You can’t talk about the future without talking about change. But change can trick you, as guest Roger Spitz says on this latest episode, filmed live at the Rulebreaker Future Congress in Germany. Roger is the founding Chair of the Disruptive Futures Institute and, there, instructs global leaders in operating with agility in uncertain environments. The thing about change, Roger explains, is that it feels equally incredibly slow and exponentially fast – and both perceptual models can distract us from focusing on the present moment and what needs to be solved for today. On the show, Roger stresses why cognitive agility and informed optimism are critical mindsets in a future that feels uncontrollably volatile.

We’ve been living digitally for decades. While many of us think romantically about an analog and physical existence, the future is not taking us back there, but deeper into a digital immersion. So says our guest today, Lyron Bentovim, CEO and President of The Glimpse Group, a company advancing augmented and virtual reality innovation. In this episode, filmed live at the Rulebreaker Future Congress in Germany, Lyron paints the possibilities of virtual reality in creating moments of deeper connection, by rethinking digital – not necessarily physical - experiences we are used to today.

Bioengineering is a complex field. In some industries it’s well established, in others still nascent. But one thing is true regardless of where it’s applied – it poses interesting problems. Dr Hamid Noori is one scientist motivated by solving these kinds of big, difficult and (he would say) fun problems. As CEO of bioengineering company, The Cultivated B, his work takes cellular technologies from the lab to the market. On this episode, filmed live at the Rulebreaker Future Congress in Germany, he shares how a grand purpose in life is not necessary if you have audacious problems that you are focused on solving and an openness to solving them in new ways.

For over two decades, Germany's most demanded futurist, Sven Gabor Janszky, has been gathering business leaders across Europe, exposing them to the 'rulebreaking' ideas that are changing our world. At the 24th edition of this event, Sven discusses the science behind finding breakthrough ideas, particularly those in longevity. Through his scientific research, and his venture capital, Sven has seen how breakthroughs in organ preservation, gene engineering and bio-matching are already extending our life span. Now he's observing with curiosity how things like AI replicas and brain-computer interfaces will preserve our humanity even further. Sven says it might sound like science fiction but the signals of this future are already here. There is no way to slow them down, instead it is us who must catch up.

What happens when our forecasts are wrong? On this episode of Looking Outside we are exploring the process and purpose of scenario planning, with world leading forecaster, professor and futurist, Paul Saffo. Having helped organizations, governments and future leaders build skills in forecasting for the future for decades, Paul knows better than most how predictions of the future can fail when certainty is the desired outcome. Equally he’s seen how people can become entranced with a specific method and obsessed with the accuracy of their predictions. He says instead, when thinking about the future, we should intentionally second guess assumptions, especially, those of so-called subject matter experts. Sometimes, it comes down simply to having a good compass and learning to read the stars.

With future endless growth goals, and finite resources it’s time we get climate action into the P&L. On this episode of Looking Outside, we’re talking about sizing the impact of climate change, with climate and sustainability leader, David Carlin. David shares how climate finance is a fast growing area that captures the downside of climate inaction as well as the upside in climate solutions, in a way that’s mobilizing change across industries and economic ecosystems. But, David warns, the financials are not the problem, nor is accounting the complete solution, and a path forward needs to capture what we can’t size or even know, including our moral imperative to change.

LIVE panel from SXSW 2025: Futures Thinking: Spotting Signals in Turbulent Times.

In a world of constant flux and uncertainty, the ability to spot signals of change is an essential skill for navigating the future. Volatility has been escalating for over a decade, and the exponential growth of data presents both challenges and opportunities. Understanding how to contextualize signals through futures thinking is becoming increasingly critical. This session will equip you with the tools to identify and interpret key signals, empowering you to manage turbulence with confidence and assert control in an unpredictable world.

In this episode of Looking Outside we’re going back to the past and into the future - exploring the biggest transformative breakthroughs in science and technology that have and are transforming civilizations and societal values. Historian and futurist Jamie Metzl joins us to step into the world of science innovation, and equally to take a step back to see the bigger picture of human evolution. A leading voice in science and medicine, Jamie shares how our biological limitations are also our greatest strength – we continue to enhance ourselves, and our way of life, through technology, in order to to adapt to future environments.

On this episode of Looking Outside we explore active, participatory thinking through real world experimentation with philosophical hypotheses and ideas. Jonathon shares how he pursues curiosity by creating tangible artefacts that others can interact with. By "doing" philosophy, Jonathon argues, we can create pathways into rabbit holes and an invitation to deeper exploration.

This episode was filmed LIVE at the 2024 Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists from around the world, which features some of the most prominent activists and climate innovators pushing for environmentally-sustainable futures. Together with Marc Buckley, a leading voice in climate change, ecological economist and ambassador for sustainable commitment, and Dina Baenninger, business strategist and conceptual artist, we explore the human potential for change.

