like nightmare, and our future certainly isn’t fixed – we create it with our (in)actions, every day. And if you look at the correct data, you’ll find things often are actually better than ever before.

The world is, in fact, improving at a rapid rate. Sure, the world’s progress in the past 30 years is not all just peachy and amazing – especially when seeing it in context with the current corona crisis. Yet we are well on the way of reducing extreme poverty and hunger, and chiselling away at many of the other woes that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time, including diseases, crime and war.  Indeed, we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic about our progress. In the next decade, I think we will have most of the tools (i.e. science and technology) we need – so now we must acquire the telos (will, purpose and wisdom).

So what can you do, as an individual, an enterprise or an organisation, to make sure your future will indeed be bright?  How will you turn these challenges/opportunities into positive action? If we are (or become) what we believe we can be, how do we change our beliefs and mindsets?

BOOKING INQUIRYWatch my film ‘The Good Future'

THE FUTURE-READY MINDSET

Character Traits, Personality, Skills and Attitudes: Your Mindset contains your Future!

While there is no such thing as “knowing the future,” nothing is more important to your future success than your mindset, your intuition, your imagination and your overall future-readiness. Looking at the Future is not about prediction – it's about being better prepared – and it is something we can learn and practice. 

In this popular talk, Gerd explains and shows how to develop your future mindset, how organisations can dramatically increase their future-readiness

The next 10 years will bring more change than the previous 100 years, driving by the 3 revolutions (digital, sustainable, purpose) as well as by simultaneous technological leaps in sectors such as AI, Quantum Computing, Synthetic Biology, Nanotech and Genetic Engineering and others.

Related videos: here (virtual), playlist here,

BOOKING INQUIRY

DIGITAL ETHICS AND THE FUTURE OF TECHNOLOGY

Our future could be hell or it could be heaven – it’s our choice!

Science fiction is increasingly becoming science fact. Consider the dramatic technological advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, human genome manipulation, autonomous vehicles, and quantum computing. By 2030, the power of exponential technologies will become almost limitless!

The ethical and humane use of technology can no longer be an afterthought, but is instead an existential challenge. If we define ethics as “knowing the difference between having the power to do something, and doing the right thing”, who do we want making these critical decisions? Should it be for algorithms and profit incentives alone to determine our fate? Who will be “mission control for humanity”?

To paraphrase Apple's CEO Tim Cook “Technology can do great things, but it does not want to do great things…it doesn't want anything” . In a world where technology will increasingly define every aspect of life, who do we want at the helm?

If we define ethics as “knowing the difference between having the right or the power to do something, and doing the right thing”, who, then will decide what is right, and who will be “mission control for humanity”?

BOOKING INQUIRY MORE ON DIGITAL ETHICS HERE

ENGAGEMENT OPTIONS

VIRTUAL OR IN PERSON – LIVE or PRE-RECORDED

AVAILABLE ENGAGEMENT & PRESENTATION FORMATS

The cost of an engagement depends on many factors such as the event location. the degree of customisation that you require, the audience & location/venue size, the preparation time required, and the overall event context. Depending on your budget, please review these options:

  • A virtual / online keynote with customised background visuals (20-60+ min), Held live via remote video or Pre-Recorded, depending on your time schedule and requirements. Gerd often delivers high-definition recordings followed by Live / Video Q&A sessions. Please inquire for further details.
  • On-location keynotes, in person, live-on-stage:  a) with customized visuals (30-90 minutes) b) A speech without any visuals or media c) Gerd's popular super-keynote format (requires extra-wide LED walls).
  • A ‘Fireside-Chat with Futurist Gerd' (no media, no presentation, conversation-style), hosted by a suitable and experienced presenter. Real-Life or Virtual.
  • A virtual panel or webinar participation (no speech, no presentation)
  • Futurizing Seminars or Workshops 
  • Virtual Advisory Session with Futurist Gerd

 

VARIABLES THAT IMPACT GERD'S FEES:

  • Do you desire a virtual presence i.e. a remote talk from Gerd's studio in Zürich, using highly immersive virtual backgrounds, in Full HD (see this video) or a personal / real-life presence, at your event location?
  • Does your event fit within Gerd's current core topic list (see above), with some basic customisations (lowest fee), or
  • Do you require substantial customisation including deep domain- or location-specific content (leading to more research and preparation costs)
  • Is this about an entirely new topic or subject matter, researched and designed for a specific occasion? 

NOTE: Special rates are sometimes available for established NGOs and government organisations.

Contact us anytime

 

 

GERD'S FEES ARE BASED ON THESE VARIABLES:

  • Do you desire a virtual presence i.e. a remote talk from Gerd's studio in Zürich, using highly immersive virtual backgrounds, in Full HD (see this video) or a personal / real-life presence, at your event location?
  • Does your event fit within Gerd's current core topic list, with some basic customisation, or
  • Do you require substantial customisation including deep domain- or location-specific content (leading to more research and preparation costs)
  • Is this about an entirely new topic or subject matter, researched and designed for this specific occasion? 

 

Download the Topic PDF (2024)

 

Advisory Sessions

Beyond keynotes and presentations, Gerd also offers bespoke ‘futurizing’ advisory sessions, workshops, seminars, as well as executive board and CXO future-coaching. Gerd is also a film-maker and heads up all StoriesFromTheFuture.tv projects. He is available for participation in fire-side chats, talk-shows, public debates and TV shows, and enjoys moderating events, as well. Gerd presents both in English as well as in German language.

MORE DETAILS SESSIONS INQUIRY

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