How do we create a happier future? What are the factors that influence happiness? What can we do as managers and leaders to enhance happiness, and why is this fundamental to achieving ALL our goals? 

Join me for a deeply insightful discussion with John Helliwell, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of British Columbia, and editor of the World Happiness Report 2025.

They can be no more universal theme than this. Happier organizations are more productive. They are more innovative. They are more resilient. Happier societies are safer and healthier and more giving. A deeper understanding of the factors helps us make more effective personal and professional decisions. Happiness benefits EVERYONE. With laughter and good humour and vast knowledge of his subject, John shares a ton of actionable advice for leaders. 

If you only listen to one FutureBites episode, make it this one. 

And when you're finished, I urge you to download and read the report. 

Because we CAN influence happiness, and because moving happiness back to centre-stage in our measures of progress is one of the surest pathways we can take to a better future.

Enjoy the podcast!

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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com

Forget cars, what does the transition to electric FREIGHT look like? How capable are HEAVY vehicles? What’s the future of charging infrastructure? What changes for shippers and logistics companies? How should they think and plan?

On this episode of FutureBites, I travel to Cambridge University to ask Professor David Cebon, a visionary in the electrification of heavy vehicles.

David is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cambridge University. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, Director of the Cambridge Vehicle Dynamics Consortium, and -- his principal focus for the past 15 years -- Director of the Centre for Sustainable Road Freight. 

In short, he is THE global guru on the electrification of freight. 

We discuss:

• Intelligent charging in cities, and why top-up charging in urban freight is a BIG win.
• How electric trucks are already good enough for 80% of journeys and getting better fast
• The compromises necessary for weight-limited Loads, and how electric vehicles are close to a drop-in replacement for diesel for volume limited loads.
• Why charging at truck stops is NOT the future
• The triple-win of static charging at warehouses and factories
• The biggest bottleneck in static charging: cabling up all the connections
• Why hot-swapping batteries is a plausible, but less likely part of the future
• Why dynamic charging (charging on the move) is a huge win and a BIG part of our future
• The pros and cons of competing approaches to dynamic charging

The opportunities are HUGE.

Listen to hear David’s exceptional insights not only on the future of electric freight, but on the calculations and compromises every organisation needs to make to get there. And once you see the future of electric garbage trucks, buses, and long-haul big rigs, you can’t help but think more deeply about the electrification opportunity in ALL contexts.

Enjoy the podcast!

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As always, additional commentary and takeaways and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com

What is driving the NEXT generation of autonomous vehicles? How are scientists upping the innovation rate? Why are AVs utterly inevitable, everywhere? How will they transform industries, cities and even economies? 

To get a deep sense of where we are headed, I checked in with Paul Newman, a trailblazer in robotics and autonomous systems. Paul is BP Professor of Information Engineering at Oxford University, Founder of the Oxford Robotics Institute, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and the IEEE in honor of his outstanding contributions to robot navigation, and Founder of Oxa (formerly Oxbotica) a mobile autonomy company involved in commercial deployments around the world. 

Paul is a BIG thinker about the future of AVs!

We discuss:

• How “driving many somewhere’s” leads to a future of “driving autonomously everywhere,” and how this builds assurances that AVs are robust and safe in each and every context.
• Paul’s ‘universal autonomy’ approach, building an AV ‘operating system’ spanning many platforms, and partnering with industrial users and original vehicle manufacturers in joint ventures with shared IP – greatly accelerating the innovation process.
• Oxa’s varied deployments across shuttle-buses, airports, mines, buses, delivery vans and more.
• AI supervising AI, and how a multi-level approach with a ‘higher order’ layer making over-riding decisions when a decision is not safe enough, not only massively improves safety, but also makes it possible to innovate faster.
• The big gains being made in AI teaching, and how ‘adversarial learning’ is accelerating and scaling teaching by generating tens of thousands of scenarios to train and test other AIs.
• The future of vehicle-to-vehicle data sharing, the obligation to share data, and the big questions to be tackled on how much to share.
• How AVs will re-shape industrial ecosystems, and transport networks, and cities, in all kinds of big ways (just wait until you hear his comparison with reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone!) 

Mostly, we talk about OPPORTUNITY. 

What I love best about Paul is he is profoundly optimistic about the potential for AVs to drive huge positive change. 

