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Craig Wing    

Futurist, AI Sentiment, Tech Founder & Global Keynote Speaker

For two decades, Craig has delivered 500+ keynotes to 5,000 global leaders and executives to understand, create and design their ideal futures through imagineering and futures thinking. His expertise include emergent futures thinking, scenario planning, disruptive technologies, emergent business models, company culture and new world of work. He’s spoken at length on the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) and Africa’s preparedness to drive this. He converted his car to electric: creating the future, versus merely talking about it! He rejected the chance to head one of Branson’s companies to focus on enhancing South Africa (ZA) and volunteers time mentoring the next generation of leaders.

Wing consulted to the United Nations to create 2050 scenarios for the Nigerian government, moderated the 10th BRICs summit on 4IR with H.E. President’s Xi, Putin and Ramaphosa & PM Modi and delivered a keynote on “the role of disruptive technology to meet the SDG’s.” He’s hosted sessions at the African Innovation Symposium, head of Innovation for B4SA as ZA recovered from Covid-19, is adjunct professor at the Indian School of Business (ISB), Duke Corporate Education and others. Clients include UNAIDS, Deloitte, Audi, Tata, Shell, MTN, Airbus, Danone, Nestle, Anglo American, Microsoft, Fidelity, Accenture, Barclays, Investec, Discovery, Standard Bank, BMW, Huawei, Mubadala fund, Indonesian Central Bank, and Indian government. He was a former radio insert future specialist on Hot1027FM (ZA Radio), created a YouTube mini-series on science and futures and asked to be a TV host for the national broadcaster.

His PhD was described as avant-garde, ingenious and adds significantly to the area in futures thinking where he developed new frameworks leveraging Rumsfeld’s Unknown Unknowns and Joharis Window. This research allows for leaders to design their ideal future company strategy and create a single metric for their future preparedness: The Future Fitness score (www.whattheforesight.com). His research is the foundation for his AI company using human analytics to optimize operations and develop future resilience and his third book called “Four Future Seasons” to quantify the future and draws upon Japanese philosophy, philosophy, and military strategy. He has a BSc (Eng), MSc (Usability) and MBA from Babson College (USA) as a recipient of the prestigious Frederic C Hamilton scholarship for significant entrepreneurial achievement. During his MBA he was the first “non-American” class president.

He started 5 companies: software venture for partially sighted children, commercialization consultant and silicon valley, cleantech startup launched at 8 U.S and international Universities, profiled at the Clinton Global Initiative and TEDx speaker. As Google head of small business marketing, he launched South African Business Woza online where SME’s created 50,000 websites in its first year: 1 every 10 minutes. He grew revenue YoY by 82% YoY, was African “Googliest Googler” and first GoogleX African. He is an angel investor in disruptive, technology driven startups.

Accolades include: Leadership Forum member, AFLI Desmond Tutu Fellow, AshokaU Changemaker, WEF Global Shaper, Mail and Guardian Top 200 under 35, Destiny Man & African Independent Top 40 under 40, disruptive Innovation speaker at TEDx and Clinton Global Initiative awardee. He is the youngest graduation speaker at University of Johannesburg and WomEng board member (non-profit inspiring woman into STEM), former chairperson of Moving into Dance (educating disenfranchised youth and the disabled through dance), non-executive and advisor for government entities.

He’s travelled to 52 countries: swam in the Amazon, trekked gorilla in Uganda and Tigers in India, swam with whales in Mozambique, skydived in California, hiked Machu Pichu (and the Great Wall), shark dived (twice!) wept at the Wailing Wall, watched the sun rise over the Taj Mahal and been tear-gassed in Turkey! When not travelling he learnt to play the guitar and considers himself a decent aspiring chef.

Speech Topics

Four Future Seasons: Being Future Fit in an Unknown Future

Most organisations fail as they are anchored in the belief that the future is an extrapolation of the past albeit Revenue, ROI, customer growth, etc and that they can control their own destinies. In this revolutionary talk based on a 4-year PhD study and 250 years of executive experience, and combining elements of Japanese philosophy, military strategy and psychology, you will understand how to prepare for a multiplicitous future, where to use qualitative and quantitative tools, how (and why) traditional business techniques like MBA’s and SWOT or Porters forces are outdated and where to utilise design thinking and an entrepreneurial mindset. The groundbreaking research will shape our understanding of futures strategy and thriving in an (un)known (un)known world framing black swans, corporate blind spots and reveal cognitive biases

Responsibility in an UNSAFE World

Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" – Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass

The world today is changing at a breakneck pace where waves of disruption are threatening our very survival and challenging our understanding of the next normal. Moving beyond a VUCA world, leaders need to understand the factors that underpin success in the world of tomorrow. This UNSAFE (Unknown, Nascent, Supervenient, Algorithmic, Factorial, Ephemeral) future is already here and leaders need to understand the drives for success. In this thought provoking keynote, we unpack the world using the acronym UNSAFE to guide decision making and leverage insights to build a better future for all to move beyond UNSAFE to SAFER where collective and individual “Responsibility” is the crucial component where we can only succeed together.

How to be Human in an Age of Machines

We stand on the precipice of the next evolution of the human experience. Disruptive technology threatens to affect our very existence from personal and family to work and our very definition of humanity. With an ever-increasing onslaught of technology driven tools such as Generative AI, Robo assistance, always on awareables – how can you not only survive, but thrive in an algorithmic world.

Beyond the noise and hype of technology replacing jobs or creating industries, what is real? In this keynote, we discuss limits to current LLM’s and how AI provides the “most likely truth” and how we can segment tasks (not jobs) to augment the human experience to ensure we are more human, not less. Providing practical experience, and using the Eisenhower matrix, delegates will understand that their future lies not as the luddites by shunting technology, but augmenting humanness to extend our humanity where this cognitive augmentation will lead us to the Fifth Industrial Revolution.

The Leadership Imperative

It’s a common belief that Leadership in a business is the MOST important element for success….but how important? While literature is packed with leadership principles and means to be a better leader there is no metric to quantify its exact impact. Using ground-breaking PhD research that is described as “avante garde” and based on qualitative interviews and via a codification and thematic analysis, we can now measure the exact impact of leadership.

Beyond this though, what else drives your business’ likelihood of success? This keynote examines the 25 attributes that companies can focus on to create more resilient future strategies as indicated by a singular metric to understand their Future Fitness Score (FFS). We will also uncover how to maximise resource efficiency over efficacy and how leadership changes as your business changes. This insightful session will drive your success into the future by understanding the sentiment and perception of your organisation super charge your leadership into tomorrow

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