The Boundless Podcast

💬 “Technology can drive positive social change, but only if the technology is utilized for that specific purpose. With this in mind, we need to be consciously driving technology and ourselves in that direction.” Jon Thor Sigurleifsson

🎙️ My Friday Co-Host for the Infinite Leaders series is Jon Thor Sigurleifsson. Growing up in Iceland, Jon Thor had a lot of questions about the world and always knew that he wanted to explore it but the more he learned, the more he realised he didn't just want to explore it, he wanted to change it.

🎧 In this episode Jon Thor and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with @David Jensen and Professor Dirk Messner. Our topics included:

💡 1.) measuring and managing our carbon footprint
💡 2.) turning knowledge into action
💡 3.) the emphasis on individuals vs. corporations and governments
💡 4.) how big retailers can affect change
💡 5.) why equality is better for rich people

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💬 “The level of expertise about what digitalization means for sustainable economic development is very, very minor. We must close the links on these two mega trends, as right now digital technologies are driving even more consumption. When we link digitalisation and artificial intelligence to the new modernization paradigm, which is about sustainability and climate protection, that’s when change will accelerate.” Professor Dirk Messner

This is a conversation with Professor Dirk Messner

🎙️ Dirk is the President of the German Environment Agency. He is an internationally renowned sustainability scientist, and was the Director of the Institute for Environment and Human Security at the United Nations University in Bonn and Co-Chairman of the German Advisory Council on Global Change.

🎧 In this episode, Dirk talks about how we connect transformational digital technologies with sustainable development and disconnect gross resource consumption emissions from gross resource efficiency. He explains the complications with trying to use technology, which in itself creates more consumption, to reduce consumption. There is somewhat of a paradoxical nature to pointing technology at environmental sustainability. But Dirk describes a civilisational shift akin to the industrial revolution, even the Neolithic revolution that we are about to become a part of. He provides some ideas and answers to these challenges, including how we need to connect more digitalisation knowledge to climate knowledge and tax companies based on emissions rather than employees.

He is focussed on the integration of currently diverse and separate systems and describes how rapid investment from and into Europe could make our region a global leader for climate action. Dirk dips into history to show that at times like these, we tend to go backwards before we go forward. He references the two world wars to explain this phenomenon and with this in mind, he hopes this won’t be the case now with climate change, and that we can find a way to move directly forward.
It was an honour to speak with Professor Messner, his global expertise and connections are without parallel in terms of combining sustainable development, environment and policy advice on sustainability research.

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💬 “It's happened a few times that the colleagues in different tech companies have expressed how concerned they are about the immense potential knowledge and power these companies have and how important it is to govern this knowledge and this power.” David Jensen

This is a conversation with David Jensen

🎙️ David works at the UN Environment Programme as the coordinator of the Digital Transformation Task Force and the head of Policy and Innovation for the Crisis Management Branch. He is helping to write the digital transformation strategy for UN Environment to amplify and accelerate their adoption of digital technologies, practices and mindsets. He has also been advising the UN Science Policy Business Forum on these topics and was the co-author of a flagship discussion paper entitled The Case for a Digital Ecosystem for the Environment. David is also the co-founder of different digital platforms, including EarthSchool, Environmental Peacebuilding and MapX as well as a series on a Digital Ecosystem for the Planet on Medium.

🎧 In this episode, David talks about how digital technology is going to lead to a massive transformation around supply chain trends. However, currently, we still need a shared vision between organizations like the UN and their corporate partners and the big technology companies and the other stakeholders about how we can ensure that the digital economy actually achieves global sustainability and takes us towards the sustainable development goals, rather than in the other direction. We talked about how important it is for organizations like the UN to step further into this conversation and begin to put a governance framework around the digital economy. David highlights the importance of partnerships, particularly with technology companies.

But says they only really work when we have the guidelines, the standards and the safeguards. That means that these partnerships are compatible with the public interest. He goes on to say that currently there isn't a huge amount of transparency in the underlying business model of these types of partnerships.

And he raises his concerns about technological dependencies, which could be being created right now. One area that he says has great potential is citizen science. And allowing individuals everywhere to collect collate and analyze environmental data. We talked about who needs to own the data, the support, sustainable development, especially around the infrastructure and how we can work to ensure that it's open public and transparent.

