Can We Innovate Our Way to Better Times?
New Thinking for a New World - a Tallberg Foundation Podcast
08/19/21
•34m
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2021 may go down in history as the year of the Great Awakening. Relentless disease, floods, fires, droughts, food insecurity, dramatic social and political unrest signal that deep structural changes in how our world works are underway. But amid the seemingly pervasive doom and gloom, the good news is that there are intensifying efforts to put people, countries and, indeed, humanity on a better path.
One of the most promising antidotes to what ails us is the enormous surge of scientific discovery and technological innovation that is also a hallmark of our age. Can we really innovate our way out of the mess? Are we smart enough to translate fantastic discoveries into tangible benefits for people? And, can we do so faster than pathogens mutate or accumulated emissions change weather or draughts destroy arable crop land?
Of course, no one knows for sure, but this week’s guest on the New Thinking for a New World podcast is working hard on answers, one challenge at a time. Livio Valenti sits exactly at the intersection of cutting-edge science and the demand for innovative solutions in healthcare, biotech, and material sciences. Listen as he discusses why he thinks we can do this.
Previous Episode
Who Cares About Migrants?
August 12, 2021
•35m
The world is a mess: climate change in real time, the lingering and sometimes resurgent pandemic, widespread social and political unrest, high pitch geopolitical tensions. In the midst of this firestorm, people are suffering. Climate migrants need to escape fires, hurricanes and floods. Economic migrants want better lives. Families flee wars and oppression.
Where do they go and who will take them? What rights do migrants seeking safety have? Who worries about them in a world that is focused on coping with Covid?
Lawyers Becca Heller and Kristine Rembach are in the business of finding answers, one refugee or migrant at a time. Listen as they discuss the state of global migration today.
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Cyber (In)Security in a Connected World
August 26, 2021
•31m
Cyber insecurity is a reality of life in the digital age. We all worry about being hacked, about losing personal or corporate secrets to online bandits. But what happens when nations do it? Is that war?
If a government uses digital tools to disrupt another state's power grid or destroy nuclear research facilities, are those acts of war? What if a government allows a digital raid on another country's corporations or sensitive personal data? Who makes the rules of cyber warfare? Which countries are already cyber powers?
Marcus Willet has spent decades thinking about such questions at the UK Government Communications Headquarters, his country's signals intelligence and cybersecurity agency, and more recently at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. Listen as he discusses the risks and challenges facing us in the digital age.
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