Future Positive

XPRIZE Founder Peter H. Diamandis is in conversation with His Excellency Faisal Al Bannai, the Secretary-General of the Advanced Technology Research Council at ASPIRE, partner and sponsor of XPRIZE Feed The Next Billion. Tune in to hear these industry leaders discuss the fight against global food insecurity.His Excellency Faisal Al Bannai, Secretary General, Advanced Technology Research Council, sits with XPRIZE to chat about food security in the Middle East and how advanced research and technology will drive transformative breakthroughs in our future food systems. His Excellency oversees ASPIRE, the technology programme management pillar of the Abu Dhabi Government’s Advanced Technology Research Council. The $15M XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion competition is sponsored by ASPIRE and The Tony Robbins Foundation. https://www.xprize.org/prizes/feedthenextbillion Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Pride Month podcast take over culminates this week.  For the past four weeks we have been bringing you a series of interviews conducted by Journalist Amelia Abraham with leading figures from the LGBTQ+ community who are impacting our world  for the better.  This week Amelia speaks to Kelly Rakowski, the CEO and founder of LEX – a queer dating app based on personal ads. Queer visibility online, and coding LGBTQ+ platforms for inclusivity are just a couple of the topics they talk about.Lex is a lo-fi, text-based dating and social app for lesbian, bisexual, asexual, and queer people. Lex is for womxn and trans, genderqueer, intersex, two spirit, and non-binary people for meeting lovers and friends. Inspired by old school newspaper personal ads, Lex (formerly known as Personals) lived on Instagram for years before evolving into an app. If you missed the previous episodes with Vincent, Desmond, Lucas Larochelle and Os Keyes then we strongly recommend that you check it out in our feed.   Links:  http://xprize.org  https://thisislex.app/  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Converting carbon into fuel is the next exciting frontier in the ever changing energy landscape. For this week’s Future Positive podcast, we get the scoop on the future of fuel with two finalists of the NRG COSIA CARBON XPRIZE who are now successfully turning carbon into fuels.  First,  journalist Amelia Abraham interviews Brooklyn based Staff Sheehan of Air Company,  then she catches up with Jason Salfi of Dimensional Energy based in Ithaca, New York. Staff Sheehan  is the Chief Technology Officer at Air Company.  He is a scientist and entrepreneur in the Renewables & Environment industry. Skilled in green chemistry, electrochemistry, process chemistry, chemical engineering, heterogeneous catalysis, and carbon dioxide conversion. Jason Salfi is the CEO and Co-founder of Dimensional Energy, he is also a board member of Scale for ClimateTech which is dedicated to helping companies navigate time-sensitive, critical decisions throughout the full manufacturing process.Links: http://xprize.org www.dimensionalenergy.com  www.aircompany.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we peer into how the work-life balance is playing out during the pandemic. The past year has had an effect on all our working lives; from remote working and home offices to disrupted shifts, furloughs and for many unfortunate people, unemployment.  For this episode, we get some insight into the reality of working lives by asking our own colleagues at XPRIZE to weigh in on this global change to work. Journalist and Writer Amelia Abraham interviews our Chief Prize Operations Officer here at XPRIZE, Chanda Gonzales-Mowrer.  Their conversation explores the post COVID impact on work and how technology has the capacity to impact our working lives for the better in the future.          Links: http://xprize.org/http://rapidreskilling.xprize.org https://www.xprize.org/about/people/chanda-gonzales-mowrer Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we take you on a time travelling adventure into the past, present and future of Carbon Capture as journalist Amelia Abraham interviews XPRIZE’s own world leaders of Carbontech.  First Mike Leitch, Technical Lead, NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE, takes us on a whistle stop tour of Carbontech history. Before XPRIZE, he served as the Research Manager at RGL Reservoir Management, an oilfield manufacturing company based in Edmonton, Canada. There, he worked with a diverse team of engineers and scientists at the University of Alberta to build a comprehensive understanding of little known and little studied aspects of the oil recovery process. To bring us to the present Nikki Batchelor gives us the scoop on where the tech is now.  Nikki is the Director of Prize Operations for the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE.  She has served as an Innovation Advisor to USAID on their Grand Challenges for Development initiative, helping to design and execute incentive competitions around energy, health, education, civic engagement, and water. Most recently, she worked as a Senior Strategist at NationBuilder, helping the tech start-up expand into new markets, explore product use cases, and lead marketing efforts. Ms. Batchelor has also managed large grant programs for USAID in Iraq and Afghanistan with DAI, both at home and overseas.  