Club of Amsterdam Journal, December 2019 / January 2020, Issue 221

Welcome to the  Club of Amsterdam Journal.



Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web

Contract for the Web
A global plan of action to make our online world safe and empowering for everyone

The Web was designed to bring people together and make knowledge freely available. It has changed the world for good and improved the lives of billions. Yet, many people are still unable to access its benefits and, for others, the Web comes with too many unacceptable costs.

Everyone has a role to play in safeguarding the future of the Web. The Contract for the Web was created by representatives from over 80 organizations, representing governments, companies and civil society, and sets out commitments to guide digital policy agendas. To achieve the Contract’s goals, governments, companies, civil society and individuals must commit to sustained policy development, advocacy, and implementation of the Contract text.

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web: “For a long time, 20 years, I thought all I had to do was keep it, just keep it free and open and people will do wonderful things, Then in fact if you look and talk to people on the street now there’s been a big change. I think this has been been a tipping point.”

The Future Now Show December 2019 about Emotional Intelligence with Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken

“Technology and humanity can rise together and in harmony with each other. Technology-human interaction enables human brain performance enhancement and development of human competences. Artificial Intelligence cannot replace. Luis applies new human inclusive model for circular economy and provides measurement and enhancement of circular-innovation capacity. He talks about his insights in circular economy, gender equity, technology 4.0 and human competences (emotional collective intelligence).” – Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken

The Future Now Show January 2020 about Content Creators with Katie King

Katie aka Miss Metaverse, content creator, podcast producer, futurist, speaker and media personality talks about her recent experiences with social media and content creation in the States, but also in Asia – what happened and what needs to happen.

Felix B Bopp, Founder & Chairman

Creative intelligence in organisations

Insights for executives
by Annedien Hoen




Setting the wheels of innovation in motion.

The 21st century is in full swing. Change is picking up speed, becomes more complex and opportunities are emerging in places where we don’t expect them. CEO’s and senior executives have a lot on their plates. It is time to make sense of what is happening and adopt new mindsets and strategies.

Which challenges are organisations facing now?

• Responding to the growing tidal wave of technological developments that is headed our way. Change happens within months instead of years now: the Fourth Industrial Revolution, characterized by velocity, scope and systems impact (Klaus Schwab). Kevin Kelly refers to this as the technium.
• Leveraging the potential that is in people, making them not just smart (they are highly educated) but also more creative, skilled and confident about navigating through chaos and uncertainty.
  Organisations are filled to the brim with intelligent people, but can they adapt quickly, thoroughly analyze problems and show initiative when it is and isn’t expected of them? They have to become able to navigate complex situations and uncertainty and do what is needed to move forward.
• Embodying innovation instead of treating it as an isolated activity with a pipeline bringing products to market. Organizational forms have to reflect the dynamics of the market and society and be fundamentally innovative, have all the relevant processes in place and be willing to become a fluid entity instead of a rigid vehicle.
• Attracting and retaining talent and highly skilled people.
  It is not possible to automate talent, the added value of sharp minds or the wisdom of highly specialized and experienced people. They will be in higher demand than ever.
• Creating new business models in a volatile economy.
  When the message is that ‘all bets are off’, how do you allocate your resources? When down is up and up is down, how do you create a blueprint for your future? Maybe business models are a thing of the past and perhaps organisations need business attitudes, business principles and business dynamics navigators.
• Creating a corporate culture that engages and challenges people as well as provides them with structure and security to hold the space for their growth.
  In order to truly activate people, sincere freedom is required. In order to learn and experiment an underlying texture of facilitation and direction is required. It is easy to be too lenient (“Just try some stuff, whatever!”) or be too controlling (“Experiment, but make sure it makes sense and is profitable from the beginning!”).
• Branding and marketing strategies fail, organisations have a hard time connecting with the market.
  Customers are an elusive element, loyalty is a thing of the past and it’s not as clear as it used to be how you add value and stay relevant. People are more educated, inform each other rapidly if something is off, it is hard to stay on top of all that is being said about your brand and conversations with customers or (potential) clients quickly seem awkward and artificial.
  
