Today’s domestic and international volatility reminds us that our current global indices ignore the most important metric for ranking nations: stability. The newly released Periodic Table of States (PTOS) fixes that. Find out which countries are the real role models for the world and why — and whether stability is a good barometer for investors.

Throughout recorded human time, few places on Earth have inspired as much fascination as the North Pole. Blending memoir from his intrepid journey to the North Pole in 1990, along with history, philosophy and a stark warning about melting ice, Erling offers a profound meditation about nature and our place within it.

We bring together the Presidents of two of the world’s leading universities, each of them immensely accomplished academics with exceptional track records, to discuss the future of tertiary education, the role of universities in addressing the major challenges our societies face, and the complexities of campus politics.

Sonia joins us to discuss the remarkable life of Pamela Harriman. There is practically no-one in twentieth-century politics, culture and fashion whose lives she did not touch. From seducing Americans during World War II at the behest of her father-in-law, Winston Churchill, to plucking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency, her influence knew no bounds.

Shortlisted for the FT’s Business Book of the Year, Tribal: How the Cultural Instincts That Divide Us Can Help Bring Us Together, demystifies our tribal instincts and shows us how to use them to create positive change. Bracing and hopeful, Tribal unlocks the deepest secrets of our psychology and gives us the tools to manage our misunderstood superpower.

Focusing on both famous and forgotten (or simply overlooked) artists and luminaries in music, literature, business, science, politics, and other fields, Cass explores why some individuals become famous and others don’t and offers a new understanding of the roles played by greatness, luck, and contingency in the achievement of fame.

In conversation with John Arlidge, Patrick will be covering politics, journalism, the Sacklers and much more besides.

Yuval asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Backed by numerous studies and extensive research, Jonathan argues that the decline of free play in childhood and the rise of smartphone use among adolescents are the twin sources of the dramatic increase in mental distress among teenagers.

Today’s workers have more opportunities and mobility than any previous generation. They also face unprecedented challenges, including inflation, labour and housing shortages, and climate volatility. Even the notion of ‘retirement’ is undergoing a profound rethink, as our lifespans extend and our relationship with work evolves. In The Algebra of Wealth, Scott lays bare the rules of financial success in today’s economy, explaining what you need to know in order to improve your chances of achieving economic security no matter what.

CEOs, executives, civil society leaders (and parents!) are wanting to better understand the next generation of consumers and the next generation of employees. Gen Z is putting pressure on us all to transform in fascinating ways. Kamal joins to discuss how to cater for younger workers and future proof our organisations.

A healthy democratic society is one in which all workers are valued and respected, not just the highly educated. Our societies need to spread status more widely, and provide meaning and value for people who cannot, or do not want to, achieve in the classroom and the professions. David outlines how failure to do so results in disaffection and alienation of millions of people and what we need to do to change this.

How many people does the ideal team contain? How do groups bond, earn trust and forge shared identities? How to diffuse tension and encourage cooperation? By explaining precisely how the ‘social brain’ works, Tracey shows how human groups function and how to create great, high-performing teams.

With rigour, compassion, and fearless insight Sarfraz Manzoor discusses today’s deeply divided Britain, and offers a hopeful vision of change.

How has the distinction between the notions “sex” and “gender” evolved? When did some people decide that everyone has an innate gender identity, and that it is that gender identity which makes you a man or a woman, no matter what sort of body you have? In just ten years, laws, company policies, education, sport, medical protocols, and the media have been reshaped to privilege self-declared gender identity over biological sex. Helen brings sanity to this heated debate.

Mixing ancient teachings and spiritual practices with the wisdom he’s garnered over four decades as a leading figure in mind-body medicine, Deepak will demonstrate how to transcend self-generated feelings of limitation and fear in order to experience true abundance in all aspects of life.

As a regular commentator on historical and contemporary disinformation campaigns (‘fake news’), Jo joins us to discuss the impact this has on society.

Michael reflects upon a philosophical question touching each of our lives: how do we console one other and ourselves in an age of unbelief? When we lose someone we love, when we suffer loss or defeat, when catastrophe strikes – war, famine, pandemic – we go in search of consolation. In exploring this essential idea, Ignatieff shows how men and women in extremity have looked to each other across time to recover hope and resilience.

Drawing on evidence gathered for her recent book, The Authority Gap, Mary Ann offers a fresh feminist take on how to address and counteract systemic sexism in ways that benefit us all. The discussion will touch on every aspect of the way we live.

Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has lived a life associated with the deadly risks of combat; he has seen how individuals and organizations, too often and to great cost, fail to mitigate risk. Why? Because they focus on the probability of something happening instead of the interface by which it can be managed.

General McChrystal will offer a new system of responding to risk, through ten dimensions of control we can adjust at any given time, illustrating how these factors are almost always in effect, and how by considering them, individuals and organizations can exert mastery over risk.

Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, this talk will enlighten, inspire and empower.

Everyone’s Invited is a space created for survivors of rape culture to share their stories. Since the 8th of March 2021, over 16,000 anonymous testimonies have been submitted and shared on Everyone’s Invited, sparking a conversation about rape culture with millions of people. Soma joins us to share her hopes that this conversation will help lead to the global exposure and eradication of rape culture.

Drawing on his experience as an internet entrepreneur, political organiser and former Ambassador, Matthew explores the power we can create by seeing the power in others. Instead of thinking in terms of top-down or bottom-up leadership, he encourages business leaders to embrace a new mindset.

In this conversation with Diana Fox Carney, Kahneman, Sunstein and Sibony, co-authors of Noise, will reveal how noise and bias both shape our thought processes – and the remedies we can take to make far better decisions and judgments.

Coping with transition can be hard at every stage of life, but it presents unique challenges when people face the end of very full-on, full-time work.  Jon and Jan join Diana Fox Carney to discuss why work is such an important part of a person’s identity and how challenging it can be when it’s time to change gear to a fuller life. They explore why this is often complicated for people, identify what is most important and suggest ways to make the transition a positive one.

Drawing from multiple disciplines, including economics and network science, Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe offers not just a history but a general theory of disaster. As Ferguson will show in this discussion with Peter Frankopan, governments must learn to become less bureaucratic and more “antifragile” if we are to avoid the impending doom of irreversible decline.

Value(s) sets out how we can build a better world for all. Drawing on a truly international perspective to our greatest problems, Mark offers achievable solutions to global problems, building a future fit for our children, grandchildren and generations to come. This is a plan for humanity restored.

Mark will be discussing his ideas and his hopes for the future with Professor Ngaire Woods.

Diana Fox Carney and Cass Sunstein will be exploring the role that information plays in our lives and well-being: how it can make us both happy and miserable – and why we sometimes avoid it but other times seek it out.

Policymakers typically emphasise “the right to know,” but Cass Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing for a much more nuanced and parsimonious approach in his latest book, Too Much Information: Understanding what you don’t want to know. 

In this conversation Diana and Lucy will discuss the impact of the crisis on education, on educational equity, on teachers and on the lives of the young.

If we are lucky we may persuade her to opine on office life too!

Smart new technologies. Longer, healthier lives. Human progress has risen to great heights, but at the same time it has prompted anxiety about where we’re heading. Are our jobs under threat? If we live to 100, will we ever really stop working? And how will this change the way we love, manage and learn from others?

One thing is clear: advances in technology have not been matched by the necessary innovation to our social structures. In our era of unprecedented change, we haven’t yet discovered new ways of living.

Drawing from the fields of economics and psychology, Andrew J Scott and Lynda Gratton offer a simple framework based on three fundamental principles (Narrate, Explore and Relate) to give you the tools to navigate the challenges ahead.

Rory Sutherland works with a consulting practice of psychology graduates who look for ‘unseen opportunities’ in consumer behaviour – these are the often small contextual changes which can have enormous effects on the decisions people make – for instance tripling the sales rate of a call centre by adding just a few sentences to the script.

We’ll be looking to him for ideas around prompting “good” behaviours at this supremely challenging time.

The Collective Psychology Project is a collaborative inquiry into how psychology and politics can be brought together in new, creative ways that help us to become a larger us instead of a them-and-us.

In this briefing, Alex will discuss how the ideas that he is developing can help us at this time of isolation and crisis.

We are living through a period of cultural climate change. We have outsourced morality to the markets on the one hand, and the state on the other, but neither is capable of bearing the moral weight of showing us how to live.

This has had a profound impact on society and the way in which we interact with each other. Traditional values no longer hold, yet recent political swings show that modern ideals of tolerance have left many feeling rudderless and adrift. In this environment we see things fall apart in unexpected ways. The influence of social media seems all-pervading and the breakdown of the family is only one result of the loss of social capital. Many fear what the future may hold.