Finally to show us the future is Senior Associate for Prize Operations for the NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE is James Burbridge.  Before XPRIZE James was a journalist covering international energy and carbon markets. He started his career as an editor in the Shanghai bureau of Interfax, Russia’s largest private news organization. Following three years in China, he moved to Singapore to focus on Asia-Pacific oil markets. Most recently, Mr. Burbridge covered North American carbon markets for the price reporting subsidiary of IHS Markit, where he created a new report for the consultancy focused on California’s environmental compliance programs.Links: http://carbon.xprize.orghttp://xprize.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For today’s episode, we’re tuning in to a conversation recorded back in May 2020.  This fascinating discussion tackles issues around food insecurity, including but not limited to the impact of COVID-19 on food systems and identifying how AI can help us reach zero hunger and shape the food landscape of tomorrow.  Led by Caroline Kolta, Senior Associate here at XPRIZE with contributions from Bernhard Kowatsch, Lorin Fries and Merijn Dols.Bernhard Kowatsch is Head of the Innovation Accelerator at the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The Accelerator identifies, nurtures and scales disruptive startups and entrepreneurs that accelerate progress towards zero hunger. Lorin Fries is an expert on the future of food systems with over 15 years of experience. She is the founder of FutureTable and served as Head of Global Food Systems Collaboration at the World Economic Forum. She has advised Fortune 500 businesses, start-ups, international organizations, family foundations and NGOs. Merijn Dols is a passionate Circular Economy scholar, system thinker, activist and entrepreneur, with over 15 years of experience in design and innovation in the food industry. Merijn holds a Bachelor in Industrial Design Engineering and studies Circular Economy at the Bradford School of Management as one of the first to specialize in the Circular Economy for Food.Links: http://ai.xprize.org www.xprize.org/feed www.futuretable.org http://avatar.xprize.org Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The world of rainforest conservation is quickly changing. Technology’s exponential development is enabling a wide range of advances in conservation, while simultaneously showing the limitations of humanity’s knowledge. We know now more than ever about earth’s most diverse ecosystem, yet there is so much left to be understood.    On today’s podcast we bring you a discussion between two incredible conservationists, and two members of the XPRIZE Rainforest Advisory Board: Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim and Shyla Raghav, who take a deep dive into People, Climate & Policy and why the world needs much more than international climate agreements. Their conversation was originally recorded as part of the XPRIZE Rainforest Summit: Pathways to Conservation held on the 18th and 19th February 2021.  Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim is an expert in the adaptation and mitigation of indigenous peoples to climate change. She is a member of the Mbororo pastoralist people in Chad and President of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT). Oumarou Ibrahim is an advocate for the greater inclusion of indigenous people and their knowledge and traditions in the global movement to fight the effects of climate change. Oumarou Ibrahim received the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award and was appointed as a United Nations Sustainable Development Goals Advocate. She serves as a Member of the United Nations Permanent Forum for Indigenous Issues; Member of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC); Member of the Advisory Committee to the Secretary-General’s 2019 Climate Action Summit; and Conservation International Senior Indigenous Fellow. In 2019, she was listed by Time Magazine as one of 15 women championing action on climate change.Shyla Raghav leads Conservation International’s climate strategy to build and support the development and implementation of climate change mitigation and adaptation action globally. Shyla and her interdisciplinary global team engage with key partners to amplify Conservation International's successful climate change strategies, which demonstrate that ecosystem-based mitigation and adaptation offer tremendous opportunities for meeting the climate challenge. Having attended nearly a decade of United Nations climate change negotiations at the international level on climate change adaptation, she works closely with partners through innovation and research, demonstration projects, and amplification to bring nature-based solutions for climate change to scale. Links:  https://www.xprize.org/prizes/rainforest https://www.xprize.org/prizes/rainforest/articles/xprize-rainforest-summit https://www.weforum.org/people/hindou-oumarou-ibrahim