The RobinsonHewitt Pod: The Next Era of Tech

Imagine an education system designed around how humans actually learn, where curiosity is the starting point and lifelong learning is encouraged to be the default, not the exception. We are in an era where the skills we learn will shift multiple times within a single lifetime, yet many of us were trained within a system built for a very different mindset toward learning.

In this week’s podcast episode, let's explore where our education systems came from, what they were originally designed to produce, and what they may need to become in the next era.

Inside the episode:

• How the industrial era shaped modern schooling
• Why curiosity and adaptability are becoming essential skills for the future
• The role of belonging and agency in effective learning
• Why lifelong learning matters more than ever
• How parents and teachers can better support natural curiosity
• What the future of universities and education models could look like
• The impact between memorising knowledge and learning how to seek it

RobinsonHewitt Consulting: Transforming the traditional with the unseen, for the next era of innovation & ideas

⭐ Website: https://robinsonhewitt.com/

⭐ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinson.hewitt/

More About Alison Mackie:

⭐ About: https://robinsonhewitt.com/ourfoundersjourney

⭐ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alison.mackie.rhc/

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast/content is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute professional, legal, financial, or governance advice.

Most cities were shaped around production, movement, and efficiency rather than human experience. So why does it feel like we’re only now beginning to seriously ask what cities are actually for, especially with all the technology we have at our fingertips?

Let’s trace the evolution of cities from Haussmann’s redesign of Paris, to Singapore’s garden city vision, to the rise of the 20-minute neighbourhood. Across very different contexts, a consistent pattern emerges: the cities that work best are the ones where a deliberate choice has been made to centre human wellbeing in their design.

This episode sits at the intersection of urban history, systems thinking, and what civic participatory systems could look like, all in the pursuit to make cities of the future feel more like home.

Inside the episode:

• Why cities are one of the oldest technologies humans ever built
• The difference between cities you adapt to and cities where you can thrive
• What Haussmann’s Paris, Singapore, and the 20-minute city reveal about long-term design thinking
• Why the “smart city” conversation missed the importance of lived human experience
• How communities can become active participants in shaping their environments
• What a “crawl, walk, run” approach looks like for both cities and the people living in them

Learn More:

• We write more about the future of smart cities in our Future Facing Whitepaper
• We discuss the future of transportation in a previous episode:

RobinsonHewitt Consulting: Transforming the traditional with the unseen, for the next era of innovation & ideas

⭐ Website: https://robinsonhewitt.com

⭐ Instagram: / robinson.hewitt

More About Alison Mackie:

⭐ About: https://robinsonhewitt.com/ourfounder...

⭐ Instagram: / alison.mackie.rhc

Most conversations about digital transformation and the future of technology focus on the systems and the technology itself. The conversation that gets skipped is about the person carrying the idea, and what it actually takes to bring something new into the world at this particular moment in history... The Founders.

Drawing on Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey and the patterns Alison has observed and researched across hundreds of tech founders over the years, this episode maps the five stages every founder moves through before an idea becomes real.

The human depth required to do this work well is not incidental to the future of AI. It may turn out to be the whole point.

Full Founder's Journey here: https://robinsonhewitt.com/the-founde...

RobinsonHewitt Consulting: Transforming the traditional with the unseen, for the next era of innovation & ideas

⭐ Website: https://robinsonhewitt.com

⭐ Email: [email protected]

⭐ Insta: / robinson.hewitt

AI is transforming the future of work faster than most people are prepared for, and the real crisis may not be about jobs at all. It may be about self-knowledge, and what you actually have to offer when the job description stops being the point.

In today's episode, we explore AI and the rise of a skills-based economy. Drawing on the Neolithic Revolution, Doughnut Economics, and the movie Her, let's reframe the future of work as an invitation and how to navigate what comes next.

RobinsonHewitt Consulting: Transforming the traditional with the unseen, for the next era of innovation & ideas

⭐ Website: https://robinsonhewitt.com

⭐ Future-Facing Framework: https://robinsonhewitt.com/futurefacingframework

⭐ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/robinson.hewitt/

What if the real crisis in our financial system isn't a hack, a crash, or a currency war, but the erosion of the social contract that money was built on?

