Masterminds of Today Discussing Topics of Tomorrow
Introducing “Next Visions“ — a podcast series about personal visions for the future of technology, business, and humanity by Porsche in collaboration with the House of Beautiful Business.
The dust on a book can tell many stories. Some books gather dust because they are forgotten. But this is not the case in the Library of the Academia das Ciências in Lisbon. Here, dust is an expression of the value of knowledge and ideas. In the historical hall, built in 1779, with its white-domed roof and wooden gallery, thousands of books are lined up. They have been kept there for nearly 250 years, out of respect for the discoveries and reflections recorded on paper. They evoke a time when the spirit of the Enlightenment was sweeping through Europe, oriented towards reason, optimistic for the future and technological progress.
A podcast that brings together different masterminds to spark inspiring visions
In the new podcast series “Next Visions” by Porsche in collaboration with the House of Beautiful Business, the two hosts Christian Knörle, Head of Company Building at Porsche Digital, and Tim Leberecht, Co-Founder & Co-CEO of The Business Romantic Society, bring together thought-leaders of today to discuss topics of tomorrow. In each episode, two visionaries from different disciplines, who didn’t know each other before, meet in Lisbon’s old library to talk about their personal perspectives on the social, economic, and ethical challenges of our time and develop visions that should inspire and encourage.
At the start of the podcast, the two hosts introduce themselves, explain the collaboration and reveal who is behind the so-called “masterminds” of each episode.
What does Porsche mean by “Next Visions”, and why is there now a podcast about it?
Christian: Current technological developments have had a huge impact not only on our everyday life but on how we want to further develop as a company. Artificial intelligence, algorithms, and software are coming into our hardware world. We realized that we needed to adapt in order to shape the future and to open up as a company and bring in new perspectives. Under the slogan “Next Visions”, Porsche has been discussing future opportunities for some time now and especially encouraging new approaches to deal with them. We are now expanding our purview to a new podcast, which offers inspiring personalities a platform to share their visions with us and our audience. With Tim and the House of Beautiful Business, we have an outstanding partner for this project.
What exactly is the House of Beautiful Business?
Tim: After writing my book The Business Romantic and exploring how to humanize technology with the means of romanticism, I got more and more into the topic of modern businesses and future concepts for the world we want to live and work in. In 2017 we started to gather an international group of business, tech, and policy leaders, as well as artists, scientists, and people from the humanities under the roof of the House of the Beautiful Business. The House is a think tank and community, but most importantly a physical and online space where people can come together and think about new visions and narratives that help to guide us into the future. Meeting Christian, we both realized that we’re on the same journey.
Who are your guests in the episodes and what will you talk about?
Christian: John Havens and Florian Schmitt, for one example, talking about how the constantly-increasing use of artificial intelligence could limit our autonomy as humans. Then we’ll talk about leadership and career changes. We feature a conversation between London Business School professor and author Herminia Ibarra and Ebru Koksal, the former CEO of Galatasaray Istanbul. We also have Kristina Palavikova, co-founder of Secret City Trails, in conversation with Itai Palti, founder of a platform and movement called Conscious Cities, talking about travel and the future of metropoles.
Tim: Furthermore, we have Massimo Portincaso, who is the global head of marketing at the Boston Consulting Group, in conversation with Amy Whitaker, who wrote the book Art Thinking. Their topic is the role of art in business and what business people and business leaders can learn from how artists think and see the world. And then finally we have Maria Kolitsida, co-founder and CEO of winningminds.ai, a company that’s using AI to help facilitate more effective collaboration within business, and Sophie Kleber, who’s the Head of Spaces UX at Google. And they’re in conversation about the possibility of emotional intelligence for AI or autonomous systems.
Christian: So there’s really an incredibly wide range of different topics and perspectives, which are also of great interest to us at Porsche. We were stoked by the width of expertise that is displayed in the episodes, by the depth of knowledge presented, and the power of the visions that are shared. But listen for yourself!
You can listen to the Next Visions podcast on all common platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer and Google Podcast. Besides the intro, which is live now, the first talk featuring Ebru Koksal and Heminia Ibarra will be released on Thursday, April 9, 2020. Further episodes will be released every two weeks on Wednesday. Stay tuned!
