Amy Webb
Amy Webb is a quantitative futurist and a bestselling, award-winning author. She is a professor of strategic foresight at the NYU Stern School of Business and the Founder of the Future Today Institute, a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures. Webb is a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University’s Säid School of Business, a Nonresident Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council’s GeoTech Center, a Fellow in the United States-Japan Leadership Program and a Foresight Fellow in the U.S. Government Accountability Office Center for Strategic Foresight. She was a Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where her research received a national Sigma Delta Chi award. She was also a Delegate on the former U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission, where she worked on the future of technology, media and international diplomacy. Webb has advised CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies, three-star generals and admirals and executive government leadership on strategy and technology. She is the author of several popular books, including The Big Nine: How the Tech Titans and Their Thinking Machines Could Warp Humanity, which was longlisted for the Financial Times & McKinsey Business Book of the Year award, shortlisted for the Thinkers50 Digital Thinking Award, and won the 2020 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology, and The Signals Are Talking: Why Today’s Fringe Is Tomorrow’s Mainstream, which won the Thinkers50 Radar Award, was selected as one of Fast Company’s Best Books of 2016, Amazon’s best books 2016, and was the recipient of the 2017 Gold Axiom Medal for the best book about business and technology. Her bestselling memoir Data, A Love Story is about finding love via algorithms. Her TED talk about Data has been viewed more than 8 million times and is being adapted as a feature film, which is currently in production. Webb was named by Forbes as one of the five women changing the world, listed as the BBC’s 100 Women of 2020, and the Thinkers50 Radar list of the 30 management thinkers most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led.
Amy serves on a script consultant for films and shows about artificial intelligence, technology and the future. Most recently, she worked on The First, a sci-fi drama about the first humans to travel to Mars. She is a member of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and has served as a Blue Ribbon Emmy award judge.
3 words to describe Nature?
Essential. Quantifiable. Mysterious.
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility. Humility. Humility. (Seriously!)
3 most treasured Nature spots?
The hiking paths of Mt. Hayachine, which is part of the Kitakami range in northern Japan.
Walking among the giant redwoods of Sequoia National Park.
Hiking the foothills of Stowe, Vermont, especially in fall.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Concerned. The oceans are a vast ecosystem that we've ignored and polluted.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
At home. There is a concept in Japan known as "shinrin-yoku," which is loosely defined as taking a forest bath. Connecting with trees and the sounds of a forest, breathing in the air, and taking time for contemplation and reflection are ways to improve mental clarity, emotional health and physical stamina.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Curious.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Spirited. Some of my fondest memories are of canoeing and camping in Big Bend National Park in Texas and waking up with the sunrise. Even in the summer, the air is fresh and cool, and there's both a calmness and a sense of anticipation for a new day.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Like I'm at work. When I'm researching, reading and writing, I listen to brown noise, which has lower, thicker tones than white noise. Some of the brown noise tracks I listen to include a continuous stream of rumbling thunder.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cold. Even if it's not actually cold.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Mountain
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
There was a small lake near our house, and it was fully alive: snakes, butterflies, fish, frogs, weeds, flowers, trees, and all sorts of bugs. My dad used to take me there just to walk around, look at tadpoles, and observe nature. One afternoon we found a beehive beneath a pile of boulders. We climbed on top and spent hours watching the bees do their work.
Andrew Zuckerman
Andrew Zuckerman is a photographer, filmmaker, creative director, and curator. In 2019 he co-founded The Slowdown, a media company focused on culture, nature, and the future. Much of his work is concerned with the intersection of nature and technology. His immersive investigation of the natural world has produced multiple books and exhibitions collected in three volumes Creature(2007), Bird(2009), and Flower(2012). A year-long curatorial residency at Chamber Gallery NY, spanning four exhibitions of design and art that bring nature into the living environment, and an installation for the windows of Barneys NY commissioned by Dries Van Noten are invitations to the public to consider nature in new ways. Most recently, he worked with the California Academy of Sciences as their 2016 Osher Fellow creating a body of work about the Twilight Zone, a relatively unexplored depth of the oceans.
Andrew’s precise and determined images create unique correlation points between the viewer and the subject. His works, often at life scale, have been exhibited and acquired by public institutions and private collections. Andrew’s ongoing portrait practice utilizes both photography and filmed interview formats to examine human perspectives. With the support of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, he released Wisdom in 2008 as a book, a feature-length documentary film, and a global traveling exhibition. Over 50 individuals from across disciplines participated in the project, including Nelson Mandela, Andrew Wyeth, Jane Goodall, and Madeline Albright. Following Wisdom, Zuckerman expanded this series to musicians including Iggy Pop, Ornette Coleman, Yoko Ono, and Herbie Hancock for the Music film and book. Andrew’s narrative film work includes directing High Falls, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was awarded Best Short Film at the Woodstock Film Festival the same year as well as producing a feature documentary on the musician Bill Withers, Still Bill, which premiered at the 2009 SXSW film festival. Zuckerman’s books have been translated into numerous languages and published in 18 international editions.
Andrew has collaborated extensively for many brands as a photographer, filmmaker, interviewer, and creative director. Designed by Apple in California, a book released in 2016, was the result of a multiyear commission exploring 20 years of Apple design. From 2008-2017 Andrew served as Executive Creative Director of Creature Pictures, a boutique production company he founded, which worked on numerous media projects for Apple. In May 2019 Andrew co-founded The Slowdown, a multi-platform media company to explore culture, nature, and the future.