  Capacity building through the reskilling and upskilling of people.
  The call for developing additional skills in people is strong, but where to begin and how do you teach people things like ingenuity and imagination?
• Executives are trained and experienced in today’s (or worse: yesterday’s) economy.
  They have to prepare for the future and deal with the unprecedented.
• Seeing, acknowledging and leveraging emerging realities and the opportunities they represent.
  It is easy to see what is being dismantled by change — and all the harder to see which new paradigms are already there, showing themselves in their early forms. There are weak signals and small scale beginnings present though and they can be turned into business opportunities.
  A balance has to be found between activation, speed, agility and action and contemplation, relaxation, resting and allowing people to replenish, be open to inspiration, following a less artificial rhythm and reconnect with their natural ‘beat’.
  This means that people have to spend their time on things that matter without wasting it but are also not be frowned upon when they go hiking in the woods when they want to work on a tough problem that way or take a nap when they’ve expended a lot of mental energy.

What others say

According to the World Economic Forum the top 3 out of 10 skills you need by 2020 (which is around the corner) to be able to thrive in what they call ‘the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ (#4ir) are:

1. Complex Problem Solving
2. Critical Thinking
3. Creativity

How do you quickly teach people these skills without derailing your organisation in the meantime? How do you activate qualities in people that require a lot of practice, stamina and willingness to deal with inner resistance, fear, shame and prejudice? How does one unravel the mysteries of conceiving what is not yet a reality to be able to use this force?

We believe that the way forward is by activating and cultivating creative intelligence in people and organisations. It allows individuals and systems to respond to change from deeper layers of human insight and potential.

The fourth industrial revolution is a part of human evolution.

What is creative intelligence?

Creative intelligence is that which emerges when you combine intellect (ratio, reasoning, logic) with imagination (the ability to conceive something new, see in a different way and make connections) and you start applying this for progress and improvement. The combination of these two enables you to be a better problem finder, come up with relevant and often surprising new ideas, create experiments and implement new insights.

Because of this you can respond to constant change but also be a proactive force in that change process. It is what allows humanity to progress.

It is the capacity to thoroughly analyse a problem, come up with solutions that are imaginative and demonstrate ingenuity, combined with having the confidence and necessary skills to navigate through uncertainty and chaos. If any of these elements is missing it is not creative intelligence.

Creative intelligence unifies and cultivates these skills and offers an integral approach to enhance all these skills at the same time.

It is impossible to automate creativity, ingenuity or the ability to combine different fields, drawing from other disciplines to come up with novel ideas. It is a universally human principle that is present in people and systems. We need to learn how to gain access, amplify and cultivate our creative intelligence in order to become more future proof. The amount of creative intelligence present in individuals and systems is not a fixed given. People can learn the techniques needed and grow their process confidence. They can expand the amount of mental technology they have at their disposal, improving their cognitive flexibility, flow of ideas and problem finding capacities.

How does creative intelligence help organisations face these challenges?

• Upskilling: it is an enrichment of people’s experience, thinking toolbox and ‘chaos navigation’ skills.
• It represents a universal concept, not an empty buzzword or promise of a silver bullet.
• It transcends roles, education, job titles, projects and objectives.
• It unifies and creates a shared language and approach.
• It is a method that promotes learning. In fact, it is a means of deep learning.
• It supports not just creating innovations but innovating the organisation continuously on a structural level. It transcends hierarchical, industrial age thinking.
• It does not focus on the result but on the process and deep problem finding, which is the way to go in times of fast paced change.
  Better problem finding is what sets creative intelligence apart from “just” intelligence or “just” creativity. Throughout history it is evident that people who made a profound change for the better were very good problem finders. Attacking problems with a solution oriented (problem solving) attitude takes away from the quality of processes that promote progress.
• It is a means of deep iteration, not just scraping the surface but continuously probing profound layers of the situation, systems and dynamics.
• It is fundamentally positive, pro-active, inspiring and growth oriented. It honours our humanity and looks for answers inside, not outside of us. It is, however, much like the Force: one can learn how to access and master it, but it can be used for either side.

