Unconscious Bias: What Works To De-Bias How We Live, Learn and Work with Harvard Kennedy School's Former Academic Dean Iris Bohnet
Iris Bohnet, the Academic Dean of the Kennedy School and co-Director of the Women and Public Policy Program, shares how simple, evidence-based changes can reduce and neutralize the biased behaviors in classrooms, police departments, and boardrooms; and in hiring and promotion. She is a behavioral economist, combining insights from economics and psychology to improve decision-making in organizations and society.
Designing the Future With Materials That Sense, Adapt, Heal & Grow: Founder of MIT's Self-Assembly Lab Skylar Tibbits
Imagine homes that can grow themselves whenever and wherever they’re needed or buildings that can adapt to their environment. We’re limited only by our creativity in designing materials that physically sense, adapt to their environment, heal themselves and grow. Skylar Tibbits shares how we can design simple and elegant materials that harness nature without electronics and batteries.
What Leaders and Corporate Boards Can Learn From Boeing’s Mistakes: Harvard Business School’s Sandra Sucher
Boeing’s fall from grace didn’t happen overnight. Sandra Sucher shares five key mistakes made by the CEO and the board of directors.
Her upcoming book is The Power of Trust.
Secret Service Director James Murray: The New Cyber Physical Nexus & How To Protect Ourselves From Cyber Risk
Secret Service Director James Murray is responsible for the Investigative and Protective missions of the Secret Service. He shares how the Secret Service trains its agents and protects against new types of risk such as the cyber physical nexus. He also shares how we can protect ourselves from cyber risk.
Harnessing the Power of Artificial Intelligence & Synthetic Biology To Usher In A New Age of Drug Discovery: James J. Collins
Jim Collins, co-inventor of the technology behind COVID vaccines, shares a revolutionary approach to drug discovery. By harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, he discovered an amazing new class of antibiotics, which he named halicin after Hal, the murderous robot in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Professor Collins' patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma and medical devices companies. He is known as one of the founders of the new field of synthetic biology and is a professor at MIT and affiliated with the Broad Institute and the Wyss Institute.
Hard Won Wisdom From An Entrepreneur: Ellen Marie Bennett
Ellen Bennett created a multi-million dollar business with clients ranging from 2 star Michelin restaurants to Martha Stewart and Google, without any design or business experience. She shares her hard won and unconventional wisdom of what worked. Her memoir and playbook is Dream First, Details Later.
How to Get People to Say Yes: The Godfather of Influence Dr. Robert Cialdini
Warren Buffett recommends Dr. Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, which has sold over 5 million copies, as one of the best business books of all time. Dr. Cialdini shares his latest findings on how we can all use the tactics of influence and persuasion to get people to say “yes” to us. He recently published a new version of Influence.
The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be: Katy Milkman
Wall Street Journal best-selling author Katy Milkman shares science-based ways to create change in our lives. She is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and author of How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.
How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life: William Green
William Green shares investing and life lessons from the world’s legendary investors. Learn the surprisingly simple rules they follow to stack the odds in their favor in both investing and in life. Discover their common approaches to investing, such as sublime indifference to crowd sentiment. William Green is the author of Richer Wiser Happier.
The Empathy Diaries and How Tech Changes Us and Our Relationships: MIT’s Sherry Turkle
Founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self Sherry Turkle shares her personal discoveries with empathy and how tech changes our relationships. She also reveals the implications of constant connection and artificial intimacy.
Investing in Positive Social Outcomes with Social Impact Bonds: Tracy Palandjian
Learn from Tracy Palandjian, CEO and co-founder of Social Finance, about using impact investing and social impact bonds for a wide range of social purposes from improving high school graduation to reducing recidivism. Social Finance is an impact investing and advisory nonprofit that has mobilized over $150 million to transform the lives of more than 20,000 individuals across a wide range of issue areas including workforce development, education, and health. To find out more visit socialfinance.org.
