Thoughts for 2026
Together
The people I meet on my podcast Imaginize.World inspire me. Some bring tears to my eyes when they describe their work. They are all people I am proud to have talked with and hope my podcast is helping make a difference in how we are collectively shaping the future.
Let me know your thoughts as you go through these short episodes. If you have questions for some of them, I’ll get the answers if I can! Take your time. There’s a lot here.
Lionel Robert is a professor of information and robotics at the University of Michigan. He’s also director of their autonomous vehicle research collaboration, MAVRIC. He has researched different dimensions of technology and humans. In particular, the emotional relationships between humans, robotics and technology. He says:
“People will develop strong relationships with these different types of technology and they will become integrated into society in a way that we probably find very difficult to understand.”
Sohail Inayatullah - First UNESCO Chair in Futures Studies for Sustainability and Humanity, IIUM, Malaysia. Developed futures technique of Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) which examines issues at four levels – data, systems, worldviews, and narratives/metaphors.
“The metaphors I use are invisible hand, which worked for a while, the visible hand, where the state intervenes. Then what we’re moving towards—shared hands, cooperatives, peer-to-peer platforms.”
David Weinberger Author: Everyday Chaos, Too Big to Know, Everything Is Miscellaneous, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, and co-author of pioneering Cluetrain Manifesto (1999). Senior researcher at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Unanticipation...
“We cannot anticipate what our children will want or what the world will be, so the best thing to do is to open up as many possibilities as we can.”
Sugata Mitra physicist, educational pioneer. Preparing children for their futures, not our pasts. Creator: “Hole in the Wall” experiment leading to School in the Cloud and Self-Organized Learning Environments. Winner of one million dollar TED prize in 2013. Predicts Neuralink: The internet will vanish into our heads.
“The internet will become so integrated into our lives, it will blur the line between knowing and not knowing.”
Deb Chachra, professor of engineering, works at the intersection of technology and society. Infrastructure and our collective future with an emphasis on systems, education, design, and materials. She wrote How Infrastructure Works: Inside the Systems That Shape Our World.
“The next generation: your job is not to fix the problems of the grownups. Your job is to actually build out this new world, and in so doing, you’ll fix the problems of the grownups.”
Sundeep Waslekar Author: A World without War. Peace policy concepts discussed at UN Security Council. Chairman of the Strategic Foresight Group, India-based think tank that has worked on 65 countries since its founding in 2002.
“The 21st century faces 4 problems: nuclear, AI and other emerging technologies, militarization, and lack of a conflict resolution mechanism with mandated authority.”
Nirere Sadrach Founder of “End Plastic Pollution“, youth-led organization in Uganda to end single-use plastic by corporations and Project Kollekt, model for how local communities can deal with people learning about plastic. The science of plastics and what to do for a healthier world.
“This is the time we should be empowering our young people to innovate, solve problems our communities are facing.”
Sachin Joshi Founder of the Espalier Experimental and Heritage Schools that – got the first prize by the Maharashtra government in 2014. Creator of “Education on Wheels” in 2007. It became AI on Wheels (2025). First Indian to speak on “Education and Democracy” at EU Council. Philosophy: Ghandi + Montessori.
“IQ is being replaced by AI. Therefore, let’s focus on developing our children’s SQ, that is social quotient, and EQ, that is emotional quotient.”
Agatha Rachael Akullu Creator “Read us Africa“, literacy program in Africa. Book publisher, copywriter, editor. SDG-4 Global Youth Ambassador with Their World. Global Peace Ambassador. Millennium Fellow 2023. YALI Fellow (Young African Leaders Initiative).
“Good readers really make good leaders. If we want to come up with good leaders, we need to first of all, start with empowering readers.”
Pieter Franken Fintech. Co-founded and led Safecast (Fukushima), most successful citizen science initiative in the world. (The largest open dataset of background radiation measurements ever collected.) Founding Member of ASEAN Innovation Network (AFIN, now Synfindo), a nonprofit founded by MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore).
“How do you build something that sustains itself even though opinions and ideas change?
Henrique Dias Founder and CEO of NoHarm, A nonprofit startup in Brazil that develops AI-based tools to improve patient safety in the public healthcare system. NoHarm has received awards and project grants from the Google Research Awards for Latin America, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others.
“AI is never able to make the final decision, AI should be a decision support system in the healthcare system.”
Robin Vincent-Smith MSF (Doctors without Borders). Front lines in Africa. Then central Learning Officer: climate and environment. Striving for freedom from a job description is Robin’s motto. MSF works to be where the patients and families are, including on social media.
“Our DisMis project—Disinformation, Misinformation—gives voice to patients and shares scientific research.”
Joyce Kimutae Climate scientist based in Kenya. Focus on Attribution Science: quantifying the role of human influence on the climate . Helping build causation—necessary for climate litigation. Doctor of Philosophy, Researcher at U. of Cape Town, Investigates Extreme Weather and Climate Events.
“The legal system today is not built for dealing with responsibility and liability for climate events impact.”
Bill Fischer MIT Senior Lecturer, IMD Professor Emeritus of Innovation Management. Co-author Reinventing Giants (about Haier), The Idea Hunter and Virtuoso Teams. Former President of the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) in Shanghai. Zero distance with the future.
“We should have people whose role is to be advocates for the future, charged with saying, what about this and what about that, and have we forgotten this? Then, the future will be part of making decisions.”
Wole Talabi Engineer, writer, and editor. Author: Shigidi And The Brass Head Of Obalufon (best books of 2023 by The Washington Post), Incomplete Solutions and Convergence Problems. Storytelling shapes perceptions, politics, traditions & technology for better futures. AI for Consulting Ancestors.
“A consensus negotiated reality based on all our stories we agree on is our reality.”
Mark Gröb Building Next Gen Products for UPS Enterprise. Applications in Training, Real-Time Data Visualization and Emerging Innovation Sectors. XR Subject Matter Expert on SAR Counsel for UPS. Training and developing Federated SMEs in all Global wide Business Groups.
“People with boots on the ground are the most familiar with problems. Involving them in design is key.”
Jillian Reilly Author: The Ten Permissions: Redefining the Rules of Adulting in the 21st Century. Old logic and new logic. Underlying themes: activism, future-oriented thinking.
“You need to design your own portfolio. an approach to your life that is not about a singular role, company, or set of capabilities, but something more strategically diverse.”
From an informal group of my guests all saying, in different words...”The Time is Now”
Technology, science and society have combined to create what seems to be a path to a new world. We must approach it with an open mind, without anticipation, knowing that learning will emerge. Now is a paradigm shifting moment, we are temporarily lost in this transition on our way to a new world based on having less, not more. Will we get through the many disruptions? It’s impossible to predict. It’s unknown.
Singularity: Shifting to a New World of the Unknown - The Time Is Now