We are only at the beginning of the AV revolution. Do you consider widescale AV deployments inevitable? I do. Listen to Paul and understand why.

Enjoy!

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As always, additional commentary and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com

Can carbon pricing incentivize a sustainable future?

Join us for a compelling conversation with Professor Cameron Hepburn, the Battcock Professor of Environmental Economics and co-Director of the Economics of Sustainability Programme at Oxford University, as we unravel the power of carbon pricing and its potential to incentivize decarbonisation across industries, economies and countries.

What lessons have early-movers learned about acceptance and building momentum? How to neutralize the politics? How to do a better job of implementing carbon pricing in practice? What are the implications of the European Union's Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on other trading blocs, and what does the future hold?

We dissect the hurdles and triumphs  at the intersection of economics, energy and sustainability, and explore Professor Hepburn's surprisingly upbeat assessment of the future.

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As always, additional commentary and the full transcript will be on the Future Bites page soon. More on my work as a Futurist Speaker, and why I do what I do, at www.brucemccabe.com

Imagine a future where, based on a diagnostic in your teens, your doctor gives you a customized infusion with a top-up every 5 to 10 years that “dials down” your genetic risk factors for all kinds of diseases WITHOUT making permanent changes to your DNA.

Welcome to the world of epigenetic editing, a frontier that will unlock a new universe of gene therapies that are both potent and reversible.

My guest today is Dr Ben Oakes, Co-founder, President and CEO of Scribe Therapeutics, a company that’s focused on designing and applying CRISPR-derived tools that, not only edit genes directly and permanently, but also control and fine tune the conditions that decide whether a gene is turned on or off. 

How does epigenetic editing work? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the current and future disease targets? If we think about the long-term future of medicine and healthcare, what might be possible? I asked Ben these questions and more. In a fascinating exploration, he discusses the journey to effective interventions, and why multipurpose genetic editing tools will revolutionize the future of medicine.
 
And it’s NOT far off. While complexity challenges are high, this is an active and vibrant field with many players and many pathways forward. The science is moving fast. We’ve come a long way with DNA editing in 12 years; I expect FDA-approved epigenetic therapies will transform the lives of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, in 10-15 years. Ultimately, therapies that target multiple risk factors for cardiovascular disease have the potential to help billions.

You’ve been hearing a lot lately about gene therapies based on editing DNA. Now hear about the ‘next-level’ in gene therapies. 

The future of medicine is truly an amazing place!

And as always, you'll find my personal takeaways, links to some of my related blog posts so you can take a deeper dive, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker. 

How can we build a more secure digital future?

Cyber-attacks and data-breaches are escalating, attackers are employing all manner of sophisticated tools, AI is transforming the ‘arms race’ for both attackers and defenders. We see the headlines, but is this a future we have to accept? What are the pathways to a more secure digital future?

I asked Bruce Schneier, the biggest name in cybersecurity.

Bruce is a DEEP thinker. He’s been researching and writing prolifically on cybersecurity since 1998, has authored more than 12 books, is a Fellow and lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy school and a board member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and is also Chief of Security Architecture at Inrupt, a data-security venture co-founded by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web.

Who better to shed light on pathways forward?

What I like best about him is this: he thinks about cybersecurity as the product of social, political, economic AND technical factors. He's a realist. Added to which, he has a wonderful turn of phrase: his razor-sharp one-liners slice right to the heart of an issue.

We discussed incentives, why government intervention is crucial for correcting market failures, IoT laws, the benefits of data decentralization and compartmentalization, disrupting cryptocurrencies to disrupt ransomware, treating superfluous data as a toxic asset, the unknowns of the post-quantum world, the need for crypto-agility, the benefits of zero trust authentication and more. I know you will  enjoy his insights!

As always, you'll find my personal takeaways, links to some of Bruce’s related blog posts so you can take a deeper dive, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker. 

The fifth largest economy in the world is smashing renewables records! For 41 of the past 49 days, California's grid has met more than 100% of electricity demand using solar, wind and hydro generation supplemented by grid-scale batteries. Supply is frequently exceeding 140% of demand, with the excess exported to neighbouring states. On some days renewables have supplied more than 100% of demand for more than 9 hours. These outstanding milestones for the atmosphere, the US economy and for consumers, are taking place earlier and faster than expected, with energy prices projected to fall steeply as California races towards the ultimate milestone: 100% solar, wind and hydro 24/7 365 days a year.