What is the business case for developing creative intelligence in people and organisations?

An increase in creative intelligence yields (at least) the following results:

• Better problem finding resulting in better solutions.
• More engagement for employees, addressing more personal qualities and talents and offering a more integral approach. They can bring more to the table, they are invited to stay in a more interesting zone where there is more vivacity, provocation of resourcefulness, personal growth.
• More meta techniques to manage processes and troubleshoot.
• Greater flexibility because people have greater mental and practical flexibility. It is easier to deal with the inflow of information and change.

Another great benefit is that you don’t have to recruit for new talent, high potentials and experts because you can upskill your existing workforce.

What do organisations have to do in order to increase and cultivate creative intelligence, both systemically and in individuals?

• Organisations have to understand change has to happen in an organisation’s structure and system, not just in people or processes and procedures. Creative intelligence is a fundamentally deep approach. This requires commitment, openness and courage.
• Organisations have to install guiding principles rather than rules and procedures. They have to organize around intention and values rather than solely strive for quantifiable objectives.
• The physical space has to reflect the processes: war rooms, laboratories, meeting rooms that reflect the inner work, offices that are not designed for 20th century work, spaces that allow for introverted activity; contemplation, focus and sitting with concepts and ideas for an uninterrupted, continuous amount of time.
• They have to strike a balance between solidifying and fluidity. This is a complicated dance but it is the only path to becoming future proof. There is no recipe for this.
• Organisations have to learn how to keep pushing forward using techniques to start and guide processes of creative intelligence.
  An example of such a technique is the Heuristic for Creative Intelligence we have developed. They have to return to their battle plan again and again.
• Organisations have to be aware that the better the thinking tools and techniques for creative intelligence processes people have installed as ‘mental technology’, the better the results! It is a form of practical upskilling, not of introducing abstract concepts or myths.
• Organisations have to create symmetry: enhancing creative intelligence in people is useless if an organisation’s leaders don’t allow for these processes to have consequences and initiate and shape profound change over time. This means that leaders have to upskill themselves too, become learners, not knowers and lead the way through their example.
• Having people high in creative intelligence within the organisation will inspire others. It is a known phenomenon that ingenuity, creativity and original thinking is contagious.
• It is also about understanding that creative intelligence is not just about better problem finding and better ideas, but also about accessing the wisdom in people and processes, about a more human centered take on progress and innovation.

The underlying shifting paradigms:

What else can we observe when there is an increase in creative intelligence within the organisation?

Culture:
The organisation and people’s interaction and communication become more humanized. Language becomes richer, vocabulary reflects an expansion of mental technology. Conversation becomes richer, people are more courageous in sharing what is on their minds, presenting ideas they are working on before they are perfect.There is more room for the human experience; emotion, curiosity, wonder, vulnerability, fierceness, intuition, imagination, confusion, paradox, exploration and honesty.Challenges are met with heuristics and vigor instead of aversion and apathy.People have a shared language to work and communicate with each other; processes facilitate cooperation across all layers and disciplines within the organisation because creative intelligence and the associated mental technology can be used by everyone, everywhere.

Strategy:
Strategy becomes more sustainable because processes yield more profound insights about the market, needs and requirements.Experimentation is the norm.Strategy is not just created by CEO’s and senior executives, the entire organisation contributes with knowledge and insights.

Leadership:
The organisation becomes more attractive to employees because there is more engagement, more imagination, more good thinking and people can bring more to the table.Leaders leading by example by heightening their own creative intelligence and becoming a better, more inspirational and effective leader.Less artificial, pumped up language and objectives. More realness.

Way of working:
People approach challenges in fundamentally different and deeper ways, with more intensity and clarity. They will all become more effective chaos navigators, embarking on these explorations together and naturally. Through individual and shared mental technology more connections and information exchange are happening, creating better decisions and communication.