https://www.conservation.org/experts-list/shyla-raghav Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week's Future Positive podcats, XPRIZE’s own Neama Dadkhahnikoo sits down with A.I. entrepreneur Anita Schjøll Brede to ask her all about her experience as a thought leader and woman in A.I., her tenacity to identify problems and her incredible ability to solve them. She also shares with us which women have inspired her along the way.Anita is the CEO and Co-Founder of Iris.ai; an AI science assistant, able to read and connect scientific knowledge, that will grow up to be the world’s first AI Researcher within a decade. Iris.ai are one of 10 semifinals of the the $5M IBM Watson AI XPRIZE.Anita was announced by Forbes to be one of the World’s Top 50 Women in Tech in 2018. She thoroughly enjoys her time on stage, has done two TEDx talks and 500 startups, Singularity University Global Grand Challenges Awards and TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield alumni.Anita has never had what she refers to as “a real job” and Iris.ai is her fourth own startup. The past 10 years of her career have spanned over 9 industries including developing an e-learning tool in Silicon Valley, performing theatre for babies, reducing energy consumption in the process industry through heat exchanger network optimization, organizing entrepreneurial conferences and trying to disrupt the recruitment industry.Links:http://www.xprize.orghttp://ai.xprize.org https://aiforgood.itu.int    https://iris.aihttps://amandapalmer.net/   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this week’s podcast we are bringing you another Radical Read written by journalist Amelia Abraham and read by our host Sofie Tapia.   From the invention of a device to measure longitude at sea back in the 18th Century to our newest and biggest Prize ever, XPRIZE Carbon Removal, incentive prizes make the impossible possible.  Find out Why We Need Incentive Prizes to truly foster genius.The XPRIZE Carbon Removal is aimed at tackling the biggest threat facing humanity — fighting climate change and rebalancing Earth’s carbon cycle. Funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation, this $100M competition is the largest incentive prize in history, an extraordinary milestone. For more information visit www.xprize.org Links:https://www.xprize.org/elonmusk  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this bonus podcast we are bringing you a Radical Idea written by journalist Amelia Abraham and read by our host Sofie Tapia.  The article was written in response to President Joe Biden rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement and just a few days later Elon Musk teasing the largest prize in human history, the $100M XPRIZE CARBON REMOVAL.  These two events alone have seriously changed the future of our planet by shifting our agenda towards climate change.  Released to coincide with the launch of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal which is aimed at tackling the biggest threat facing humanity — fighting climate change and rebalancing Earth’s carbon cycle. Funded by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation, this $100M competition is the largest incentive prize in history, an extraordinary milestone. For more information visit www.xprize.org Links:https://www.xprize.org/elonmusk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to a special edition of The Future Positive podcast.  For this week's pod our host Shlomy Kattan, Chief Advancement Officer at XPRIZE virtually sits down with two thought leaders, Desmond Dickerson and Dwayne Matthews to discuss the future of work and education whilst also giving some priceless advice on the best ways to work remotely.Desmond Dickerson is a Manager and Innovation Consultant for the Cognizant Center for the Future of Work. He’s a passionate advocate and leader for the African American and Latino Business Resource Group. Under his guidance, the group has helped to mentor future leaders and leverage relationships with other affinity groups to promote innovation through diversity.Dwayne Matthews is a self-proclaimed Innovation Evangelist and future of education strategist. Dwayne helps school boards, educators and parents understand the new and evolving themes around the future of education,  the future of work and how to prepare children to thrive in a digitally evolving world.The trio look at how under-resourced communities in the U.S. face systemic barriers to learning, mobility, and progress. Core problems impeding effective workforce development which include a widening skills gap, deteriorating job quality, and a lack of collaboration between players in the labor market. With an unprecedented digital disruption and adoption caused by COVID-19 comes a new opportunity to radically change the lives of millions of Americans.The $5M XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling competition strives to secure a future in which all workers can rapidly attain new and more relevant skills to their current workplace - and their next one. Novel solutions developed in XPRIZE Rapid Reskilling will uplift the labor market in the U.S. and close the widening skills gap.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.