Exclusive media partner: The New York Times

Newsletter

Receive regular updates about forthcoming events and other news from Intelligence Squared

Thanks

You have been added to our mailing list and will now be among the first to hear about events.

Play video

Listen to
the podcast
Watch

The World Will Be a Better Place in 5, 50 and 500 years

Science &
Technology

Listen to
the podcast
The future of art and its role in the public space, how tech and artificial intelligence will evolve, and the way these topics affect happiness and creativity

Most of us have a five-year plan. Serious legacy investors will have a 50-year plan. But very few people think about what the world will be like in 500 years. How does one begin to imagine a short-term, medium-term, or long-term future? What tools do we have at our disposal to predict the future? And if we can predict with some level of accuracy, will that enable us to create a better world?

Join us for our very first event alongside sculptor Sir Antony Gormley, futurist and entrepreneur Mo Gawdat and climate activist Clover Hogan to debate the motion: the world will be a better place in 5, 50, 500 years. We will explore the future of art and its role in the public space, how tech and artificial intelligence will evolve, and the way these topics affect happiness and creativity. Can we make the world a better place? And how are we going to tackle the biggest issue of our time: climate change?

Chairing the discussion will be Jon Sopel, award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author.

Please register to watch the event.

Speakers for the motion

  • Mo Gawdat

    Former Chief Business Officer for Google X

  • Sir Antony Gormley

    Distinguished British artist and sculptor

  • Clover Hogan

    Climate activist, researcher on eco-anxiety, and the founding Executive Director of Force of Nature

Chair

  • Jon Sopel

    Award-winning journalist and television presenter

Speakers

SPEAKERS

Mo Gawdat

Former Chief Business Officer for Google X

Former Chief Business Officer for Google X, Google’s innovation arm that focuses on technologies that aim to make the world a radically better place. He is the author of Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. Through his 12-year research on the topic of happiness, he created an algorithm and a repeatable, well engineered model to reach a state of uninterrupted happiness regardless of the circumstances of life. Solve for Happy is the pillar for a mission Mo has committed to as his personal moonshot, a mission to deliver his happiness message to one billion people around the world (#onebillionhappy).

Sir Antony Gormley

Distinguished British artist and sculptor

Distinguished British artist and sculptor. He won the Turner Prize in 1994 and has been a Royal Academician since 2003. Gormley is one of the most critically respected artists working internationally, with works that have universal resonance.

Clover Hogan

Climate activist, researcher on eco-anxiety, and the founding Executive Director of Force of Nature

Climate activist, researcher on eco-anxiety, and the founding Executive Director of Force of Nature - a youth non-profit mobilising for climate action. She has worked alongside the world’s leading authorities on sustainability, consulted within the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies, and supported students in over 50 countries to realise their power as change-makers.
Chair

Jon Sopel

Award-winning journalist and television presenter

Award-winning journalist and television presenter. Co-host, alongside Emily Maitlis, of up and coming podcast in partnership with Global as well as a radio show for LBC. Prior to this, he was North America Editor, the most senior foreign posting in the BBC. He has worked variously as the corporation’s Paris Correspondent, Chief Political Correspondent, hosted both The Politics Show and Newsnight and is a regular on HARDtalk, as well as a number of Radio 4 programmes. He has played a key role in major political and international stories, anchoring coverage on location from around the world, including the funeral of Nelson Mandela, the inauguration of the new Pope, countless presidential elections, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East, and a number of natural disasters. He is the author of three books, including UnPresidented, a diary of the 2020 US elections.

 

Speakers are subject to change.