On this episode of Looking Outside, we explore emerging risk - those issues seemingly in the further out future that we chose not to prioritize, act on, or perhaps even take seriously. Joining us is trained economist turned futurist, and CEO of futures think thank and advisory, the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies, Daria (Dasha) Krivonos. Having led strategic risk management at Maersk (up until recently, one of the world's biggest shipping companies), Dasha is no stranger to risk mitigation and anticipation, nor to seeing how bias and emotions feed into how risks are handled. Dasha shares how optimism is normal state of the human condition, but that a false sense of optimism for one safe and preferred future, with blinders on to emerging risks in the periphery, can be detriment to a business, even negligent.

Today we’re looking outside a very familiar topic, exploring brand building that strengthens a brand’s equity today and sets it up for the future. We’re joined for this all-marketing chat with marketing rockstar, fellow podcaster, Founder of unmtchd.brands and former Puma exec, Oana Leonte.

Oana recently pivoted from a marketing career working to build some of the world’s biggest brands, including WB, Paramount and Disney, to building her own brand. Armed with a big ambition to make marketing a better place for marketers and in bringing the magic back into marketing, and with the goal of helping marketers focus on the most required skills for the future.

Data Scholar Michael Clark joins Looking Outside to discuss the value behind the data we collect and how the definition of data is changing.

Michael is a futurist focused on data, a digital payment and open banking and Vice President of Global Digital Transformation at Mastercard. To explore the topic, he starts quite simply by defining what data even is. Speaking to how data’s origin as a gift, quite literally the meaning of the word being datum or gift, has changed over time, Michael contextualizes not just what the concept of data is but how our relationship with it has changed.

Looking Outside comes to you LIVE from the Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists in the world.

In this conversation we talk about disruptive technology and transformative blue sky innovation with Airbus Senior Vice President and Head of Disruptive Research and Technology, Dr Grzegorz (Greg) Ombach. Greg describes the mindset shift he experienced in leading innovative transformation across various industries, each with their own lifecycle.

Looking Outside comes to you LIVE from the Dubai Future Forum, the largest gathering of futurists in the world.

In this conversation we talk about sustainable design with Arup's Director of Foresight, Josef Hargrave. Arup is focused on creating more sustainable built environments, and Josef speaks to how designing for the future needs to be anchored in decisions for the present, by understanding deeply the structural limitations and infrastructure of today.

Today we’re talking about the big topic of Sustainability within big business. Former Chief Sustainability & Social Impact Officer at McDonalds, Bob Langert, joins the show and shares his three decade long journey in making environmental change happen at one of the biggest organizations in the world.

An environmental activist at heart, Bob shares how he was able to take a topic he cared deeply about but was low on the company priority list, and over time use his passion to make people notice and act. Bob speaks about the need for change agents; fewer people laying low and trying to stay out of trouble, more people who are open, patient and bring big ideas. Ultimately that passion and persistence helps the business, because as Bob says, “Businesses that are satisfied and content are going to die.”

In this episode of Looking Outside we venture into dark futures with global futurist Nikolas Badminton, crossing over the line of realism into dystopia.

While positive futures are important, Nik says facing into the fact that ‘bad stuff does exist’ is the important starting point. We often see plans or goals that are so far out, particularly in government policies, that are psychologically disconnected from the people planning them and therefore aren’t designed to provide anything tangible enough to motivate people to act.

We kick off Season 4 bravely with the visionary Amy Webb, Quantitative Futurist, CEO of the Future Today Institute, professor at NYU and author. In this episode, as in Amy’s book The Genesis Machine, we discuss the paths towards synthetic futures and the methods in creating more credible focus on the long term future.

Amy takes us into the future, and the topic of the latest book she co-authored with Andrew Hessel, The Genesis Machine, explaining how over 13 years of researching AI she noticed something profound happening in the synthetic biology space. General purpose technologies have the potential to fundamentally alter society and impact the economy, like electricity and the internet have, and while Amy concedes scaling it is a ‘ways off’, we should be paying attention, and planning for synthetic biology to act as the next generative purpose technology – transforming medicine, the environment and our food systems.

In this episode of Looking Outside we learn how to weave together the voices of the future, the agents with vision, to create Coalitions of Change, with Cat Tully, Founder and Director of the School of International Futures.

Having created the Next Generation Foresight Practitioners Network, Cat speaks to why it’s critical we use the voice of young people as evidence towards future planning, by allowing those who will live in the future to speak for it.

Be prepared to teeter on the edge of excitement and cynicism, as we explore The Metaverse in this episode of Looking Outside, with technology futurist and Metaverse expert, Theo Priestley. Theo is CEO and Co-Founder of Metanomic, a complete web3 economic platform for developers, but he is also one of the public voices ready to poke holes in Metaverse concepts commonly spouted.

To peel back the polished veneer, Theo discusses the need to look at the gaps in the arguments made today on the Metaverse; like how technologies that make up web3 are at varied levels of understanding and development across industries, while the technologies adopted in every day use are still quite dated.