Over the course of 72 hours, the speakers gathered in Venice with an elite group of ‘thinkers’ to discuss topics including the futures of health, business, technology, marketing and behavioural science, focusing on the topic ‘Change of Perspective’. Where better than Venice – a city built by human endeavor in a challenging environment - to discuss the future of business, leadership, innovation and society, and the growing need for new ethical frameworks in this fast-moving fourth industrial age?

Speakers including entrepreneur Cindy Gallop, computational psychologist Sandra Matz and professor Dr Shafi Ahmed guided participants through the futures of their industries, inviting debate around what such innovations mean for individuals, societies and the world as we know it today. This year’s forum tackled questions such as how can we future proof our world for future generations? How and why should we shift our perspectives to embrace the coming advances in technology, engineering and human insight? 

As one of the participants put it: “All agreed that we foresee fascinating possibilities, but we definitely do need ethical, moral and political frameworks in order to prevent technological and ecological dystopias.” Forum founder and agency chief Heimo Hammer, provocateur and marketing expert Igor Beuker, futurist Lucie Greene, leadership coach and author Carla Johnson and digital entrepreneur Sunnie J Groeneveld were also keynote speakers.

The results of the forum will be encapsulated in a book – The Fast Forward Files: Change of Perspective, to be published in February 2020. It includes chapters penned by each of the keynote speakers, together with reviews of more informal discussions led by geneticist Prof Markus Hengstschläger, strategic AI director Pete Trainor and professor of neuroscience and business Prof Moran Cerf.