Andrew donates time and resources to a number of not-for-profits, having created media for One, the ACLU, Starving Artist, Red, and United Way. He currently serves on the board of the Children’s Museum of Arts in New York City. Andrew lives in New York City with his wife and three children.
3 words to describe Nature?
Living. Self. Interdependence.
3 things Nature taught you?
Humility
Rhythm
To slow down
3 most treasured Nature spots?
My body
The Hudson Valley
New York City
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?
Connected
When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?
Protected
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?
Cautious
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?
Reset
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?
Anxious
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?
Curious
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Forest
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
10
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I have vivid memories of long walks through the grassy fields, under the buzzing power lines in suburban Maryland, wondering what it was like before the houses were built and the foreboding steel structures were needed to keep them on life support. I’ve always been interested in that intersection of industry and nature.
Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He was the founding Executive Editor for Wired in 1993, until 2000. His latest book is called The Inevitable, which is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. He is also founding editor of the popular Cool Tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily since 2003. Every Sunday he and the Cool Tools team mail out Recomendo, a free one-page list of 6 very brief recommendations of cool stuff.
3 words to describe Nature?
Complex. Self-correcting. Flux.
3 things Nature taught you?
First nature taught me about the importance of constantly learning. Secondly, it also taught me about doing it my own way. Life is always hacking the rules and figuring out some solution. It is eternally surprising how every creature has figured out its own crazy livelihood by hacking the "rules" of biology. Each individual species is incredibly unique, even when they are related. Thirdly, it taught me that I am part of nature. I realized that there is only one life. Not in a poetic sense, but in an actual technical sense. That literally the lives of everybody and every living thing all go back, without interruption, to the very beginning of the first cell. There is just this one life that we keep replicating. Really there is only one life.
3 most treasured Nature spots?
I really enjoy Yosemite. There is something about the scale, the depth and proportions of Yosemite that is very special for me. It is a type of wilderness that is accessible and touchable.
I have a particular relationship with the Himalayas since I have I spent a lot of time there. There is something about that giant wall of snow stretching over the horizon as far as one can see. It affects me in a way that is hard to describe. These mountains have their own gravity and I can feel it the same way that I feel the Earth’s gravity. I am pulled to the Himalayas.
I am not a scuba diver, just a snorkeler, but the underwater is for me really an out-of-this-planet experience. I will never leave Earth but watching those sponges, corals and otherworldly creatures gives me the sense of exploring worlds that are beyond my reach. The underwater is an endless Star Trek movie for me.
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Small. I see the ocean everyday. I am nothing, it is so huge, and powerful.
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Comforted. I feel really comfortable in a forest. There is something about a kind of presence of trees. Those wooden beings have some sort of elder wisdom. Except though at night. I can get spooked walking in a forest in the dark. I know it is totally irrational but I do. Maybe because the trees are watching.
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Smart. I know it is bizarre to say. There is something primevally basic about volcanos and lava. Seeing them reminds me of how far we have come from rock. Billions of years separate us. Lava and rock is everything that I am no longer.
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Time. I feel the cycle that happens every day, and every time I look at the sun's arrival or departure, I find something new and interesting. There is a childlike spell to it.
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Very excited. Thunder doesn’t come without lightning and I think lightning is just amazing.
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
When the wind comes, my responsible mature home-owner mode kicks in. In my head, I am going through a checklist. Are the latches shut and locked? Is everything tied down? Are we secured? I am immediately thinking of safety and security.
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
I am not a beach person or ocean person. I am most comfortable in the forest and mountains, but when I am in the desert, I am probably closer to my true self.
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
To be honest it is probably an 8 for me personally. I am fortunate and have the privileged of living in a place that is right at the edge of a National Park. I mean literally our backyard touches it. The bobcats and mountain lions are right behind our house. We are also only less than a mile from the Pacific ocean. But we have a yard and garden and live only 9 miles from San Francisco. Wilderness is a tough place to be. I don’t think it is necessary that we live in wilderness, but it is important that it remains available. Like a bank we go to, to rejuvenate ourselves as a species. I think it is crucial that wilderness be there for humans. We need to protect it not just for its sake, but for ours. In the perspective of our human well-being, it is a 10.
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I grew up in Northern New Jersey, and at that time, one block over from where we lived was a patch of trees that we called “The Woods”. In retrospect, it wasn’t very big, but as a kid, it was everything. We were free range kids. I mean our mom would send us out in the morning and we would ride our bicycles for miles away. I spent a whole lot of time in “The Woods”. We were doing all kind of stuff. I remember we were digging and looking for Native American arrow heads. I know now there are no Native American arrow heads out there, but we were looking for them, and then making our own bows and arrows. I also planted seeds in different patterns on the ground hoping that some day the plants would be growing in that pattern, creating some weird arrangement. People would wonder what was going on with those bizarre plants. “The Woods” was very important for me as a kid. At one point I made a nature museum. While the other kids were interested in kit models making planes and cars, I was making bird models so that I could identify them. It is hard to imagine how different my life would be had it not been for “The Woods”.