Reinvent Podcast

Tim O’Reilly’s official book launch party kicked off at our November Edition of What's Now: San Francisco, hosted in conjunction with Capgemini and Bloomberg Beta. Tim’s new book WTF?: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up to Us. At What’s Now, the founder of O’Reilly Media laid out his thoughts on the future of work, and in particular, the role that platforms will play in this future. Tim used this book to force the tech world to face up to the responsibility the industry has to actively spread wealth and structure systems so that they benefit everyone. “We must keep asking,” Tim writes in the introduction, “what will new technology let us do that was previously impossible? Will it help us build the kind of society we want to live in?”

When Vivienne Ming began her neuroscience PhD program in the early 2000s, she wanted to learn how to build cyborgs. Her classmates thought the idea was crazy. Fast forward fifteen years, and the idea doesn’t sound so crazy anymore. What was once purely theoretical is becoming possible. Neuroscience research is rapidly becoming applied neuroscience, and the Bay Area is leading the way, both in terms of conducting innovative research and translating this research into exciting new startups.

John Battelle was the perfect person to kick off the series What’s Now: San Francisco. John not only told the big-picture story of the Bay Area tech boom, but he also had new insights into one of the region’s key drivers of innovation – startups.

Kevin Kelly is one of the most original thinkers in the San Francisco Bay Area, and he has spent much of his life seeking out other cutting edge innovators in the region. In June, Kevin published his latest book that synthesizes much of what he has learned over the course of his long and impressive career: The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.

At the fourth What’s Now gathering, Jane McGonigal, world-renowned game designer and bestselling author, shared the latest in her ground-breaking body of work. Jane believes that Pokemon Go has created super-empowered hopeful individuals around physical activity and social interaction. She outlined the neurological research about the benefits of play, and discussed the success of Pokemon Go. Jane’s most recent project involves incorporating gaming into political action through a new form of social canvassing. This game, which launches October 10th, explores whether the same neuroscience that turns Pokemon Go players into super-empowered hopeful individuals can be replicated to draw out these traits in order to increase political engagement.