The Futureverse

Explore the joy of hobbies with guests like the editor of Prospect Magazine, an amateur pianist, and others. They delve into the transformative power of hobbies like music, Lego building, and golf, highlighting the fulfillment and personal growth they offer. From rediscovering passion for music in middle age to finding zen in Lego building, this podcast celebrates the essence of being an amateur and pursuing passions for self-discovery and contentment.

Anna Josse, CEO of Prism the Gift Fund, and David Duke, Founder of Street Soccer Scotland, discuss the intricacies of charitable giving. Topics include Gift Aid benefits, choosing charities, impact of personal experiences, fundraising strategies, donor relationships, efficient investment management, and future plans in philanthropy.

What if the solution to solving extreme poverty was as simple as giving cash to those who need it? GiveDirectly, the fastest growing NGO founded this century, does just that. By allowing donors to send money directly to the world’s poorest, it has revolutionised the aid sector. In the last decade, GiveDirectly has delivered $580M+ to over 1.37 million people across eleven countries. Cash in hand, no strings attached. In this episode, Kamal Ahmed is joined by the President of GiveDirectly Rory Stewart to discuss GiveDirectly’s work, the profound implications of direct cash transfers and why we all have a duty to do what we can to uplift the global poor. Rory’s career, which has taken him from Iraq, where he was Deputy-Governor of two provinces following the invasion in 2003, to the UK Government, where he served as Secretary of State for International Development, has profoundly shaped his approach to his own legacy, and what it means to be a good ancestor. Kamal and Rory discuss this and more in this wide-ranging interview with one of the most knowledgeable and compelling voices on international development and the charity sector.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Debate over inheriting wealth vs. giving to causes, with Peter Singer advocating for global poor, Julia Davies supporting wealth tax, and Adrian Wooldridge arguing wealthy individuals benefit society. Moderated by Kamal Ahmed, the conversation explores parental obligations, societal impact of extreme wealth, effective charity donations, and solutions to inherited privilege and inequality.