In today’s anthropology of technology episode, we explore the harder question of not just how money works, but what it actually is, and whether the system we've inherited and are building upon will serve us in the next era.

From Marcel Mauss's gift economies to the Bitcoin whitepaper, we trace the long human history of value and exchange. Then we look forward to what decentralised finance, CBDCs, open banking, and ambient AI-embedded infrastructure could mean for everyday people, not just early adopters.

The future of money isn't a technology question, but about what we value and how we relate to each other.

The next era of humanity is opening the door to the stars, but what does that mean for our home planet, and for what it means to be human?

In this anthropology of technology episode, we reflect on the lessons emerging from recent space missions to ask a deeper question of “how do we extend our gratitude to Earth as we begin to look beyond it?”

Four astronauts travelled a quarter of a million miles from Earth and returned not speaking first about the science, but about the feeling of being human out there. What does it reflect that one of the most significant spaceflights of the 21st century began with gratitude, not data?

Using Artemis II as a lens, we explore why humans have always gone to the edge, and what lessons they bring back with them. From Polynesian wayfinding to Earthrise, and to Artemis II’s “joy train,” patterns of exploration reveal something about how we lead, build, and belong, now and into the future.

Make sure to subscribe for weekly episodes on the anthropology of technology, to stay curious and continue asking what it means to be human in the next era of tech.

More for the curious:

- Founders Journey: https://robinsonhewitt.com/the-founders-journey

- Future-Facing Framework: https://robinsonhewitt.com/futurefacingframework

- Crawl, Walk, Run Strategy: https://robinsonhewitt.com/articles/crawl-walk-run-a-framework-for-turning-ideas-into-action

RobinsonHewitt Consulting: Transforming the traditional with the unseen, for the next era of innovation & ideas

⭐ Website: https://robinsonhewitt.com

⭐ Email: [email protected]

⭐ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/robinson.hewitt/

Disclaimer: The information shared in this podcast/content is for general informational and educational purposes only. It does not constitute professional, legal, financial, or governance advice.

As we face a global fuel crisis, what does it mean for the future of transportation?

In this anthropology of technology episode, we break down the global fuel crisis and the shift that’s happening underneath our transport systems. And we think it’s time to start thinking about how humans will move in the next era.

Using historical examples, like Henry Ford and the rise of mass production, we explore how transportation has always evolved and why we always look towards infrastructure to inject into our economies in times of hardship.

But what comes after cars, roads, and fuel as we know it? Let’s take a look into the future…

– Electric vehicles and autonomous transport

– Shared mobility and on-demand applications

– Flying cars, hoverboards, and personal aircrafts

– High-speed air travel and future infrastructure

– & even further to the outer edge: teleportation

This is a future-facing conversation grounded in anthropology, technology, and future systems thinking to explore not just what’s coming, but what it means to be human in a world where movement itself is changing.

RobinsonHewitt Consulting: Transforming the traditional with the unseen, for the next era of innovation & ideas

⭐ Website: https://robinsonhewitt.com

⭐ Insta: / robinson.hewitt

Big ideas and new innovations are everywhere. But the real challenge isn’t having the idea, it’s having the capacity to actually hold what you create.

In this week’s pod, we go deeper into the “Crawl, Walk, Run” strategy as a way to move from having ideas and goals that can feel out of reach, and into something real and that works with your nervous system.

Let’s talk about access to tools, belief systems, and why even a small amount of faith the size of a mustard seed is often enough to get started.

Welcome to an anthropology of technology session with RobinsonHewitt, hosted by Alison Mackie.

Today, we're thinking about how the future of fashion is being reshaped by smart textiles, adaptive materials, and responsive clothing. From programmable garments to sustainable design, this episode explores how technology, identity, and culture intersect in the next era of fashion.

⭐ Blog Post: 'Designing the next layer: Where fashion meets technology': https://robinsonhewitt.com/articles/designing-the-next-layer-where-fashion-meets-technology

To mark International Women’s Day, our founder, Alison Mackie, turns the microphone on herself and answers 21 questions about her unconventional journey into the emerging tech world.

From humanities to tech futurism, today is a reflection on curiosity, career twists, and why shaping the future of technology needs more diverse voices.