Some of the risks involved in activating and navigating creative intelligence:
One has to step away from the status quo in order to gain greater understanding of it and perform the interventions needed to revitalize the organisation. As any artist-scientist can tell you; it takes deliberation and wisdom to strike a balance between staying in the normal and venturing out into the extraordinary, to know which kind of ‘weird’ is the right kind of weird or the one that leads to too much alienation and confusion.Often people experience knee-jerk reactions to the unexpected, the unpredictable and the unknown, so snapping back into the groove of the familiar is very probable. It takes inner strength and commitment to stay with the process, to keep holding the space for change and ‘creative intelligence chemistry’. It is tempting to resurface and join in the echo chamber rhetorics again.Also, not everyone will enjoy a process in which they themselves, as human beings, become the subject of the process, where they will have to deal with their own inhibitions, ideas and convictions. They will just want to do their jobs and not be bothered with processes and challenges that are difficult and demanding.Furthermore, people will most probably go off on a tangent, wander without aim, lose confidence, be triggered and relive old pain. We are paying a price for not living fully, deliberately and wholly engaged and we have to overcome the pain associated with this when we bring it to the surface. We feel safe in predictable environments, with clear roles and assignments; we can stay away from a crippling fear of failure, dreading humiliation and losing our position in the hierarchy. We don’t want to break things that are still working and we most certainly don’t want to accidentally engineer our own redundancy.Hence, the mission critical attitude for activating and navigating creative intelligence is first and foremost one of earnesty and devotion, of deeply understanding that much is asked of us during this crossroads in human development.

In its most elementary form, to initiate building an organisation with more creative intelligence means:
Adopting the mindset that people can access and cultivate creative intelligencePreparing to transform the organisation by using different approaches for problem finding, generative processes and progressIntroducing creative intelligence processes within the organisation: experienced mentors, guides and exemplary people are a must or else you will get lost and lose the motivation needed to learn and growIntegrating this mindset and approach in the entire organisation and letting it be the new normal

What do people need to start doing, changing and planning in order to heighten their creative intelligence?

The main idea is that becoming better at a certain process means heightening creative intelligence. It is not a matter of learning some tricks and going through the motions once or twice. Once you’ve familiarized yourself with this process you can initiate and go through the process again and again.Mindset, mindset, mindset!

The most important element of starting your quest is your attitude towards your own potential: you have to start assuming that your creative intelligence can grow, come to life if it is dormant, be enhanced, managed and cultivated. You can familiarize yourself with techniques and become more experienced in the type of processes that characterize artists, scientists, thinkers and entrepreneurs. You’ll have to endure confusion and resistance but if you stick to the plan you will learn and grow your creative intelligence.

Mental technology
Using different techniques will render different results. The more mental technology you have at your disposal, the better you become at approaching situations and dealing with challenges.
This is a matter of personal preference and after a while it will become clear to you what works for you and what doesn’t. There are literally hundreds — if not thousands — of methods, tools and techniques that can be considered mental technology, ranging from entry level idea provoking tools to metaphysical interplay with fields and other layers of life, from systemic constellations with Playmobil dolls to vision quests in the forest, to association games in museums, to sitting with questions for long periods of time to improvisation or enquiry. There are card decks with questions to guide your journaling process, games to help you stretch your thinking and libraries filled with books about expanding your skills and insight. Collecting and using this mental technology is part of your journey to enhancing your creative intelligence. It does not come with a standard recipe. Find out what works for you. Explore. Practice. Learn.

Process
The objective of all this is that you become experienced at processes that characterize people high in creative intelligence: what sets most people apart from people with exceptional insight and ingenuity is not just a matter of talent or privilege: these people do things differently and we can emulate their processes and attitudes to change our own experiences. Although emulating others comes naturally to us as humans (this is how we have learned a lot of life skills) we somehow believe that some things are out of our league or cannot be acquired. Most highly productive and original artists, scientists, thinkers, innovators and entrepreneurs have their own specific set of elements that form their processes. But it is always about finding your way through uncertainty, discovering new things about a subject or situation and being able to learn essential lessons or gain new insights. This can lead to a book, article, discovery, pinpointing a problem, crafting a new format or concept, a marketing strategy, a business model or a deep understanding of the needs of the people involved in a project — but because you have gone through fundamentally deeper layers you have found more and better experiences and insights. You have not just tried to generate solutions right off the bat but have intensified your quest.