Y TREE was founded in 2017 to give its clients insight and advice about money and life. They call this Financial Life Intelligence. At the heart of this idea sits a vision of a world where wealth is defined by how you live, not what you have. Y TREE unlocks value for its clients that goes beyond the financial. In doing so, it helps them to live more meaningful and fulfilling lives.That’s the pitch, but what does it mean in practice?In this episode, Kamal Ahmed finds out. To do so, and to lift the lid on Y TREE’s work, he is joined by Y TREE co-founders Stuart Cash and Johnnie Hampel, Head of Financial Life Strategy Eliana Sydes, Head of Client Advice Will Hooton and Head of Investment Solutions Marc Meshaka.The Futureverse is brought to you by Intelligence Squared in partnership with Y TREE. The past is in your head. The future is in your hands. For more information visit y-tree.com/futureverse  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Until very recently, female artists have occupied a tiny space of the art market, undervalued and ignored. There are no women in the top 0.03% of the auction market, where 41% of the profit is concentrated. Overall, 96.1% of artworks sold at auction are by male artists. The most expensive work sold by a woman artist at auction, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, sold in 2014 for $44.4 million—over four hundred million dollars less than the auction record for a male artist: Leonardo Da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which sold in 2017 for $450.3 million, shattering the previous record of $179.4 million for a work by Picasso. Now that’s changing. This year’s Venice Biennale was heavily skewed in favour of women for the first time ever. Historically, about 10% of artists in the main exhibition have tended to be women, rising to 30% in recent years; in 2019, the UK-based curator Ralph Rugoff’s exhibition achieved rough parity for the first time. Cecilia Alemani, curator of the 2022 Biennale, included approximately 90% female and gender non-conforming artists. Who is driving this change? And how do we continue to make sure the work of female artists is given the recognition they deserve? Join Kamal Ahmed as he explores the role of women in the contemporary art market with art historian and broadcaster Katy Hessel, art historian and founder of ArtscapesUK Rose Balston, art market specialist Bojana Popovic, entrepreneur Marine Tanguy and patron and academic Princess Alia Al-Senussi. The Futureverse is brought to you by Intelligence Squared in partnership with Y TREE. The past is in your head. The future is in your hands. For more information visit y-tree.com/futureverseThe Story of Art without Men by Katy Hessel: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-story-of-art-without-men/katy-hessel/9781529151145Rose Balston’s ‘Old Mistresses’ lecture series: https://artscapesuk.com/old-mistresses/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How do we define value? How has this changed over time? And who decides what is deemed valuable? For centuries, society has seen value mainly through an economic lens: one takes a job because of its monetary benefits; marriage is a financially beneficial relationship that enables stability; and the true test of a business is its profit at the end of the year. But is this changing? In recent years, factors such as climate change, social justice and the pandemic have forced us to reconsider how we define value. We are in the era of the Value Revolution.In this episode, recorded on July 5 at Y TREE's second live event in the Futureverse series, three experts discuss and debate some of the most pressing issues that have arisen as a result of this critical turning point: Will private equity transform the financial industry? Can capitalism really adapt so that things other than monetary value are considered important in business, including fairness and environmental impact? And are we finally seeing a growing awareness that value is not always quantified by a price tag? Some things, such as time, health, job satisfaction and the survival of our planet are surely worth more than a number in a bank account.  Simon Brewer, host of the award-winning Money Maze Podcast, gives us his thoughts on the dramatic shifts in the economy over the last few decades. Political economist and author Adrienne Buller argues that businesses that engage in sustainability initiatives and ‘green capitalism’ are harming rather than helping the planet. And Lucy Kellaway, former FT columnist, now charity founder, author and maths and economics teacher, offers a fresh way to decide what to prioritise in our personal and professional lives. Expertly hosted by broadcaster Jon Sopel, this is a conversation that is guaranteed to change the way you think about value and worth.To find out more visit https://www.y-tree.com/futureverse Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future can look like a scary place. Climate change is upon us and we’re in the throes of huge technological change without a clear idea of where we will land. Added to which, we are constantly bombarded by news of the risks we face. But humans are creatures of collaboration and ingenuity. Sure, we might spend a lot of time focusing on external threats rather than appreciating what we have – but that survival instinct helps protect us. And it inspires many of our brightest minds to focus on de-risking the future, engaging with our problems head on and working to make the future a safer, better place for the generations that will follow.Step into the Futureverse, with Juha-Pekka Luntama, Head of Space Weather at the European Space Agency; Prof. Dr. Sibylle Günter, Scientific Director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics; Holden Karnofsky, co-CEO of Open Philanthropy; and Kevin Warwick, Emeritus Professor of Cybernetics at Coventry and Reading Universities.The Futureverse is brought to you by Intelligence Squared in partnership with Y TREE. The past is in your head. The future is in your hands. For more information visit y-tree.com/futureverse Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We live in a time of greater uncertainty than ever before in human history. We are poised between the twin precipices of climate change and rapidly accelerating technological development. How we manage them will determine whether our future is one where humans will thrive, falter or something in between. Welcome to the Futureverse – brought to you by Intelligence Squared and Y TREE – a space to explore the ideas that will shape our future.  In this episode, three leading thinkers come together to debate the motion, ‘Will The World Be A Better Place in 5, 50 and 500 Years?’ The sculptor Sir Antony Gormley champions the role of art in public spaces in a future society that puts community and care at its centre. Climate change activist Clover Hogan argues that the next ten years will be crucial for determining the next 50. Tech entrepreneur and former chief business officer at Google X, Mo Gawdat considers how we can imbue AI with values aligned to those of humanity. Expertly hosted by broadcaster Jon Sopel, this is a conversation that is guaranteed to change the way you think about the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The future. It’s all there, in front of us. It could go wonderfully. Or it could go badly wrong. It will inevitably require our passions and our ingenuity. So how do we see the challenges early on, find solutions and help make the world a better place? For ourselves, for our families, for everyone. Welcome to The Futureverse, a new series brought to you by Intelligence Squared and in partnership with Y TREE.In the first episode of The Futureverse podcast, From the Ancients to AI, host Kamal Ahmed and a panel of experts explore the history of the future as an idea. Dr Aleks Krotoski, social psychologist, researcher and science communicator, explains why planning for the future is at the heart of being human. Dr Amanda Rees, a historian of science based at the University of York, and Alexander Boxer, author of A Scheme of Heaven, look back at the history of the future as a concept; how have we juggled planning and prediction from ancient times through to modernity? And Dirk Helbing, Professor of Computational Social Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, reveals how we might be able to stream data into a giant simulator that could help us predict – and prepare for – events in the future.Come with us into The Futureverse: http://intelligencesquared.com/futureverseFor more information and to register to watch an event featuring Sir Antony Gormley, Mo Gawdat and Clover Hogan, please visit: y-tree.com/futureverseFind out more about Dirk’s latest project - how to build a “digital twin” of the Earth, here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358571489 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices