Future is a question of perspective: 10 #nextvisions
One stage, ten speakers, one mission: To shape the future of mobility. In an open dialogue, from different perspectives and with beautiful minds. This was the Porsche Next Visions Day.
Last week at the Porsche booth at #IAA 2019, we brought together international experts, thought leaders, coders, founders and pioneers to talk about the future. Or let’s rather say to shape tomorrow. Because, as coding superstar Aya Jaff said so beautifully: ‘I am done talking about the future, let’s build it!’
To all those who missed this day, I don’t want to withhold the illuminating insights we got. This is why I wrote down a summary of the Next Visions Day here — or: Smart thoughts and inspiring ideas by ten awesome people, condensed.
Ben Hammersley: No one can do this, but we have to
Ben is not a typical futurologist, and everyone in the audience immediately noticed that. The so-called futurist and CEO of — caution, watch the company name — ‘Hammersley Futures’ doesn’t show any dystopic science fiction scenarios, but rather confidently describes current phenomena and explains how they will develop in the future. He speaks of interdependent co-arising of change, and the exponential functions within. On the subject of futurology, his main business, he makes one point clear: ‘No one can do this, but we have to.’
One phenomenon that I remembered in particular is the fact that many people today do not yet live in 2019. Why? Because they work with mobile phones from 2017, use computers from 2015 and their mindset is still influenced by approaches and methods from 2013, if not much earlier. According to Hammersley, the central task of digital transformation is, therefore, to bring people into the present. His “Constant Legacy Free Reinvention” technique questions how an old problem would be solved with today’s technologies: Would we really create a toothbrush for the problem of oral hygiene today? Think about it!
Tim Leberecht: From Smart to Romantic
The author of the bestseller “The Business Romantic” lived in Silicon Valley even before it was cool. Early on, Tim Leberecht asked himself the question: ‘If everything is quantified and controlled by algorithms, what role will humans play in this future?’ Well, this discourse has taken place in history before: The era of rationalism was followed by the era of romanticism — emotions and poetry brought people, their senses and feelings back into focus after purely rational thinking dominated the acquisition of knowledge.
In the same way, Leberecht heralds the epoch of “Business Romanticism” and thus counteracts the burgeoning dominance of artificial intelligence and technologies. His vision: Mankind will have to concentrate on those skills and areas in which it can fully play out his humanity, in which empathy, emotionality, fantasy and intuition are more important than KPIs and metrics. We can leave the task of efficiency to AI.
Aya Jaff: Why I don’t believe in talking about the future
‘Why do we have to deal with the future at all? The future is something you create with your own actions. You don’t wait for it.’ Aya Jaff is a 23-year-old programmer and author — and her hands-on attitude distinguished her from her classmates from an early age on. In school, she wasn’t good at math, which is not a good starting point for a career in IT. But she didn’t let that stop her and started teaching herself how to code when she was 16.
One of the five lessons she had brought with her: Wisdom can come in many forms. Later on, she writes a book about the stock market. And her lesson number 5: Say it straight out. And that’s exactly what she does: ‘You create the future, you don’t talk about it’.
Stefan Liske: Design, product strategy and sales in one
Stefan Liske is a stuntman, racing driver and founder of PCH Innovations. He is a mechanical engineer and product designer by heart. Whenever we ask ourselves what the next big technological breakthrough might be, he has certainly thought about it before. His latest project is at least as fascinating as it is unique: a tool that combines design, product strategy and sales. Claire is a tool that is unique worldwide and can be used to develop new designs for novel vehicle segments. On our Next Visions Day, Stefan introduced us to the vision behind it and the first AI-based features, which was more than impressive. Yet, as he put it: ‘In the end, AI is still a tool and not a replacement for good people.’
RJ Cobalt: Blue is no coincidence
Why does RJ Cobalt have blue hair? This banal question, which is often asked to the founder and CEO of technology company Cobalt Industries, is answered quite profoundly in our interview on Next Visions Day. The background is as follows: blue was discovered comparatively late in human history. In Homer’s ‘Ilias’ and ‘Odyssey’ you will search for it in vain — the sea is for example described as wine red. Just as the discovery of the colour blue opened up completely new perspectives for mankind, this is currently happening with emotions. They are a central human part that receives little attention in the development of technologies. Why should humans adapt to technology — and not technology to humans?
RJ is, therefore, on the mission to make technology more human. For her, language assistants are the right technologies to get this mission off the ground — and cars are still very far away. If even Alexa, with a team of 10,000 developers, is still far from being ‘perfect’ in terms of humanity, why do car manufacturers think they can program better voice commands with only a handful of developers? This is why RJ, on Next Visions Day, advocated more collaboration with startups, new ways of thinking, new methods and new approaches. Because emerging technologies require just that. It’s like with the discovery of the color blue — interdisciplinary, diverse collaboration enables a new view of the existing.
And this is exactly why we invited numerous partners from our startup ecosystem to present their #nextvisions on our stage in addition to the four future talks.
Start-ups share their #nextvisions with Porsche: Taking a holoride and making the invisible visible
‘We turn boredom into entertainment!’ With this mission, Holoride CEO Nils Wollny entered the stage. Together with Discovery and Porsche, the celebrated CES debutant presented a first demonstration of what the future of in-car-entertainment could look like. It was a future that could be experienced outside the IAA in a demo vehicle with VR glasses.
Making the invisible visible — this is the mantra by Vitaly Ponomarev, CEO of the holographic AR head-up display startup Wayray. After a car accident attempted by looking at a navigation device, he made it his mission to create the best head-up display in the world. His vision: to make all objects in our environment visible and experienceable through the car window without having to turn one’s gaze away from the road.
Coding cars, easing electrification and building the first blockchain case
What if cars were programmable? And what if the best coders in the world could build applications for every car on one platform? For Risto Vahtra from High Mobility, this is not a dream but a life’s work. His startup brings automobile manufacturers such as Daimler, BMW and Porsche together with the best programmers in the world. The platform makes it possible to test, build and run apps in a realistic simulation environment.
‘The future is electric’ is not only the slogan on Pieter Waller’s T-shirt, but also the top priority on his agenda. His startup Chargetrip from Amsterdam has a vision to make electrification easy for everyone. They create the most efficient navigation for electric cars by combining charging station data with usage statistics, weather, vehicle and navigation data in one app. This way, the app presents the best route for the customer’s e-car journey according to his personal preferences. In Norway, 50,000 users are already on the app — and the number is rising!
And then there’s the blockchain. Most startups are looking for a problem with their blockchain solution. For Jan Karnath from Gapless, things are different: He and his team focus on all things we love and therefore collect — from classic cars, premium vehicles and watches to boats and paintings. They all have one thing in common: the question of authenticity, the history behind it and the development of values.
The Gapless app can do all this and offers various services to increase value and save costs — making it the first real blockchain case I know.
As this blogpost hopefully reflects, our Next Visions Day was a huge success. I am beyond impressed by the stories, visions and missions of these people we’re collaborating with — it is truly an honor to be at the cutting edge of shaping the future with these beautiful minds.
Now, I can’t wait to continue this journey.
Dr. Christian Knörle ist Project Leader Strategy & Innovation at Porsche AG. Follow us on Twitter (Porsche Digital, Next Visions), Instagram (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin,Porsche Digital, Next Visions) and LinkedIn (Porsche Digital Lab Berlin, Porsche Digital) for more.
