Keynotes | Rohan Roberts

ROHAN ROBERTS

Rohan has keynoted at numerous national and international conferences and panels, including at UNESCO Expo Science, Google EdTech, Bett, World Education Summit, Aspen Ideas Festival, Global Education Forum, and many more. He has also been featured on CNN and BBC.

In 2016, he was the host of the Global Innovation Summit, and in Dec 2015 he was invited to TED Global in Geneva.

Scroll down for a full list of topics and themes Rohan speaks about and for details about how to book him as a speaker.

Strand 1: Innovation & The Future

The Story of Innovation

We live in extraordinary times. We’ve seen more change in the last 100 years than we have in the previous two thousand. We live in a world that is exquisitely dependent on science, tech, and innovation. How did we get here? This talk focuses on all the things our species did right over the last ten millennia that allowed us to come to this point of incredible discovery, invention, and innovation.

2. The Beginning of Infinity: Future Knowledge

With the invention of the alphabet, Indo-Arabic numerals, and binary computing, we now have all the tools to generate infinite knowledge. Problems exist but problems are solvable. We now stand at the beginning of infinity. This talk focuses on what lies out there for humanity.

3. Promoting a Culture of Innovation

Some companies are more innovative than others. Some leaders inspire innovation better than others. This talk considers what corporate leaders must do to promote a culture of innovation in their company and how to stay ahead of the curve. Ping-pong tables and bean bags won’t cut it. This talk offers practical and pragmatic suggestions on how to promote a culture of innovation.

4. Future Fluencies & 21st Century Survival Skills

In the new global economy, with many jobs being either automated and outsourced, what skills will we need to build successful careers? This talk focuses on the future fluencies we need to master and 21st Century survival skills we need to develop to thrive in the new world of work and to solve some of the most pressing issues we face in the 21st century.

5. Cosmic Citizenship

Today, we have satellites in space, we’ve landed a man on the moon, we’ve got rovers scouring the surface of Mars, we’ve landed a spacecraft on a comet, and the Voyager 1 probe is the first man-made object to have left the solar system. In our lifetime, we will see the first human beings walk on Mars. This talk covers the new mindsets we need to develop and new challenges we will need to solve as we prepare to become a multiplanetary species and extend our reach into the rest of the universe.

Strand 2: Creativity & Entrepreneurship

Burning Man: A Crucible of Creativity & The Olympics of Art

Burning man is an annual gathering in the Nevada desert that is an experiment in community and art. Participants explore various forms of artistic self-expression, created in celebration for the pleasure of all participants. This talk considers the influence of Burning Man on Silicon Valley culture and focuses on the reasons why billionaire entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Jeff Bezos attend this event.

2. Ecstasis and Flow States

The flow state is the greatest state of consciousness, characterised by being in our zone and operating at our best while feeling our best. Flow exists at the interplay between chaos and order, between boredom and anxiety. Hacking into flow states is a trillion-dollar industry. This talk considers how companies and individuals can achieve optimal productivity and achieve peak performance.

3. Radical Openness: Creating Cultures of Creativity

Radical Openness is about creating intellectual spaces and online platforms for the free exchange of ideas and the sharing of information. In a digitally hyper-connected world, we can now connect and collaborate in ways unimaginable before. This talk focuses on how to use the digital tools we have to come up with new ecosystems, creative ideas, innovative solutions, and novel approaches to problem-solving.

4. AI, Robotics, & the Future of Creativity

Artificial Intelligence is having a disruptive impact on all aspects of society. Anything that can be automated or outsourced will be. We used to think only humans could drive cars, create music, and make art. A.I. can now do all of those. This talk considers the future of creativity in a world of exponential technologies.

5. The Awakened Mind: Enlightened Entrepreneurship

The world today needs individuals who can create jobs and entrepreneurs who create companies that have an inspiring MTP (Massive Transformative Purpose). This talk considers how to blend Eastern Philosophy with Silicon Valley pragmatism; see entrepreneurship as a way of life; and how to have a positive impact on the lives of a billion people.

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Strand 3: Science & Technology

Impact of Exponential Technologies

Any technology that is an information technology is growing at an exponential rate. We are seeing a convergence of Genetics, Nanotechnology, Robotics, 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, AR, VR, and Synthetic Biology ushering in the fourth industrial revolution. This talk considers the impact of exponential technologies on the future of education and work.

2. Intelligent Optimism and Abundance Mindsets

The mainstream media focuses primarily on bad news. If it bleeds it leads. However, all the data, evidence, and statistics indicate that we are living in one of the best periods in human history. This talk considers what it means to have an abundance mindset, and how having a balanced intelligently optimistic perspective serves as a driver for positive change.

3. Science as a Toolkit and a Way of Thinking

Science is more than a body of knowledge. It is a way of thinking. It is also a toolkit to measure our personal subjective view of the world against external objective reality. This talk focuses on why it is essential for everyone in the 21st century to be scientifically literate and take an evidence-based view of the world.

4. Transhumanism and Transcension

With the decoding of the human genome and the merging of humans with technology, we are now in a position to overcome our biological limitations, upgrade our mental and physical shortcomings, and create Humanity 2.0. This talk focuses on the moral, ethical, technological, and economic factors to keep in mind as we make this transition.

5. The Technological Singularity

Ray Kurzweil, the renowned futuristic described by Bill Gates as the best predictor of future technologies says that in the next 100 years we will see the equivalent of 20,000 years of progress. This talk focuses on the implications of the technological singularity - the hypothesis that runaway artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilisation.

Strand 4: Education & Learning

1. Teaching as Entertainment: Awe and Wonder in Education

Awe is “an experience of such perceptual vastness you literally have to reconfigure your mental models of the world to assimilate it.” This talk covers the techniques, perspectives, and strategies to bring a sense of wonder and awe into education and make learning dynamic and exciting.

2. STEAM Education: Integrating Science and the Arts

For the longest time, subjects were lumped in discrete boxes: English in the English box; Maths in the Maths box; Science in the Science box and so on. However, in the 21st century, it is crucial to make links between subjects. This talk focuses on the importance of taking a cross-curricular approach to learning and an interdisciplinary approach to problem-solving.

3.Neuroscience and Mind-Brain Education

In the last six years, we’ve learnt more about the human brain than in all the previous centuries combined. Brain mapping and brain scanning are now exponential technologies. This talk focuses on how the latest research in Mind-Brain Education is transforming education from an art to a science.

4. Nullius in Verba: Promoting Critical Thinking

In an age of fake news, it is imperative to be aware of the difference between information, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. This talk focuses on what we mean by Critical Thinking and offers a toolkit to evaluate facts and form judgements.

5. Moonshots in Education

Larry Page talks about how he asks people whether they are working on something that will change the world. The answer, he says, from 99.999% of people is No. This talk focuses on how we can create opportunities for moonshots in education and train learners to think about how they can be a force for positive good in the world.

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