TECHNOLOGY & EDUCATION - THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION

The University system is a 12th Century French invention that remains to this day largely unchanged from its origins in the Middle Ages. Our K-12 system is a 19th Century German invention designed to produce homogenous factory workers. It too remains unchanged since the late 1800s. Now, we find ourselves in a world that has changed in ways no one expected. Now, the two most important job skills are teaching yourself new skills and working collaboratively with a team, neither of which are taught in our existing framework. How should education change? How will it? What skills will ensure that a person can economically contribute in a world of radical technological change?

TECHNO-OPTIMISM - BIG DATA AND THE PERFECTIBILITY OF HUMANITY

More data is created every day that was created in the entire 19th Century. And within that data lies to the answers to the vexing problems of life. Automatic computer programs will scour the data for associations that will be turned into algorithms to optimize every decision we have to make in life. And while we may not always choose to do those things, it will effectively make every person on the planet vastly wiser than the wisest person who has ever lived. In the future, no one will ever need to make a mistake again. While this sounds like a technical talk, the wide use of real examples makes it suitable for any audience.

TECHNO-OPTIMISM - HOW TO CHANGE THE WORLD FOR CENTURIES TO COME

The world has, throughout human history, changed. Almost always, this change is for the better. Through civilization, we have raised life expectancy, the standard of living, access to education, and political liberty. How has this change been brought about? Largely through the actions of individuals driven to change the world. This talk focuses on how that change happens and looks at how virtually any individual can literally have worldwide effect on the history of the planet.

BUSINESS and LEADERSHIP - THE NEXT SEVEN YEARS

What would you have foreseen seven years ago? There were no self-driving cars or Apple watches. Would you have seen the transformative effect that tablets and smartphones would have? The next seven years will have much more change than the prior seven years. We know this. And this is the change we need to begin preparing for.

BUSINESS and LEADERSHIP - HOW TO INNOVATE IN A RAPIDLY CHANGING WORLD

No matter what industry you are in, you probably have a sense that you are in one of those radical disruptive periods where everything seems to be changing. You might be wondering when it is all going to settle down so you can take a bit of a breather.

This talk explores how businesses that operate in industries that are undergoing dramatic changes can function and be successful. While traditional futurists seldom bridge the gap between “here is what is going to happen” and “here is how you profit from it,” Reese explores how it is that radical technology advance creates new multi-billion dollar companies and destroys old ones.

TECHNO-OPTIMISM - THE COMING GOLDEN AGE OF HUMANITY

In this compelling talk, Reese demonstrates how current technological changes will ultimately bring about the end of poverty, disease, hunger, ignorance, and war. Reese explores how these historical problems of humanity are fundamentally problems of technology, and thus will have technological solutions, solutions we will find much sooner than is commonly believed