A troop of Techonomists ignite our conversations with downloads of their biggest concerns and best ideas about tech’s potential and perils.

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How do we think about technology differently as the world continues to be blighted by suffering, hatred and grotesque inequality? And what of privacy, distraction, and overweening corporate and government power? How can tech reaffirm fundamental human values? Does the tech industry and innovation community need a clearer focus?

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Traditional valley accelerators, by some accounts, are magical places, spinning pixie dust and foaling unicorns. But they don’t work for everyone and flat out fail some.

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Researchers are developing new approaches to growing animal products like leather and meat without killing animals. The cooking from this kitchen, however, yields unexpected surprises.

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How do cultural assumptions and values inform technology use? What tactics do users from the Arabian Gulf draw from as they navigate social media and online gaming environments?

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From advertising to manufacturing and hospitality to security, yesterday’s disruptors increasingly find themselves playing incumbent. The new evolve into the establishment. But big companies and small ones increasingly have to compete–and also partner–in all industries. It’s not easy. Two ambitious media companies–one a venerable leader, the other a spunky newcomer–explain how their size and newness affect the way they see the world.

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The information that over 1.5 billion people around the world see every day is determined by the algorithms embedded in Facebook’s news feed. How do those algorithms work, and what values do they embody? Adam Mosseri oversees the news feed.

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Much of what we see and learn is determined by increasingly complex algorithms. From news to auto emissions, from pricing to scheduling, tech largely indistinguishable from magic is selecting, editing, and organizing more and more of our daily lives. How do we ensure the values and beliefs we hold self-evident don’t get lost in translation?

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A Conversation with Sean Parker.

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Tech is pollinating self-assembling societies in the physical world–communities of like-minded individuals gathering live and in-person to share ideas and drive action. How is tech reawakening that most basic of desires, to come together, to team, to dream and create a better world?

The vast majority of the world’s population remains financially underserved. Ironically, for those to whom a loan, credit or startup investment would mean the most, their lack of traditional financial data poses the highest barrier; without a credit score they can’t secure credit, without credit they can’t build a credit score. New platforms are emerging, however, that turn that model on its head, using technology to build entirely new scores based on previously untapped rivers of data, scores that not only break down traditional barriers for deserving borrowers but allow lenders to lend with confidence previously unimaginable.

What are the implications for humanity as neuro-tech improves, artificial intelligence becomes less “artificial” and the symbiosis between humans and our machines increases? What is DARPA doing?

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Infrastructure investment is lagging across the United States, including the country’s voting systems, central to our democracy. The majority are either close to or past their projected lifespans. What will it take to drag these antiquated systems into the present, and beyond?

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Nature avoids central command. It delegates and duplicates control mechanisms in systems as diverse as ant colonies and the brain. What can we learn from this for our own human systems?

The economy IS digital. It’s not coming soon; it’s now. What does that mean, for businesses, individuals and governments? And how can we work together to make sure the benefits, which are legion, have the widest, most substantive impact possible?

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A presentation by James Manyika.

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Brains and machines are converging, and it poses labyrinthian challenges. As understanding of the brain grows, it will change not only ourselves but the machines with which we work and upon which we increasingly rely.

“What I did in my youth is hundreds of times easier today. Technology breeds crime.”
– Frank W. Abagnale
(swindler, author of “Catch Me If You Can”)

From the streets to the boardroom, tech informs and empowers both criminals and those who seek to stop them. Is the future of crime destined to be an escalating techno-arms-race, the same old cops-and-robbers just with cooler tools? Or can we look forward to a calmer, more civilized world in which criminality is rare and openness is the order of the day?

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Quantum theory continues to get experimentally reinforced–a strange unknown world where measuring things stabilizes them and where particles can become “entangled.” It was such an offensive idea to Einstein he called it “spooky action at a distance.” First generation quantum computers are here, and the race is on to unlock a transformative frontier of unimaginable computational power. It may remake communications and security. How altered might a quantum society be?