Delivering a devastatingly insightful critique of our modern condition, and assessing its roots and causes from the ancient Greeks through the Reformation and Enlightenment to the present day, Rabbi Sacks argues that there is no liberty without morality, and no freedom without responsibility.

Uncertainty pervades the big decisions we all make in our lives. How much should we pay into our pensions each month? Should we take regular exercise? Expand the business? Change our strategy? Enter a trade agreement? Take an expensive holiday?

Humans are successful because we have adapted to an environment that we understand only imperfectly. We do not know what the future will hold, but we must make decisions anyway. So, we crave certainties which cannot exist and invent knowledge we cannot have.

In their new book, John Kay and Mervyn King draw on biography, history, mathematics, economics and philosophy to highlight the most successful – and most short-sighted – methods of dealing with an unknowable future. Ultimately, the authors argue, the prevalent method of our age falls short, giving us a false understanding of our power to make predictions, leading to many of the problems we experience today.

We think about the future all the time, every day, believing that knowing what lies ahead will somehow allow us to make better decisions and choices. But our appetite for certainty is doomed and our addiction to prediction perverse.

Waiting for full knowledge wastes time and opportunity, while using imagination and collective intelligence could make us more effective and organisations more legitimate. In her new book, Margaret Heffernan explores the many ways in which forecasting fails us — and examines alternative ways of thinking and working that give us both freedom and agency.

Psychologists have long understood that social environments profoundly shape our behaviour, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. But social influence is a two-way street—our environments are themselves products of our behaviour.

Robert Frank’s new book, Under the Influence, explains how to unlock the latent power of social context. In this talk he will focus on climate-related issues, explaining how social contagion has been partly responsible for the mess we are in – but also how we can turn this to our advantage in our quest to avert the climate crisis.

What is stopping us? Our mistaken belief that changes that are applied across society will have the same effect on us as the same changes if they were applied only to us. This is the mother of all cognitive illusions.

When people imagine what it would be like to live in a smaller house, for example, they implicitly assume that all other houses remain the same size as before. But the effect would be much different if everyone lived in a smaller house. Hear from Professor Frank about why this happens, what it means and how we might overcome the illusion.

Join us, in conjunction with how to: Academy and the Conduit Club, to find out what part you can play in saving our species and our planet from devastation.

In An Inconvenient Truth, former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, awakened the world to the realities of the climate crisis, and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Since then he has worked tirelessly to rouse the world into action against this existential threat to our civilisation. In this talk he will explore what we – as nations, organisations, and individuals – can do to turn the tide in the battle against climate change.

An exponentially growing population and changing food habits in Asia are pushing meat consumption to ever more unsustainable levels. Today, the CO2 emissions of animal agriculture have surpassed the negative impact of all global transportation vehicles combined.

Blue Horizon is at the forefront of efforts to shift society toward more sustainable solutions in food and agriculture by scaling animal-free food options. As an early investor in the future of food space, Roger has created a diverse portfolio of more than 30 game changing companies including Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods and Matthew Kenney Cuisine.

The Eden project – which consists of two biomes built in an old china clay pit in Cornwall – connects us with each other and with the living world. It also inspires us to explore how we can work towards a better future.

At this event, the Eden project’s co-founder and Vice Chair, Tim Smit, will talk about our generation’s legacy and the need to inspire capitalism to win back its moral compass. Are we too in thrall to the notion of the establishment and, as a result, too passive in the face of the huge challenges we face? How can we change this mindset and ensure that we create the future that we want? What can we learn from nature to help us along our way?

How can dual-career couples thrive in their love and work?

While most career advice is targeted at individuals, treating major career decisions as if we’re flying solo – without partners, children, siblings, friends, or aging parents to consider – Jennifer Petriglieri reframes career advice through a new lens, helping us to balance our ambition at work with our ambition for our relationships.

Her research seeks to answer some of the key questions of our time: can both partners in a relationship have equally important careers? is it possible to juggle family commitments without sacrificing family? and does every decision require compromise?

Reaching net-zero carbon emissions from heavy industry and heavy-duty transport sectors is technically and financially possible by mid-century – 2050 in developed countries and 2060 in developing countries.

Join Adair Turner to find out how: what we need to do now and what our future world will look like.

Lord Turner chairs the Energy Transitions Commission, a global coalition of major power and industrial companies, investors, environmental NGOs and experts working out achievable pathways to limit global warming to well below 2˚C by 2040 while stimulating economic development and social progress.

Humanity faces an existential challenge. This is a time of unprecedented technological change and movement of people. What it means to be human is in flux.