In conclusion:
Human ingenuity is the answer to overwhelming technological advancements, the impact of which is changing our lives, organisations and business models, at a breakneck pace. It means that we have to start applying a universal principle as an answer to universal processes of profound change. It means our human ingenuity can be rekindled, enhanced and applied in an unprecedented manner.

Annedien Hoen (1974) is a Creative Intelligence Adventurer and co-founder of Veld organisational development, together with Erwin Elling. She’s a kind of Indiana Jones who explores lesser-known areas of human potential in search of treasures in order to bring them back to the habited world and share them with people and organisations that want to function with more creative intelligence. Get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions or if you want to work with Veld to start enhancing the creative intelligence in your organisation.

Volumetric display

A volumetric display device is a graphic display device that forms a visual representation of an object in three physical dimensions, as opposed to the planar image of traditional screens that simulate depth through a number of different visual effects.

About Voxon Photonics
Creators of the world’s most advanced 3D volumetric display. Our 3D Volumetric technology brings digital content to life and helps empower people to visualise, communicate, learn and have fun in a collaborative manner with no barrier to the 3D experience. No special glasses are required.

The Future Now Show

Shape the future now, where near-future impact counts and visions and strategies for preferred futures start. – Club of Amsterdam

Do we rise above global challenges? Or do we succumb to them? The Future Now Show explores how we can shape our future now – where near-future impact counts. We showcase strategies and solutions that create futures that work.

Every month we roam through current events, discoveries, and challenges – sparking discussion about the connection between today and the futures we’re making – and what we need, from strategy to vision – to make the best ones.

December 2019

Emotional Intelligence

with
Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken

Technology and humanity can rise together and in harmony with each other. Technology-human interaction enables human brain performance enhancement and development of human competences. Artificial Intelligence cannot replace. Luis applies new human inclusive model for circular economy and provides measurement and enhancement of circular-innovation capacity. He talks about his insights in circular economy, gender equity, technology 4.0 and human competences (emotional collective intelligence).

The Future Now Show
Credits
Luis Daniel Maldonado Fonken, CEO, Consultant, Developer at MQ9 [Matrix-Quotient 9] Solutions B.V.
https://human-capital.matrix-q.com

January 2020

Content Creators
with
Katie King aka Miss Metaverse

Katie aka Miss Metaverse, content creator, podcast producer, futurist, speaker and media personality talks about her recent experiences with social media and content creation in the States, but also in Asia – what happened and what needs to happen.

Credits
Katie King aka Miss Metaverse, Futurist, content creator, podcast producer, speaker and media personality
www.futuristmm.com
youtube:
Miss Metaverse
Miss Alterverse

The Future Now Show

The Vegetarian Butcher

Jaap Korteweg is a 9th generation farmer and founding father of The Vegetarian Butcher. How does someone, having grown up on a farm among the cows in the Dutch countryside, decide to become a Vegetarian Butcher? When the swine fever and the mad cow disease were holding the Netherlands in their grip, Jaap was asked whether his cold storages could be used as storage for tens of thousands of cadavers. Having witnessed this disaster, Jaap considered investing in keeping cattle, in an organic and animal friendly way. This idea was great; until the day the cattle would have to be taken to the slaughterhouse. From that moment on he decided to become a vegetarian. But he missed the taste of animal meat so much, that he promised himself he would only eat meat when he went out for a meal.

It was clear to him that he had to find something that could satisfy his craving for animal meat, without actually having to eat animals.