What factors are responsible? What lessons can be learned? What does this tell us about future of energy? 

I asked Professor Mark Jacobson, Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Director of the Atmosphere/Energy Program at Stanford University.

Mark is a GIANT in his field. As well as being the current #1 cited scientist, he is a prolific public commentator and regularly cited as one of the world’s most influential people. When it comes to the science, engineering and economics of the global transition to renewable energy, I consider him the most respected voice on the planet. His leadership, as a tireless educator to the public as well as to policy-makers, as he helps steer all 8 billion of us towards a better, healthier, safer future, is an inspiration.  What a privilege to listen to his insights!

As always, you'll find my personal takeaways, a ton of links to further resources, data and reading kindly supplied by Mark, and a full transcript of our conversation on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker. 

Enjoy the conversation, and see you in a cleaner, greener future!!!

Welcome to Part 2 of my interview with Michael Barnard, global energy expert and consultant to the biggest investors on the planet. In this episode we discuss biofuels, long-range shipping, carbon pricing, nuclear reactors, geothermal, grid-scale energy storage and more, and we wrap up with Michael's Short List of Climate Actions That Will Work. There's a ton of insight and wisdom to help you target the real energy opportunities. We also had a ton of fun. Wait until you hear some of Michael's one-liners as he eviscerates projects that fail on both science and economics -- priceless!

Michael lives and breathes energy tech. He is utterly pragmatic, laser-focused on cutting through the nonsense, and backs all his assertions with science and comprehensive, quantified, costed analysis.  He is also passionate at debunking the myths and spreading the word about where the real opportunities lie. He shares these messages via his Redefining Energy – Tech podcast, and publishes prolifically in Clean Technica and Forbes Magazine. All of which explains why he's the perfect person to discuss what the future of energy generation will look. 

For further reading, you'll find a list of Michael's go-to articles on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.

See you in the future!

What will the global mix of energy generation look like in 2060? Which technologies are dead ends and which should we be paying more attention to?  What will power long range ships and aircraft? What about nuclear?

Who better to answer these questions than Michael Barnard, global energy expert and consultant to the biggest investors on the planet.

Michael lives and breathes energy tech. He is utterly pragmatic, laser-focused on cutting through the nonsense, and backs all his assertions with science and comprehensive, quantified, costed analysis.  He is also passionate at debunking the myths and spreading the word about where the real opportunities lie. He shares these messages via his Redefining Energy – Tech podcast, and publishes prolifically in Clean Technica and Forbes Magazine.

All of which explains why I like him so much. Honestly, he's a standout. I endorse him fully and unequivocally: the more organizations and investors who consult Michael the better -- for their balance sheets and for our future.

For further reading, you'll find a list of Michael's go-to articles on the FutureBites page, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.

See you in the future!

What does the future of medicine look like when microchips and nervous systems speak the same language?

I asked Dr Elisa Donati, a Senior Scientist working at the cutting edge of neuroscience and engineering at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at University of Zürich and ETH Zürich.

It starts with mimicking the way neurons work in nature. Real neurons are analog, not digital. They process information event-by-event, not in lock-step with computer clocks. They transmit and process large volumes of information in parallel, and dispatch complex tasks using astonishingly little energy.

By re-thinking medical computer chips, Elisa and her colleagues are designing prosthetic hands that let wearers to feel pressure and texture and temperature through their fingertips. They are making cochlear implants with more fidelity, and pacemakers that take cues from our respiratory system as the heart does in nature. They are creating implants that bridge severed spinal chords.

And that’s only the beginning. By improving communications with the autonomic system, they aim to create new ways to manage type 2 diabetes and other hormonal imbalances, obesity, erectile dysfunction, depression and more. Elisa hopes to one day unlock new treatment pathways for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The future of healthcare is an amazing place!

We recorded our conversation outdoors, at a beautiful seaside location at the 2023 NeuroEng Workshop hosted by the International Centre of Neurmorphic Systems, so you may hear the occasional walker or vehicle passing us by  :-)

Don't forget to check out all the other interviews and insights on the FutureBites page on my website, where you can also learn more about my work as a futurist speaker.

See you in the future!