The bad news is that at this critical time, global education isn’t working well enough. National systems don’t prioritise global citizenship, character or skills. Most young people learn the wrong things in the wrong way, with education content and assessment still being focused on classic academic knowledge and rote learning. And 75 million young people aren’t in formal education at all.

Join Tom Fletcher to hear what we should be teaching in this digital age, how we should be teaching it and what the risks are if we fail to rise to this challenge.

There is a crisis emerging in the lives of 21st century young people, their parents, peers and teachers. The complex experiences of adolescents with permanent access to technology, growing psychological pressures and increasing competition for grades (and eventually jobs) mean that this generation of teenagers are beset by a range of problems never encountered by their predecessors.

In his newly published book, written with child psychologist Herb Ekin, Tony Little describes and confronts these issues and shares his wisdom about how to address them.

The world is undergoing a dramatic demographic shift. By 2020, for the first time in history, the number of people aged 65 and over will outnumber children aged five and under. But our systems are lagging well behind this new reality.

In her new book, “Extra Time: Ten Lessons for an Ageing World”, Camilla argues that if we take a more positive approach, we should be able to reap the benefits of prolonged life. But this will require many changes: in behaviours, attitudes, policy, approaches to health and social care, community and family.

We have no time to waste if we are to make the best of what life has to offer.

The world tells us we should pursue self-interest: career wins, high status, nice things. But at some point, in our lives, we may find that we’re not interested in what other people tell us to want. We want the things that are truly worth wanting. This is the second mountain, when life moves from self-centered to other­ centered.

What does it mean to look beyond yourself and find a moral cause? To forget about independence and discover dependence – to be utterly enmeshed in a web of warm relationships?

In The Second Mountain David Brooks explores the meaning and possibilities that scaling a second mountain offer us, and the four commitments that most commonly move us there: family, vocation, philosophy and community.

He looks at a range of people who have embraced the necessity of dependence and have lived joyous, committed lives. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.

Humans are innately illogical, and make unconscious decisions based largely on our emotions. Yet when confronted with a business or personal challenge, we have become obsessed with absolute logic, rationality, algorithms and data, and it’s threatening to stunt us: politically, socially and economically.

What if there were an alternative to logic and rationality – a ‘psycho-logic’ – that was far more pervasive and powerful than we realise and that, when employed correctly, would create the kind of magic (or alchemy) most businesses only dream of?

In his latest book, Alchemy, Rory Sutherland draws on case studies and real world examples to reveal how we must learn to identify and understand the basics of this ‘psycho-logic’ and how this will help us achieve what we want and need to achieve.

Parents everywhere want their children to be happy and do well. Yet how parents seek to achieve this ambition varies enormously. For instance, American and Chinese parents are increasingly authoritative and authoritarian, whereas Scandinavian parents tend to be more permissive. Why?

Love, money, and parenting investigates how economic forces and growing inequality shape how parents raise their children.

Through personal anecdotes and original research, the authors show that in countries with increasing economic inequality, parents push harder to ensure their children have a path to security and success. Economics has transformed the hands-off parenting of the 1960s and ’70s into a frantic, overscheduled activity.

Growing inequality has also resulted in an increasing “parenting gap” between richer and poorer families, raising the disturbing prospect of diminished social mobility and fewer opportunities for children from disadvantaged backgrounds. In nations with less economic inequality, such as Sweden, the stakes are less high, and social mobility is not under threat.

Consumers have unwittingly given over their personal information to an array of private sector aggregators such as Facebook and credit rating agency, Experian. The vulnerabilities this has created have shifted the course of western democracy.  But new movements are arising to let people reclaim control of their personal data.  What does this potential future look like?  What are the possibilities it contains?

Emotions drive learning, decision-making, creativity, relationships, and health.

The Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence uses the power of emotions to create a more effective and compassionate society. Its founding director is Marc Brackett, whose research focuses on the role of emotional intelligence in learning, decision making, creativity, relationships, health, and performance.

Hear Marc talk about practical ways in which we can develop our emotional intelligence and put it to work to improve our lives and those of others.

In 1942, the Beveridge Report laid the foundations for the UK’s welfare state. Seventy five years later, Hilary Cottam presents a new approach that will help rebuild the institutions that underpin society, based around human connections.

Hilary is an internationally acclaimed social entrepreneur whose work in communities around the world focuses on collaborative, affordable solutions to 21^st century challenges: employment, ageing and chronic disease. Transformation is achieved through approaches that emphasise human relationships supported by technology.

