Gerd Leonhard | Futurist & Humanist, CEO The Futures Agency and Author

Gerd Leonhard

Futurist & Humanist, CEO The Futures Agency and Author

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Gerd Leonhard
Biography

Over the past two decades, Gerd Leonhard has risen to one of the top 10 futurist keynote speakers worldwide. With over 2,000 engagements in 60+ countries since 2004, and a combined audience of over 2.5 million people, Gerd has been listed by Wired magazine as one of the Top 100 Most-Influential People in Europe, and as 'one of the leading media futurists in the World' by The Wall Street Journal.
Gerd focuses on the future of humanity and technology, digital ethics, artificial intelligence, future-leadership and foresights. His keynotes, are renowned for their hard-hitting and provocative style - inspiring, humorous, motivational, and always personal. Using cutting-edge creative motion design, Gerd's performances have become a unique immersive experience on the big screen, reinventing the visual side of the conference industry.

Gerd is highly regarded as a global influencer and has advised many business leaders and government officials around the globe.

His diverse list of clients include governments, NGOs and Fortune 500 companies such as SAP, Microsoft, Google, Accenture, Deloitte, KPMG, Sony, UBS, Tetrapak, Mastercard, BBC, Unilever, Lloyds Bank, WWF, Sony, The Guardian, Siemens, RTL,The Financial Times, Ogilvy, Omnicom, The EU Commission, VISA, Audi and many others. A true thought leader in the futurist space, Gerd is above all a dedicated humanist who believes that all technological progress should further collective human flourishing. His credo is simple: People, Planet, Purpose and Prosperity.

Gerd uses his keynotes, presentations, workshops and advisory sessions to deep-dive on complex topics. Recurring themes include the coming redefinition of human-machine relationships, exploring what it means to be human in a world of machines and algorithms, the future of work and jobs, and the ethics of technology. As Gerd likes to say, humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in the previous 300 years - so let's maintain and protect what makes us human!

Gerd Leonhard has spent his lifetime engaging with change, as a professional artist, internet entrepreneur, and author; now exploring the role of visionary thinker and speaker. Gerd's background is in the music business; in 1985 he won Berklee College 'Quincy Jones Award' and subsequently spent 12 years working as a professional guitarist, composer and producer. He then caught the internet-bug and became a digital music & media entrepreneur.

From 1995 to 2002 he served as Founder/CEO of several internet startups, based in San Francisco. In 2002, following the .com meltdown and the 9/11 crisis, Gerd returned to Europe and discovered his new calling as a futurist and as the CEO of The Futures Agency, a global network of over 40 leading futurists, speakers and personalities. The future is already here - we just haven't paid enough attention!
As we rush headlong into a machine-led world where the very essence of human being is being increasingly challenged, Gerd is reminding us to consider what moral values are we prepared to stand up for before "being human" alters its meaning forever.

Gerd travels around the globe to speak at leading conferences, events and seminars, helping

individuals, enterprises and government organizations to deal with 'future shock', and to embrace change. Gerd is also an influential author. He is the co-author of the visionary book 'The Future of Music' and the author of five other books including his last best-seller, 'Technology vs. Humanity', which is now available in ten languages.

Gerd's films on the future of technology and humanity, digital transformation and artificial intelligence have reached millions of viewers. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA, London) and an advisory board member of the Indian and Canadian Research Institutes. He resides in Zurich, Switzerland and presents both in English and German.

Gerd Leonhard
Featured Videos

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Gerd Leonhard
Featured Keynote Programs

THE GREAT TRANSFORMATION
A POST-CORONA FUTURE

Our world has been dramatically rebooted by the covid19 crisis – and
there is no ‘going back to normal’, anytime soon. This crisis feels
devastating to many of us yet I think it also creates a unique opening for
what I like to call The Great Transformation. This keynote can be held
virtually, as a digital keynote, or in-person. This keynote (remotely or in-person) will address topics such as:
• Impact of future of jobs, work, commerce and trade
• The geopolitical impact: Europe, the U.S. and China
• The future of capitalism: finally, sustainable?
• The environmental impact and climate-change
• The impact on medical & healthcare
• The impact on technological domination
• The personal impact: solidarity vs loneliness
• The impact on investing: divestment in fossil fuels?

Why and how SUSTAINABLE will be the new PROFITABLE

We must now face the fact that wide-ranging and disruptive carbon taxes are inevitable. Yet after the initial shock waves – and if done right – carbon taxes might not only inject Trillions of $/€ into climate change adaptation and mitigation measures (a huge opportunity in itself), but may also fund up to 100 Million new jobs in all sectors related to sustainability. In addition, the much debated shift to shareholder- (not just shareholder-) value is likely to reboot stock-markets around the world in the next 5-7 years, as we transition from the quickly outmoding, single bottom-line of PROFIT to what I call the quadruple bottom-line: People, Planet, Purpose and Prosperity (sustainable capitalism). Lastly, I think 2020 marks the beginning of a New Renaissance as responsible investing – and rapid divestment from fossil fuels, in particular – is quickly becoming a #1 topic with every fund and every family office, around the globe. In this talk, I often venture beyond climate and energy issues to also address related topics such as the humanly sustainable use of technology (if desired).

A NEW RENAISSANCE

The first Renaissance was a European movement away from feudal dogma to human artistry and independent thought, led by polymaths such as Leonardo da Vinci. Today, the new dogmas – Technology, Data and Connectivity – are endangering human agency, threatening to literally reprogram us. Something must and can be done. Based on almost two decades of global experiences and insights as a Futurist, Gerd now outlines his vision of a new human renaissance – essentially an embrace of human sovereignty over medieval dogma – and how we can reassert the human being over its artificial substitution and replacement. For this bold new talk, Gerd rediscovers the spirit of the Renaissance to offer you a new vision based on human genius and human values. Instead of a tech-dominated dystopia full of bots and ‘thinking machines’, Gerd suggests that the future can be one of liberated expression and human mastery.

HAPPINESS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

I have spoken a lot about happiness in my talks since 2015, and it’s an important chapter in my book Technology vs Humanity.

Trust isn’t digital. Machines don’t do relationships. Happiness is not a download, and it can’t be automated or digitized. Yes, technology is great at giving us more or less hedonic pleasures such as free phone calls, access to unlimited music, TV Shows & films, networking opportunities for business or shopping online. Yet at the same time, unhappiness appears to be rising around the world (as are mental health issues and opioid addiction), and the power-users of social networks are said to the highest suicide rate of any population segment. Is technology, done wrong, ‘bicycles for the mind but bullets for the soul’?

Does ‘too much technology’ (#toomuchmagictech) lead to unhappiness? Does too-much-tech prevent us from being open to true happiness? If so, how will we balance technology and our need for real happiness? As big tech offers its hedonistic pleasure traps, how can we protect and pursue those deeper forms of happiness (eudaemonia) that involve what I all the ANDRORITHMS such as empathy, compassion, and consciousness ? And what about digital well-being?

Technology is very good at giving us what we want but very bad at giving us what we need. Technology is not what we seek but how we seek. We will not find real happiness on a screen or in VR, or in the cloud.

Gerd Leonhard
Featured Book

Technology vs Humanityby Gerd Leonhard

Technology vs Humanity

by Gerd Leonhard

Gerd Leonhard
Featured Reviews

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