After a three-year search, Jaap developed and found innovative meat substitutes with a spectacular bite and texture. With the help of top chefs, he added the flavour and experience of meat made from animals to the products. In addition, he saw a lot of potential in the protein rich and organic lupine from Dutch soil. Together with concept designer Niko Koffeman, chef Paul Bom and a devoted team, he is working on a big transition from animal to vegetable meat. Their ideal is to have meat enthusiasts experience vegetarian meat products and to realise they don’t have to miss out on anything if they leave animal meat out of their diet for a couple of days a week. Jaap and his team’s ambition is to become the biggest butcher in the world, in a short time.

Values

Culinary high-quality products

Our ideal is to have meat enthusiasts experience our products and have them realise they don’t have to miss out on anything if they take meat out of their diet for one or more days. That is why we always try to capture the flavour of real meat and why we characterise ourselves as an entirely new generation of meat and fish substitutes that are, according to top chefs and culinary journalists, indistinguishable from the real thing. Ferran Adria (El Bulli) was convinced that he was dealing with chicken thigh of excellent quality and Mark Bittman, culinary reviewer of the New York Times couldn’t find enough superlatives to describe his experience. The Independent headlined: “Is this the end of meat?”




Freeing animals from food chain

Our mission is to free animals from the food chain by offering a complete and delicious alternative to meat. This will not only provide huge benefits in terms of efficiency, nature, environment, climate, bio diversity and the world food supply, but also in terms of animal welfare. The same way horses were once used to pull ploughs and have been replaced by mechanical horsepower, our products will make need for animals in our food chain a thing of the past.

Freeing animals from food chain

Our mission is to free animals from the food chain by offering a complete and delicious alternative to meat. This will not only provide huge benefits in terms of efficiency, nature, environment, climate, bio diversity and the world food supply, but also in terms of animal welfare. The same way horses were once used to pull ploughs and have been replaced by mechanical horsepower, our products will make need for animals in our food chain a thing of the past.

Reducing carbon footprint

Cattle emit the greenhouse gasses methane and nitrous oxide. Which are both a lot stronger (25 and 310 times ) than CO². On top of that, cows, pigs and chickens cause a huge manure surplus causing pollution of our soil and groundwater. Poultry farms produce a lot of particulates which cause air pollution and can damage our health. All of our ‘meat’ is free of the before mentioned environmental disadvantages. Our products based on soy, lupine and / or locally grown vegetables have a small carbon footprint compared to that of real meat.

How could veganism change the world?
by The Economist

News about the Future

First fully rechargeable lithium-carbon dioxide battery

Scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) have designed a lithium-carbon dioxide battery that is fully rechargeable and which remained stable over 500 cycles – overcoming two major obstacles to the promising technology.Lithium-CO2 is among several battery technologies known to have the potential for performance and energy density up to seven times higher than today’s lithium-ion batteries, according to UIC, but maintaining stability with repeated cycling has proven problematic.

MIT report examines how to make technology work for society

MIT’s Task Force on the Work of the Future has released a report that punctures some conventional wisdom and builds a nuanced picture of the evolution of technology and jobs.

Automation is not likely to eliminate millions of jobs any time soon — but the U.S. still needs vastly improved policies if Americans are to build better careers and share prosperity as technological changes occur, according to a new MIT report about the workplace.“At MIT, we are inspired by the idea that technology can be a force for good. But if as a nation we want to make sure that today’s new technologies evolve in ways that help build a healthier, more equitable society, we need to move quickly to develop and implement strong, enlightened policy responses,” says MIT President L. Rafael Reif, who called for the creation of the Task Force on the Work of the Future in 2017.

Smile

https://youtu.be/5rkNBH5fbMk

Recommended Book

Light pollution

Light pollution, also known as photo pollution, is the presence of anthropogenic and artificial light in the night environment. It is exacerbated by excessive, misdirected or obtrusive use of light, but even carefully used light fundamentally alters natural conditions. Wikipedia

Brett Seymoure, behavioral ecologist , Washington University in St Louis: “Light is perhaps the most important abiotic factor driving biological functions. I study how animals have adapted to and are affected by light. How have different light environments selected for different visual traits such as coloration and vision? How and why have different visual systems evolved? How does anthropogenic light at night affect visually guided behavior in animals? I approach these questions from a sensory and behavioral ecological perspective to shed light onto evolutionary and conservation biology.”