Hilary’s recent book Radical Help argues that the Fourth Industrial Revolution needs an accompanying social revolution and sets out a new social welfare framework.

Brian O’ Driscoll is a former Irish professional Rugby Union player with many accolades to his name.

In his recent documentary, Shoulder to Shoulder, Brian explores how rugby has been a unique unifying force on the island of Ireland: despite a long history of political and religious division, when it comes to rugby Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are one – Ireland.

Hear him talk about the power of sport at a personal level and in bringing communities together.

Retired four-star general Stan McChrystal has studied leadership his whole adult life, from his first day at West Point to his most recent work with the corporate clients of the McChrystal Group.

In this follow-up to his bestsellers My Share of the Task and Team of Teams, McChrystal explores what leadership really means, debunking the many myths that have surrounded the concept.  Drawing upon Plutarch’s Parallel Lives he focuses on thirteen great leaders, showing that the lessons we commonly draw from their lives are seldom the correct ones. Not all are necessarily heroes and some may appear very different to the myths surrounding them.

Ultimately, McChrystal posits that different environments will require different leaders, and that followers will choose the leader they need. Aspiring leaders will be best served not by cultivating a standard set of textbook leadership qualities, but by learning to discern what is required in each situation.

Ingrid is a French/Colombian activist in the cause of freedom. She was a politician and presidential candidate in Colombia, celebrated for her determination to combat widespread corruption.

In February 2002 she was taken hostage by the FARC, a communist guerrilla organization. For six and a half years, the FARC held her hostage in the Amazonian jungle. She was rescued on July 2, 2008.

In this event she will talk about her personal experience of being held hostage and how this has shaped her.

To mark the publication of his highly-anticipated new book, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, global phenomenon Prof Yuval Noah Harari will discuss the most urgent issues of our times at a special how to: Academy event.

Harari will be joined in conversation by award-winning actress, director, activist and Harvard graduate Natalie Portman, who is one of a number of high-profile figures who have read and recommended Harari’s books in the past – alongside the likes of Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. Portman has also studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem where Harari now teaches.

Harari’s latest book tackles a number of contemporary issues, both personal and global, ranging from Brexit, fake news and the future of welfare, to mental stability, ecological cataclysm and technological disruptions.

Clean air is essential for a healthy life. More than 400,000 early deaths are caused each year by air pollution in Europe.

Hear how the UK government is dealing with this public health crisis, why legal action has been necessary and how the government has responded, from James Thornton of ClientEarth. ClientEarth uses advocacy, litigation and research to address the greatest challenges of our time (including biodiversity loss, climate change, and toxic chemicals).

This event is mounted in connection with Somerset House and will take place in the magnificent setting of the Navy Board Rooms. During the event we will have the opportunity to get up close to – and meet the creator of – the Choropleth flag.

Psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author Esther Perel is recognized as one of today’s most insightful and original voices on modern relationships.

Fluent in nine languages, she helms a therapy practice in New York City and serves as an organizational consultant for Fortune 500 companies around the world. Her celebrated TED Talks have garnered more than 20 million views and her international bestseller, Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, became a global phenomenon translated into 25 languages.

Her newest book is the New York Times bestseller, The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Esther is also an executive producer and host of the award-winning podcast, Where Should We Begin?

We all have a digital profile. But do we know the risks this can pose?

In this hands on session – a follow up to May’s event – Pi member, Dave King, will talk about the basics of managing your online profile and exposure to minimise physical, reputational and cyber vulnerabilities (ranging from criminals using data willingly provided by family members on social media to legacy information being kept on file to embarrass people around key appointments).

For over a decade, The Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has been at the forefront of forging innovative solutions to the global rise of extremist and terrorist movements across the ideological spectrum.

Combining research, educational programmes and policy advisory work with innovative influencer networks and the best in technology/communications, ISD is delivering real-world solutions to match the ever-growing impact, professionalism and technological prowess of extremist groups around the world.

ISD advises 15 governments and spearheads the Global Counter Terrorism’s Work on the Internet and Social Media. It also trains and advises 120 cities in countering extremism through its Strong Cities Network and has forged unique partnerships with Facebook, Google and Microsoft through which it is delivering a range of innovations in online counter-extremism.

We all have a digital profile. But do we know the risks this can pose?

In this hands on session, Pi member, Dave King, will talk about the basics of managing your online profile and exposure to minimise physical, reputational and cyber vulnerabilities (ranging from criminals using data willingly provided by family members on social media to legacy information being kept on file to embarrass people around key appointments).

