Watch Video

The unprecedented fast pace of technological change in the last two decades highlights not only the opportunities, but also the challenges posed by the transfer of a vast majority of our life to the digital realm.

From industrial production to commerce and to personal relationships, from information to micro-social coordination and to entertainment, everything is becoming more and more traversed and facilitated by digital-oriented technologies.

Watch video

The 20th century socio-demographic equilibrium was characterized by a stable inflow of workforce into equally stable labor-intensive industries, cementing a social inter-generational pact within Western economies that enabled the consolidation of welfare economies.

In contrast, our current societies are experiencing fundamental transformations that challenge this equilibrium in the context of four converging trends: the rise of a global middle class beyond western borders, the exhaustion of the demographic and labor bonus in western societies, the aging of its population, and the automation-driven transformation of worldwide labour markets.

Watch video

Drastic and irreversible climate change would bring an ultimate threat to human growth and development. That long-term limit faces a short-term trade-off due to the changes in the way we consume, manage resources and interact that are necessary to reduce this risk. Fortunately, there are two great ‘trade-off hacks’ we can draw on as a society: advances in technology and changes in our perceptions, attitudes and behaviors.

Technology is the great source of limited removal for humanity. Given its crucial importance in the face of a risk such as climate change, it is surprising that there is so much room for improvement: at the moment, public and private R&D on green technologies only represent a 4% share of worldwide R&D investment.

 @ClareShine_CISL

Director and CEO of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL)

Clare Shine is a UK-qualified barrister and a member of the Santander X Innovation Advisory Committee, an Associate of the Institute for European Environmental Policy, a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law and the World Commission on Protected Areas, a member of Cambridge Public Health steering committee, and a professional facilitator and mediator.

Clare has been at the nexus of sustainable development, organizational change and culture for over three decades. She was previously Vice President at Salzburg Global Seminar where she worked with senior leaders, intergenerational teams and Fellows from nearly 180 countries and led multi-year programs, partnerships and networks. Under her leadership, Salzburg Global built collaborative alliances linking research, policy, business and entrepreneurial practice and launched a series of cross-border networks for bottom-up innovation.

Previously worked as an independent environmental lawyer and policy adviser for intergovernmental bodies, governments, business and NGOs, focusing on biodiversity and climate change, coastal and marine management, public health, governance and international trade, human rights, and conflict transformation. She has played an influential role in the evolution of regional and global policy frameworks and led multi-sector capacity-building around the world.

Clare began her career in the media and publishing industry and was the Financial Times’ theatre critic in France for ten years. She holds an M.A. in English literature from Oxford University, UK and post-graduate degrees from London University and the Sorbonne University, Paris, France.

 @ProfSarahHarper

Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing

Sarah is Clore Professor of Gerontology at the University of Oxford and the  Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing. She has a background in Anthropology and Population Studies holding a MA from Cambridge University and a DPhil from the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on societal change arising from population ageing, with a specific interest in healthy life expectancy, the  family and intergenerational relationships. Sarah was appointed a CBE for services to Demography in 2018. 

Sarah served on the UK Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology, which advises the Prime Minister on the scientific evidence for strategic policies,  and chaired the Government Review into the Future of the UK's Ageing Population. She is Editor of the Journal of Population Ageing, Springer Nature.

MIT. Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics

Olivier de Weck is the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He earned degrees in Industrial Engineering from ETH Zurich and Aerospace Systems from MIT (SM ’99, PhD ’01) where he is the director of the Engineering Systems Laboratory. His main research is in Systems Engineering with a focus on how complex technological systems, such as satellites and launch vehicles, are designed and optimized and how they evolve over time.

Methodological contributions that his group has made include Time-expanded Decision Networks (U.S. patent 8,260,652), Generalized Multi-Commodity Network Flows (GMCNF), as well as software tools such as SpaceNet and HabNet. He is a Fellow of AIAA and a former chair of its Space Logistics Technical Committee. He helped develop the first integrated model of the Next Generation Space Telescope (now JWST) and the concept of interplanetary supply chains.

He has authored or co-authored over 400 publications for which he has been recognized with twelve best paper awards since 2004. Prof. de Weck previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Systems Engineering from 2013-2018 and is a former Senior Vice President of Technology Planning and Roadmapping at Airbus where he was responsible for roadmapping a $1-billion R&D portfolio. His passion is to improve life on our home planet Earth through research and education, while paving the way for humanity’s future off-world settlements.