David explains how digital technologies could be used as nudging tools to help us as consumers to make better choices. And he puts out a rallying call for this to be a priority. For the big eCommerce players, I will share David's final words from the episode here, which you could enjoy hearing again from him later on the future is what we make it.

We can decide to use the technology for good and to advance global sustainability, or we can decide to use it for maximizing profits and driving hyper-consumption. It's really up to us as a global community to decide.

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💬 “It's not always about what you get back for sharing your company data. Take energy distribution, for example, it’s vital that a number of key companies share their EV data with the grid and that this trusted ecosystem of shared data becomes a new baseline of doing business.” @Richard Foster-Fletcher

🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.

🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with @Scott Taylor and @Edosa Odaro. Our topics included:

💡 1.) data use in the enterprise; a massive opportunity or a mirage
💡 2.) using data to strengthen democracy and trustworthiness
💡 3.) how we can encourage data sharing within trusted ecosystems
💡 4.) the origins of the phrase ‘data is the new oil’
💡 5.) creating a culture of trust

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💬 “We need to be mindful as leaders in organisations deploying AI, that if we're doing something that we don’t feel good telling our mum's about, then there's a very good chance that that thing is not right.” Edosa Odaro

This is a conversation with Edosa Odaro
🎙️ Edosa is a global cross-industry leader currently serving as Chief Business Officer at Theory+Practice. He is passionate about deploying effective AI and data solutions, about applying behavioural economics for solving complex real-world problems and most of all about developing services that predetermine the actual return for his clients on their Data, AI & Technology investments. In a previous role, he was a Head of Data at the world's second-largest financial services company and responsible for driving significant people, data and cloud transformation.

🎧 In this episode, Edosa talks about the reaction from the general public to problems that occur when we cede control to machines – from autonomous vehicles to recommendation engines. He explores the reasons why we find harm caused by machines so distasteful, even when on balance they make our safer and less accident-prone. Edosa talked about whether these challenges around perception are better addressed through machine and AI explainability or by creating a culture of openness and transparency in the businesses that create the technology way before any incidents happen.

This led our conversation onto trust and what that means for a modern business that deploys frontier technologies. Edosa explained that there’s still too many examples of where we are coding bias into our AI models, albeit this is usually an intended consequence, it’s still a reminder of how far we have to go in a field of technology that prioritises scale and impact.

We also delved into the push and pull options available to retailers based on how they can incentivise or penalise certain customer types based on shopping habits, such as those that are heavy returners of goods such as fashion. Edosa was kind enough to explore a couple of examples that I presented based on the hospitality industry. Finally, I asked Edosa my quick-fire AI questions, which you may enjoy hearing his answers to.

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💬 “Untethering data from technology, I believe, is one of the most important organizational changes that is happening. And that’s because data is not based on software, it's not based on technical aspects, it's based on how it helps the business” Scott Taylor

This is a conversation with Scott Taylor

🎙️ Scott, The Data Whisperer, has helped countless companies “calm data down” by enlightening business executives to the value and power of proper data management. He focuses on business alignment and the “strategic WHY” rather than system implementation and the “technical HOW.” As Principal Consultant for MetaMeta Consulting, he helps Enterprises and Tech Brands tell their data story.

As a recognized influencer and subject matter expert in the data management space, he has worked with global enterprises by representing some of the world’s most iconic business data brands including Dun & Bradstreet, Nielsen, Microsoft and WPP/Kantar in a variety of strategic marketing, go to market, innovation and consulting roles.

🎧 In this episode, Scott talks about how the world changed when someone thought to put the word big before data, he describes the fall out of confusion and bright shiny object syndrome that ensued. I asked him how companies are doing in the basics, the basics of organising, structuring and understanding their internal data so that downstream projects can be successful, such as an internet of things strategy, or an AI project.