Numbers will be limited to ensure that the event remains highly interactive.

This is the second in our series of Global Education Dinners, co-hosted with Amanda Jenkins, Frédéric de Mevius, Ian Davis, Dame Julia Cleverdon, Paul Drechsler, Paul Fletcher, Stephen Brenninkmeijer and Surinder Arora.

This will be a unique opportunity to hear from Ian Davis and others who are working to transform the education landscape. During this working dinner we will be engaging guests in a discussion about the global learning crisis that is holding back millions of young people from fulfilling their potential, and what we can do about it at home and abroad.

When Theresa May uttered these words at the Tory party conference in 2016, there was uproar. For many, believing you are a citizen of the world is a badge of honour, not shame. The cosmopolitan impulse, they believe, isn’t about loyalty to any single community. On the contrary, you can be a citizen of your street, your city, your country and the entire globe.

But for a different group of people, May’s words resonated deeply. These people often feel sneered at as nationalists or worse, as bigots, by the elites who do not understand their profound intuition that the nation state is the natural expression of group identity.

To unpack the debate, Pi is partnering with Intelligence Squared to bring you Simon Schama, one of Britain’s most celebrated historians, who embodies the cosmopolitan spirit and Elif Shafak, the Turkish novelist and commentator, who calls herself a ‘world citizen and a global soul’.

Joining them will be David Goodhart – who distinguishes ‘somewheres’, who feel strong local and national attachments, from ‘anywheres’, global villagers who value autonomy and mobility – and David Landsman, who is concerned about the growing intellectualisation of work which he views as widening the gap between the professional classes and everyone else.

In her book, co-written with Andrew Scott, Lynda outlines the challenges and intelligent choices that all of us, of any age, need to make in order to turn greater life expectancy into a gift and not a curse. This is not an issue for when we are old but an urgent and imminent one for right now.

Join us to hear Lynda discuss what this means for our finances, education, careers, relationships and how to succeed in creating a fulfilling 100-year life.

In conjunction with Intelligence Squared we bring you Sheryl Sandberg and Malala Yousafzai, in conversation with Adam Grant. Together, they will explore how even after the most devastating events, we can learn to find deeper meaning and appreciation in our lives and rediscover joy, discussing how we can help others in crisis, raise strong children, and create resilient families, communities, and workplaces.

More details can be found here.

Adam Grant is Wharton’s top-rated professor and the best-selling author of Originals as well as Option B (to be published late April 2017) which he co-wrote with Sheryl Sandberg. He is a leading expert on how we can find motivation and meaning, and build cultures of generosity, creativity, and resilience.

Grant has been recognized as one of the world’s twenty-five most influential management thinkers and Fortune’s 40 under 40. His two TED talks have been viewed over 8 million times, and his consulting clients include Google and Facebook, the Gates Foundation, Goldman Sachs, the NBA, and the U.S. Army and Navy.

Originals is about how we can all become more successful in championing our best ideas; it has been praised by J.J. Abrams and Malcolm Gladwell, and featured in Richard Branson’s 65 books to read in a lifetime. Using studies and stories spanning business, politics, sports and entertainment, Adam describes the surprising ways that leaders can recognize good ideas, make them stick, and fight groupthink.

This autumn marks 30 years since the River Cafe first opened its doors by the Thames and 22 years since Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray published their first iconic blue cookbook, a global bestseller that redefined the cookbook genre.

Join us for an evening celebration with Ruth Rogers, co-author with River Cafe Head Chefs, Sian Wyn Owen and Joseph Trivelli of River Cafe 30.

Jacqueline Novogratz is the Founder and CEO of Acumen, a nonprofit global venture fund that invests philanthropic capital in sustainable businesses tackling the problems of poverty.

Under her leadership, Acumen has invested $110 million in 102 companies providing critical goods and services to the poor across Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the United States.

In 2017, Forbes listed Jacqueline as one of the World’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds.

Prior to Acumen, Jacqueline founded The Philanthropy Workshop and The Next Generation Leadership programs at the Rockefeller Foundation. She also co-founded Rwanda’s first microfinance institution, Duterimbere.

Jacqueline sits on the boards of the Aspen Institute and IDEO.org. Her best-selling memoir The Blue Sweater chronicles her quest to understand poverty and bring dignity to the poor.