A Unique Model of Innovation - Making Breakthrough Discoveries and Turning Them Into Real World Products At an Unheard of Pace: Don Ingber
The Wyss Institute For Biologically Inspired Engineering accounts for 25% of Harvard’s intellectual property startups each year, with discoveries and startups ranging from healthcare to energy, robotics, architecture, and manufacturing. Find out from Wyss founding director Don Ingber how their unique model works and how they make breakthrough discoveries in such a wide range of fields and bring them to market so quickly.
Getting The Odds On Your Side: Legendary Investor Howard Marks
Howard Marks, co-chairman of Oaktree Capital Management with $150BN under management, talks about the most important things in investing and how the real accomplishment is to have profit potential disproportionate to the risk. Learn how to get the odds on your side and find out why diversification is not a magic elixir and why stock prices could go much higher.
Harvard Business School’s Bill Sahlman: What I’ve Learned from Reading 10,000 Business Plans and Investing in Hundreds of Startups
Of the 10,000 business plans Bill Sahlman has read, only 3 companies met their plan. Find out what it takes to succeed. Entrepreneurs have to be really good at running tests and execution trumps idea. Jeff Bezos is the most effective experimentalist in history. Bill Gates did not invent word processing, the spreadsheet, or presentation graphics; rather he took ideas and out executed everyone else.
Former Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard, Larry Summers: The Big Trends Shaping the World Today
Former Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard Larry Summers talks about the defining trends of the 21st century, including how we are going to achieve collective solutions, the shift in the center of gravity of the world’s economy and culture to the east, the upcoming transformation in education, the hard choices facing the leading universities, and the exponential growth in what information technology will be capable of.
Working for Jeff Bezos and the Secrets of Amazon’s Success
With nearly 30 years of combined Amazon experience, former Amazon Vice Presidents Colin Bryar and Bill Carr reveal the proven way Amazon innovates and scales businesses. Colin spent all day every day with Jeff Bezos for 2 years as his technical advisor. Bill led the launch and growth of the Kindle, Amazon Music, and Prime Video. Find out how Amazon’s success is due to a well-defined set of principles and practices which they reveal here and illustrate with stories. Find out also what Jeff Bezos is really like and why his siblings hated to go to movies with him.
Nobel Laureate, Daniel Kahneman: His Latest Findings on "Noise" and Flaws in Human Judgement
Learn about Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman’s latest findings on “noise” and how there is more noise and flaws in human judgement than you think — Find out why you should see a doctor in the morning and go to court after lunch.
How Right and Wrong Change with Technology with Juan Enriquez
We all think we know what’s right and wrong but we don’t because right/wrong changes over time. Our great grandchildren might be shocked by people eating meat, and the risks of pregnancy, childbirth and unedited genes. Find out which things we're doing now that will be viewed as wrong, and learn about the almost inconceivable things that will become “right" because of new technology. Will genetic engineering of humans for space travel become acceptable? Bigger brains? More compact bodies? Different species of humans to increase our odds of survival?
Harvard’s Chair of Astronomy, Avi Loeb: Why We Are Not Alone and Are Very Common Like Ants On A Sidewalk
Find out why Harvard’s Chair of Astronomy Avi Loeb says we are not alone in the universe and that there are more intelligent and sophisticated civilizations than ours. Learn about the evidence that we aren't the “smartest cookie in the jar.” Find out when we were visited by another civilization and how we can create life on other planets by launching what he calls "Noah's spaceship.”
Marshall Van Alstyne: Why Platform Companies (Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb and Uber) Are the Opposite of Traditional Companies, Why They Become So Enormous, and How They Can Be Regulated
Find out why platform companies dominate traditional businesses and why 7 of the 10 largest companies in the world are platform companies. Learn how they outcompete traditional companies while employing just a tiny fraction of the number of people, how they are completely different from companies of the past, and why platforms beat products all the time.