Scott talked about whether it’s wise to try and monetise your data by selling it to third parties, and whether it’s better to have a data leader in your organisation or to spread this knowledge and responsibility across the business. Sometimes, he says, the Chief Data Officer is quite as chief-like as it may sound. But it still might be a route into the CEO role in the future. But Scott warns, these prospective CEO’s from the data division will have to learn how to successfully tell business stories, which means they need to know and talk the business language. Technical language won’t cut it. And they need to remember that they’re competing for attention and budget with the Chief of Sales and the Chief of Marketing, two leaders that tell stories for a living.

Finally, Scott told us about the success of his puppets of data and the impact they have had on his story and his social influence and he explained the meaning of his moniker ‘the data whisperer’.

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💬 “New organisations are springing up where the service they offer is to help you game an AI system and get around the algorithms.” Dr. Naeema Pasha

🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.

🎧 In this episode Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes which included a recent talk I gave and my conversation with @Riham Satti. Our topics included:

💡 1.) why tech companies may have to work harder than other industries to create trust
💡 2.) the problem with binary/digital style thinking (credit to Paul Levy given)
💡 3.) the need to encourage employees to ignore data if you want real creativity
💡 4.) the brain, decision making and clarification on biases
💡 5.) gaming AI systems in the recruitment process

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💬 “We need to have a diversity of ideas and diversity of solutions to solve this diversity and inclusion problem. It’s about how we process information differently. Bias training doesn't change our mindset, so I think we need to discover how AI and augmented intelligence can tackle this.” Riham Satti

This is a conversation with Riham Satti

🎙️ Riham is a clinical neuroscientist turned entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO of MeVitae, a cognitive recruiting system that makes intelligent and personalised hiring decisions.

🎧 In this episode, Riham explains what has to happen in businesses to address and tackle diversity challenges. She clarifies exactly why this is so important, not just because of fairness, not just because it offers more opportunity to more people, but because it’s going to be the single, most powerful driver for business transformation. In my opinion, a company’s ability to understand, address and benefit from D&I, (Diversity and inclusion) will directly correlate to their ability to innovate, to democratise decision making and ideas from across all the workforce and find their own route quickly to environmental sustainability.

As we always say on this show, everything is connected.

Solve gender inequality around the world and it’s possible that you’ll probably make big progress in addressing social justice, climate action and innovation gaps. Whilst Riham’s work focusses on HR hiring processes, there’s no way I could resist asking some massive questions about human cognitive evolution, limits and opportunities to a guest with Masters degrees in neuroscience and biomedical engineering. As you know we don’t do much small talk on this show, and if you like big talk, then you’ll definitely enjoy the start of this episode.

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💬 “There’s this idea that in business we go on a journey with AI that starts with automating repetitive tasks to then augmenting decision making. And when we do, us humans, will be free to pursue new creative endeavours. I'm not sure I see enough evidence to support this logic yet. AI, to date, has been more adept at narrowing our perspectives, than widening them.” Richard Foster-Fletcher

Today I wanted to share something a little different with you. This is part of a guest lecture that I’ve been giving a number of Universities. It incorporates some of the ideas and themes that we’ve been discussing lately on the show. I use this talk to challenge the perception that AI in corporations to naturally going to set free human innovation and creativity. In fact, I put forward an opposing view, that AI in corporations will create echo-chambers of ideas and processes, similar to how AI created echo-chambers of views and beliefs on social media. I hope you enjoy this episode and we’ll be back with regular programming later this week.

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This is the Boundless Podcast with me your host Richard Foster-Fletcher and my resident Friday co-host Dr. Naeema Pasha from Henley Business School.

💬 “Diversity isn't something that we do because it's a nice thing. If the CEO wants their organization to win, they've got to hire the kind of team that is going to get them there. A team that can transform them.” @Dr Naeema Pasha

🎙️ My Friday Co-Host is Naeema Pasha. She works for Henley Business School focussing on future strategy, vision and operations of business education. Everything from people engagement to tech adoption.

🎧 In this episode, Naeema and I discussed our insights and observations prompted by this week’s episodes with @Karen Silverman and @Raj Balasundaram. Our topics included:

💡 1.) could the AI story mirror the story of genetically modified food?
💡 2.) the slim line between AI recommendations and AI influence
💡 3.) what powers innovation in the enterprise
💡 4.) the transformation of HR in the age of diversity
💡 5.) can AI save the fashion industry?

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-boundless-podcast--4077400/support.