In a world where the search for talent is fraught with bias, new approaches to tech-enabled “scouting” are emerging that aim to make hiring fairer. Algorithms and decision-support-systems comb through data, screening and refining in ways that help those doing the hiring refine their “gut” to avoid traditional bias traps. Will the calls to improve diversity lead to a new “HR” technology sector? Can tech truly tamp out bias?

Silicon Valley is often held up as the gold standard of revolution and transformation, but what if replicating the Valley isn’t the point? Other hives of innovation buzz around the country and in almost every city around the world. Where will innovation happen, and how will what we build change as its venue changes?

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As our machines and their networks approach true “thought,” they promise to become either independent actors in the social order or the ultimate enhancement of every human being. How are businesses harnessing this new intelligence?

An epidemic of “creative destruction” sparked by innovators and entrepreneurs is forcing corporate leaders and even the most eminent companies to be both visionary and courageous. Can corporate management change fast enough to meet new-age customer and stakeholder demands?

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Never have we had greater, faster, more ubiquitous access to knowledge. Fat lot of good it does us, though, if we can’t successfully find it when we want it. What is the greatest tool for search?

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A traditional industry needing “saving” has become a leader for bytes, bricks and silicon.

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Feeding the world is, according to some, well within our grasp. Vast new indoor farms are being built around the world. Some say it will allow us to “program plants.” And genetic alteration of food sources opens other new horizons. For now, distribution remains the biggest challenge–how will we get the food where it needs to go while keeping it fresh and nutritious? Food technology is undergoing a renaissance.

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Three minutes. One idea. Reimagine. Reconsider. Rethink.

Man and machine are increasingly drawn together. What does that mean for culture? Can art and automation coexist? Who better to ask than an artist with a coder’s DNA?

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Empowered by the convergence of information and communication technologies, tribes of every kind are connecting, swarming, pushing and pulling industry and society. We increasingly now live in a mobile realm that is changing media, commerce, politics and society. How will the changing structure of our communications change business? And what will it mean for the world economy?

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Technology and technological progress have, throughout history, pushed and pulled us forward, sometimes violently, sometimes to great acclaim, sometimes to little thunderous fanfare at all. But technological growth has been the near defining constant, the fuel that has propelled humanity’s advance for millennia.

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A free-flowing conversation. What has bubbled up over the last 36-hours? What more do we need to be thinking about?

CEOs today must lead creatively, have as much EQ as IQ and thrive in a frenzied, revolutionary atmosphere. Everything about rapid change is anathema to traditional best practices. Today, the CEO as transformer, feeding on flux and relishing disruption, is what companies need to survive and thrive. (for the uninitiated, Optimus Prime is the just and moral leader of The Transformers)

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The robots are coming, the robots are coming! It may surprise you to learn about the operating system many of them are running, though.

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Silicon, the stuff upon which the Valley was built, is maxing out. The future, according to some, belongs to gallium nitride. What is it, and what does it mean?

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For those of us with a natural aversion to physics the idea of quantum computing can be a real brain buster. How does this stuff work, and what are the real, immediate opportunities in store?

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Will insect swarm logic be the key to better energy management? Can slime mold and mushrooms end our reliance on blacktop and cement? From packaging to turbulence, urban planning to leadership, what can we learn from the problem-solvers of the natural world?

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Facing today’s grand challenges with moonshots and 10x strategies, rather than incremental approaches, will lead to real solutions and new business models.

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It took 40 years for the first 3 billion people to connect to the Internet. The next 3 billion will join in less than 10. But that can enable giant leaps in the globals financial inclusion, education and health.

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Augmented and virtual reality interfaces will almost certainly be how we interact with devices in the future. They will remake not just entertainment, but work, learning, health, and day-to-day living. What will be the cyber-worlds, cyber markets and cyber governments of the future?

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The CEO of Salesforce joins one of the company’s top engineers (himself an industry legend) to discuss why serving customers well will increasingly involve a deep integration with the Internet of Things. As the world gets more connected, and all its parts communicate with one another, we need to rethink what software means in business, in society and for human values.

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