In conjunction with Intelligence Squared we present Niall Ferguson, preeminent historian of the ideas that define our time. He has challenged how we think about money, power, civilisation and empires. In his new book, The Square and The Tower, he wants to reimagine history itself.

Historians have always focused on hierarchies, he argues – on the elites that wield power. Economists have concentrated on the marketplace – on the economic forces that shape change. These twin structures are symbolised for Ferguson by Siena’s market square, and its civic tower looming above. But beneath both square and tower run something more deeply significant: the hidden networks of relationships, ideas and influence.

Harvard behavioural economist, Iris Bohnet, combines insights from economics and psychology to improve decision-making in organizations and society, often with a gender or cross-cultural perspective. Her most recent research examines behavioral design to de-bias how we live, learn and work.

She is the author of the award-winning book What Works: Gender Equality by Design, and advises governments and companies on the topic around the world.

Professor Bohnet served as the Academic Dean of the Kennedy School, is the director of its research center, the Women and Public Policy Program, co-chair of the Behavioral Insights Group, an associate director of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, and the faculty chair of the executive program “Global Leadership and Public Policy for the 21st Century” for the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders.

She is a co-chair of the Global Future Council on Behavioral Science of the World Economic Forum and serves on the boards or advisory boards of Credit Suisse Group, Applied, and Edge, as well as numerous academic journals. She is married and the mother of two children.

Many of us have taken democracy for granted in western countries, but few would do so now following the profound political change of 2016.

Recent Harvard research shows that the younger generation are becoming increasingly cynical about the value of democracy. What can be done about this and what role does technology have to play?

False information spread through social media is a key factor in reducing our trust in government. But there is also a positive side: well-designed technology offers the best chance of creating the political system needed to respond to current challenges: a more participatory, responsive, and informed democracy.

Hear from Ben Rattray of Change.org about how we augment the positive side and limit the negative side of this equation and what role the ‘crowd’ will play in the future of our democracies.

As digital interactions become ever more pervasive in our lives, world leading cyberpsychologist Dr. Mary Aiken looks at the extraordinary effects this is having on humankind.

Digital interactions amplify and accelerate real world behaviour with startling – and sometimes frightening – consequences. Drawing on extensive research on issues from child cyber behavioural development to online dating, organised cybercrime to cyberchondria, Dr. Aiken asks how we balance competing priorities and interests online and questions whether we are losing control of the digital sphere.

How can society reverse this trend and ensure that technology works in our favour?

Presented in conjunction with Intelligence Squared.

Given the dizzying whirlwind of technological change which has wiped out jobs and transformed workplaces, it is no wonder that electorates have reached for Trump’s protectionist solutions in the US and nativist retrenchment in the UK. But, as Friedman will argue, the forces of globalisation needn’t spell disaster. Instead, it is how we respond to these accelerating changes that will determine whether we falter or flourish.

Both the EU referendum and the US presidential election were contests not between left and right, but between what Friedman calls ‘Wall People’ — those who feel their identity threatened by globalisation — and ‘Web People’: those who instinctively embrace the current pace of change and are keen to collaborate in a world without walls.

In this major event, presented by Intelligence Squared, Friedman will offer his guide to updating our lives and institutions for the accelerating changes of the 21st century.

Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Sinek teaches leaders and organizations how to inspire people.

A trained ethnographer and author of Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Sinek has held a life-long curiosity for why people and organizations do the things they do. Sinek’s unconventional and innovative views on business and leadership have attracted international attention and have earned him invitations to meet with an array of leaders and organizations, including: Microsoft, MARS, SAP, Intel, 3M, the United States Military, Members of the United States Congress, multiple government agencies and entrepreneurs. His TED Talk based on Start With Why is the third most popular video of all time on TED.com, with more than 29 million views. His most recent book Together is Better was published in September 2016 following on from Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t (2014).

Sinek is an adjunct staff member of the RAND Corporation and teaches graduate level strategic communications at Columbia University.

Founded in 2001 in Waterloo, Canada, The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) is an independent, non-partisan think tank focused on international governance. CIGI supports research, forms networks, advances policy debate and generates ideas for multilateral governance improvements.

Founded by data science entrepreneur, Edwina Dunn, The Female Lead is a non-profit project that celebrates women’s achievement, endeavour and diversity. Aiming to make women’s stories more visible, and to provide positive role models for future generations, The Female Lead works on three platforms: the website, a book of remarkable women to be launched in Autumn 2016 and an outreach programme targeted at young women.