The use of artificial light at night is a major driver in declining insect populations.

That is according to an international study, which examined the rapidly declining numbers.

It is a joint venture by researchers from Tufts University, McDaniel College and Washington University in the US, Canada’s Université Laval and the University of Melbourne.

The authors have published a paper in the SSRN.

Climate Change Success Story: TeamTrees

Team Trees, also known as TeamTrees or #TeamTrees, is a 2019 collaborative fundraising challenge aiming to raise 20 million U.S. dollars by 2020 to plant 20 million trees. The initiative was started by American YouTubers MrBeast and Mark Rober, and is mostly supported by YouTubers. All donations will go to the Arbor Day Foundation, a tree-planting organization that pledges to plant one tree for every U.S. dollar donated. The Arbour Day Foundation plan to begin planting in January 2020 and end “no later than December 2022”. It has been estimated that 20 million trees would take up 180 km2 (69 sq mi) of land.

https://teamtrees.org

Help us plant 20 million trees around the globe by January 1st, 2020.

Futurist Portrait: Richard Yonck

Seattle futurist Richard Yonck is founder and lead futurist for Intelligent Future Consulting where he consults to businesses, speaks to audiences and writes about artificial intelligence and other emerging trends and technologies, with a focus on their impacts on business and society. Richard explores short to long-range futures with an eye to how this knowledge can help prepare for potential eventualities and to promote preferred futures.

Writing regularly about the future and emerging technologies, Richard’s work has appeared in numerous publications including The Futurist Magazine, Scientific American, World Future Review, Fast Company, Wired, Psychology Today, H+ Magazine, Mensa Bulletin, American Cinematographer and The Seattle Times. He’s been interviewed and quoted about foresight issues in numerous mediums, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, BBC News, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, SAP Digitalist, Singularity Hub, Next Avenue and numerous podcasts and radio programs. His paper, “Toward a Standard Metric of Machine Intelligence” explores the need for a standardized intelligence test for artificial intelligences and was published in the peer-reviewed World Future Review. His cover story, “Connecting with Our Connected World” explores the developing ‘Internet of Things’ and was included in The Futurist magazine’s list of Best Stories of the Year.

Richard’s perspective on the future is informed by over 25 years experience as a computer systems programmer-analyst, during which time he guided clients through the rapidly-shifting technological landscape. Formerly the Computing and Artificial Intelligence contributing editor for The Futurist Magazine, Richard is an executive board member of the Association of Professional Futurists, a member of the National Association of Science Writers and a TED speaker. His new book “HEART OF THE MACHINE: Our Future in a World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence“ explores the emerging technologies allowing computers and robots to read, interpret, replicate, even influence human emotions. Now required reading in several college courses, it was well reviewed by Time Magazine and Ray Kurzweil in The New York Times Book Review.

Richard Yonck – Heart of the Machine: Our Future in a World of Artificial Emotional Intelligence:

“In many ways it’s difficult to imagine communicating without any emotion whatsoever. What would communication stripped of its nonverbal components even look like? Perhaps messaging technology can give us a clue. After all, who hasn’t experienced a misunderstanding with someone when exchanging text messages? While there can be a number of reasons for this, many misinterpretations are in fact due to” –

“Emotions will be critical in making machine intelligence more compatible with our own. This will be essential in order to facilitate healthier interactions as we move forward into our hopefully shared future.”


“A device that “intuitively” alters its actions based on how we feel could offer tremendous potential benefits and uses. A vehicle that notifies its driver when alertness falls below a certain threshold. Educational software that recognizes when a student is becoming frustrated and alters the lesson accordingly in real time. A counseling program that detects the events that tend to trigger an individual’s anger or self-destructive behavior.”

printable version