RSA Events

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RSA Events episodes

July 17, 2017 Everybody Lies
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 11th July 2017
Forget what you thought polls could tell you – our Google searches and other online behaviour reveal our true selves. Welcome to the biggest and most accurate dataset in human history.
Harvard-trained economist and former Google data scientist, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz’s analysis of our digital footprint reveals that much of what we think we know about ourselves is simply wrong. The reason is simple – we all lie – to our doctors, in surveys, on social media, and even to ourselves; but less so, when sat in front of our keyboards searching for information online.
This data exposes our deepest desires, hopes, fears and prejudices, and our conscious and unconscious decision-making, in a way that less than twenty years ago would have been unfathomable. Hailed as the heir to Freakonomics, Stephens-Davidowitz’s groundbreaking research will change the way you think about everything.
Speakers:
Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Writer and Former Google Data Scientist
Rowan Conway, Director of Innovation and Development, RSA
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/07/everybody-lies
54 min
July 12, 2017 Machine, Platform, Crowd
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 11th July 2017
How do we build a future that doesn’t leave humans behind? How do we need to respond – as individuals, communities, companies, institutions – to harness technological progress the benefit of the many, not just the few?
Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee's bestselling 2014 book The Second Machine Age had widespread influence on the global debate around how technological progress is transforming the way we live and work.
Their new book Machine, Platform, Crowd focuses on the ‘second phase’ of the Second Machine Age. This phase, they argue, has a greater sense of urgency, as ‘deep learning’ technologies are now demonstrating that they can do much more than just the type of work we have thought of as routine. So can we now replace fears that automation will erase jobs with hopes that advanced AI will actually improve rather than displace human work?
Elsewhere, how do we ensure increasingly powerful platforms, such as Google, Facebook and Amazon, have a positive impact on the way we live our lives? And how can we harness the rise of crowd-based innovation to shape a better future for all?
Speakers:
Erik Brynjolfsson Co-founder and Director, MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
Anthony Painter, Director of the Action and Research Centre, RSA
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/07/machine-platform-crowd
58 min
July 07, 2017 Making Matters
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Tuesday 4th July 2017
Access to a hands-on approach to learning – designing, creating, exploring, experimenting, ‘tinkering’ - can have transformational impact. So, how can we create more opportunities for more people to learn through making?
To celebrate the long history of collaboration between the RSA and the Comino Foundation, a distinguished panel of designers, makers and educationalists gather to explore the power of making, and to discuss why access to making is important for everyone; how we risk losing the chance for young people to learn through making; and what the RSA, Comino and others are doing to challenge that.
Speakers:
Daniel Charny, Director, From Now On and Fixperts
Liz Corbin, Institute of Making and co-founder of Open Workshop
Zoe Laughlin, Co-founder/director of the Institute of Making and the Materials Library project
Bill Lucas, Co-creator, Expansive Education Network & director, Centre for Real-World Learning
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/07/making-matters
59 min
July 07, 2017 Justice for All?
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 3rd July 2017
The Rt Hon David Lammy MP’s pioneering review of racial disparity in the criminal justice system is exposing levels of potential bias that are cause for serious concerns.
The review’s interim findings, published last November, came with in-depth analysis to help identify the stages of the system at which disproportionality is most pronounced. It also evidenced that black men and women continue to be sentenced more harshly than white men and women for committing the same type of crime; over 40% of prisoners under the age of 18 are BAME; and that the number of Muslim prisoners has almost doubled in the last decade.
Having illustrated the huge challenge Government faces in tackling what could be institutionalised inequalities in the criminal justice system, David Lammy is now in the final stages of completing his report. He will be sharing some of the in-depth, real-life insights this review has uncovered; and setting the scene for a national, political debate on these issues.
Find out more about The Lammy Review of the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System.
Speakers:
Rt Hon David Lammy MP, Chair of the Lammy Review
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/07/justice-for-all
57 min
July 07, 2017 Why Humans Hurt Each Other
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 29th June 2017
We want to believe that there are some things we would never do. We want to believe that there are others we always would. But how can we be sure?
Why do human beings hurt other human beings – and what can we do about it?
The celebrated human rights barrister and researcher Dexter Dias QC has identified ten ‘types’ of human behaviour; ten deeply ingrained evolutionary drives, which provide tools for decoding the best and worst that humans do. They are the people we become when we are faced with life's most difficult decisions. But who or what are these Types? Where do they come from? How did they get into our heads.
Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, human rights and social psychology, Dias examines the very frontiers of the human experience with the aim of uncovering new ways to reduce the sum of human suffering.
Speakers:
Dexter Dias QC, Human Rights Barrister
Leyla Hussein, Psychotherapist and Award-Winning Campaigner
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/06/why-humans-hurt-each-other
52 min
June 30, 2017 Brexit: One Year On
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 22nd June 2017
On the 23rd June 2016, the UK voted to leave the EU – arguably one of the most unexpected and momentous decisions ever taken by the electorate. The result sparked the resignation of a sitting Prime Minister, a renewed Scottish independence debate, a controversial legal challenge, a snap general election, the ‘regrexit’ phenomenon, and in an ironic twist, the person charged with steering the nation through the withdrawal initially voted to remain.
One year on, and the situation is still uncertain. Are we committed to a ‘hard’ Brexit, and what does that actually mean? How much will it cost, how long will it take, and do we have enough skilled negotiators to get a good deal? Will there be deportations of EU citizens in the UK and vice versa? Will we see a rise of xenophobic sentiment like we did immediately after the vote? What of our trading relationships, and how will the millennial generation who largely voted ‘remain’ fare? Will the Union survive after a second Scottish independence referendum?
We’ve gathered an expert panel to answer these questions, and help us consider the far-reaching implications of the Britain’s exit from the EU.
Speakers:
Jonathan Isaby, Editor of BrexitCentral
Gina Miller, Investment Manager and Philanthropist
Professor Anand Menon, Director of UK in a Changing Europe
Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive, RSA
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/06/brexit-one-year-on
55 min
June 30, 2017 Designing Our Futures: The 2017 RSA Student Design Awards
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Wednesday 21st June 2017
Join us in celebrating the 2017 Awards and the power of design to make a positive social impact – this is a chance to meet the 2017 RSA Student Design Awards winners, participants and collaborators and hear about their work.
Keynote speech by David Constantine, past RSA Student Design Awards winner and Founder Director of Motivation, a charity which initiates self-sustaining projects to enhance the quality of life of people with mobility disabilities.
Speakers:
David Constantine, Founder Director, Motivation
Sevra Davis, Director of Design and Challenges and Director of the RSA Student Design Awards
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/06/designing-our-futures-the-2017-rsa-student-design-awards
1 hr 8 min
June 30, 2017 The War on Truth
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 15th June 2017
How can we champion truth in a world of lies and ‘alternative facts’?
The Brexit vote; Donald Trump’s victory; the rejection of climate change science; the vilification of immigrants; many of the huge political issues of recent years have been based on the power to evoke feelings and not facts.
Renowned journalist Matthew d’Ancona distinguishes post-truth from a long tradition of political lies, exaggeration and spin. For D’Ancona, what is new is not the mendacity of politicians but the public’s response to it and the ability of new technologies and social media to manipulate, polarise and entrench opinion.
Where trust has evaporated, conspiracy theories thrive, and the authority of the media wilts; it is the primacy of emotions and beliefs that shape the public. This makes for a terrifying time in which democracy and pluralism are all at threat.
But how do we fight back?
Speakers:
Matthew d'Ancona, Journalist
Eliane Glaser, Writer & Producer
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/06/the-war-on-truth
57 min
June 15, 2017 Closing the Values Gap
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Monday 12th June 2017
What does it take for an organisation to truly live its values, and crucially - to sustain them over the long-term? It’s a recognizable feature of modern-day working life to many of us: the company mission statement is brandished from the website to the office walls, but day-to-day behaviours fall far short of the stated ideals – so far often as to feel downright hypocritical.
Is it time to call this all out as business BS? Or is it really possible to create a values-based culture that is authentic and has staying power? Will there always a gap between values and practice? Is it just an inevitability of human nature? Or are there things we could do, individually and structurally, to help close it?
At the RSA, a panel of expert thinkers and do-ers who have ‘been there, done that’, help us identify the barriers that stop organisations living up to their values – and show the way for us all to do better.
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/06/closing-the-values-gap
58 min
June 15, 2017 How Change Happens
This event was recorded live at The RSA on Thursday 8th June 2017
How can we effect real change in the world? Is there a tried and tested method we can rely on that harnesses the best of both academia and practical learnings from the field?
Duncan Green is one of the world's experts on change and international development, and he brings together the best research from a range of academic disciplines and the evolving practical understanding of activists to explore the topic of social and political change.
Discover more about this event here: https://www.thersa.org/events/2017/06/how-change-happens
58 min