Through workshops in schools, colleges and youth organisations The Female Lead speaks directly to young women about confidence, ambition and alternative role models to those ever-present in popular culture. 

The evening will be a unique opportunity to engage in a discussion about the educational inequality facing millions of children around the world. We will hear from dynamic, determined alumni and leaders from Teach First in the UK and Teach For All’s global network, who will share their experiences of working to expand educational opportunity and their sense of possibility about the solutions.

Our co-hosts for the evening are: Amanda Jenkins, Ana Botin, Ian Davis, Jim Sheridan, Sir John Hood, Dame Julia Cleverdon, Oliver Haarmann, Paul Drechsler, Stephen Brenninkmeijer.

In their new book, Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott outline the challenges and intelligent choices that all of us, of any age, need to make in order to turn greater life expectancy into a gift and not a curse. This is not an issue for when we are old but an urgent and imminent one. Uniquely drawing on the authors’ expertise in economics, psychology and sociology, Gratton and Scott offer a broad-ranging analysis and a raft of solutions covering what to do with your finances, your education, your career and your relationships to succeed in creating a fulfilling 100-year life.

Moderated by Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of the RSA, the second annual How to Change the World conference will feature 14 world class scientists and technologists from the Oxford Martin School, Cambridge University, Imperial College, the Weizmann Institute and the Institute of Physics at the University of Amsterdam, with a keynote talk on the Future by Professor Ian Goldin from the Oxford Martin School.

In this special talk for Pi Capital and the How To Academy, in the intimate and ultra-cool setting of Second Home, Evgeny Morozov, one of the most brilliant and respected commentators on the Internet, will discuss one of the most important issues today: namely, how technology companies promise us a seemingly genuine path towards social mobility. Thus, they are more than happy to provide the public with free services in exchange for our data. Initially those services were limited to communication and search online but today they increasingly include services that promise better healthcare (think wearables), better education (think MOOCs), better transportation (think Uber) and even better and free connectivity for all (think Internet.org).

But what are the moral, political, and social consequences of accepting this free bargain? And why are our governments so eager to go along with Silicon Valley’s plans?

The University of Cambridge has consistently pushed the boundaries of knowledge. This evening is a showcase of how that is continuing in the twenty-first century. Drawing on Cambridge’s unique combination of world-leading scientific and technical innovation with deep philosophical and historical insight, we present a series of short talks about how Cambridge is exploring the world of today to change the world of tomorrow.

From the advent of advanced robotics to the challenge of entrenched inequality, the nature of the problems facing the world is more complex, vast and urgent than ever before. Cambridge has the ability, vision and drive to tackle these problems, and it is therefore critical to consolidate, secure and expand our endeavour in order to ensure we do so. This evening will focus on four speakers, each with a transforming vision for how Cambridge can make a lasting impact on the world of today, and the world of tomorrow.

Introduced by Professor David Runciman, Professor of Politics and International Studies, other speakers are:

Geoffrey Kent had nothing but an East African shilling and an old Land Rover when he launched a safari business in 1962 with his parents in Nairobi. Today he is the chairman and CEO of Abercrombie & Kent, a pioneering internationally renowned luxury travel company that takes thousands of trekkers to the planet’s wildest frontiers.

New York Times columnist David Brooks is one of the leading public intellectuals of our times. His book The Social Animal, a study of the unconscious mind and the triggers that drive human behaviour, was one of the most talked about publications of 2011. David Cameron instructed all the members of his Cabinet to read it.

In his latest book, The Road to Character, Brooks argues that today’s ‘Big Me’ culture is making us increasingly self-preoccupied: we live in a world where we’re taught to be assertive, to master skills, to broadcast our brand, to get likes, to get followers. But amidst all the noise of self-promotion, Brooks will claim that we’ve lost sight of an important and counterintuitive truth: that in order to fulfil ourselves we need to learn how to forget ourselves.

Technological advances have benefited our world in immeasurable ways, but there is an ominous flipside. Criminals are often the earliest, and most innovative, adopters of technology and modern times have led to modern crimes. Today’s criminals are stealing identities, draining online bank-accounts and wiping out computer servers.

In Future Crimes, Marc Goodman rips open his database of hundreds of real cases to give us front-row access to these impending perils. Reading like a sci-fi thriller, but based in startling fact, Goodman raises tough questions about the expanding role of technology in our lives. Future Crimes is a call to action for better security measures worldwide, but most importantly, will empower readers to protect themselves against these looming technological threats – before it’s too late.