Jamie Metzl is a technology and healthcare futurist, geopolitical expert, novelist, entrepreneur, media commentator, Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council, Singularity University faculty member, and the Founder and Chair of OneShared.World. In 2019, he was appointed to the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on human genome editing. Jamie previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations in Cambodia. He serves on the Advisory Council to Walmart’s Future of Retail Policy Lab and has been an election monitor in Afghanistan and the Philippines and advised the government of North Korea on the establishment of Special Economic Zones.
A founder and Co-Chair of the national security organization Partnership for a Secure America, Jamie is a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice, the American University in Mongolia, and Parsons Dance, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Brandeis International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a former White House Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow. Jamie holds a Ph.D. from Oxford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University.
Jamie speaks frequently to corporate, nonprofit, and academic audiences around the world.
Sample Topics
Coronavirus Broke the World: Are you Pivoting Towards What’s Next?
The COVID-19 pandemic will fundamentally transform every aspect our lives on the personal, professional, national, and global levels. The crisis has made processes that might otherwise have unfolded over decades arrive all at once. Our future has come crashing into our present. As much as many of us are hoping our previous world will snap back after this crisis abates, that will not be the case. But while it is appropriate to mourn what we have lost and the tragedy of this moment, the foundations for our new lives, companies, and world are today being laid. Those of us who don’t quickly come to terms with this massive shift will spend the rest of our lives waiting for the old world to snap back, mourning what’s been lost, and wandering around reminding people that coffee used to cost a nickel. Going into survival mode to get through this crisis, most people are focusing on their immediate needs, even if they recognize that something bigger is happening around us. In normal times, we can thrive racing forward on the various tracks we are on. But in revolutionary times like these, having a broad understanding of where we are, how we got here, and how we can get to a better place is the most important navigational tool any of us can have, the foundation of our ability to adapt, pivot, and ultimately thrive. Visionary futurist, WHO expert adviser, bestselling author, and founder of the global social movement OneShared.World, Jamie Metzl places our current crisis in its most essential context and helps communities understand how the world we’ve known is dying faster than we’d thought and imagine our new world emerging faster than we’d imagined.
Ready or Not, Revolution is Coming to the Healthcare Industry
The COVID-19 pandemic is permanently transforming the healthcare industry. Trends that might otherwise have emerged over years and decades are now arriving in weeks and months. The future is crashing into the present. The shift to telemedicine we are seeing now, for example, will not go away once the pandemic recedes. AI will also play a more central role in every aspect of care. The use of the precision medicine tools of genome sequencing, big data analytics, and targeted gene therapies to treat cancer and other diseases are paving the way for a system of predictive healthcare where parents will know and begin responding to their children’s future risks before their children have even been born. These revolutions will fundamentally transform our healthcare, but health professionals, the business community, and society at large are not ready. In this provocative and mind-expanding talk, Jamie Metzl explains the trends and technologies transforming healthcare, explores where things are headed and what is at stake, and lays out key principles for how health industry professionals and the business community can prepare for a revolution that is coming at us far faster than most people recognize. At its best, technology can help us become more human healthcare providers — but only if we start building that future now.
Are New Genetic Technologies a Match for the Coronavirus?
The Wuhan Coronavirus (COVID-19) is the most serious pandemic to hit the world in many decades, and things are likely get significantly worse before they get better. Given the rapid transmission of this virus and the long, asymptomatic incubation period, millions of people will soon likely be infected. As great as this threat poses, the tools of the genetics revolution give us essential new tools to respond. But as we ramp up the resources allocated to this crisis, we must also anticipate the even larger challenge we face. With our species urbanizing like never before, our climate warming, our interaction with the world around us becoming remodeled based on human designs, and our ability to modify viruses to create deadly synthetic pathogens growing, we have no idea what even bigger challenges may be coming. As an investment in our future health and well-being, we must be thinking far more deeply about how we can best use the almost god-like powers our genetic technologies give us. In this essential talk, Jamie Metzl explores how we can best use our most powerful genetic technologies wisely to save rather than destroy us.
Human Resource Management in a Genetic Age
The overlapping genetics and AI revolutions are transforming our healthcare, the way we make babies, and how long we live. This revolution will be the greatest opportunity of our era, and also the greatest challenge – and it will have massive business implications that will increasingly define organizational success and failure in the 21st century.
Corporations have struggled for decades to build open and inclusive workplaces comfortable to people of all races, nationalities, genders, ages, and sexual orientations. In the fast-arriving genetic age, companies will need to figure out such issues as how to deal with predictive health information, whether to cover egg freezing, embryo selection, and embryonic gene editing for employees, and how to help employees prepare for longer than expected lives. While this may seem like science fiction, this future is already here. The genetics revolution will alter our perception of workforce capabilities and potentials and challenge even the most forward-thinking of corporations. It will upend traditional notions of equity, diversity, and inclusion. It will change much of everything.
But are you ready?
Beyond the Blue Zones: What the Revolutionary Science of Human Life Extension Means for You
Most everybody knows we should exercise, eat well, build meaningful communities, and reduce stress to live healthy longer. But the revolutionary new science of human life extension is creating enticing new possibilities for using technology to extend our lives far beyond what nature intended. While the quest for immortality has been the stuff of fairy tales, the new science of life extension will soon be pushing the limits of aging and unlocking human potential in ways our ancestors never could have imagined. Technology futurist Jamie Metzl explores the latest breakthroughs in the science of human life extension that promise to gain is more of life‘s most precious commodity: time. Jamie explains what individuals, companies, and governments must do now to prepare for this revolutionary future that will fundamentally reorganize our societies and global economics.
From Precision to Predictive: Genetic Revolution to Healthcare and Beyond
The transition from today’s system of generalized medicine based on population averages to the new model of precision healthcare based on each person’s individual biology is already well underway. But the use of the precision medicine tools of genome sequencing, big data analytics, and targeted gene therapies to treat cancer and other diseases are paving the way for a system of predictive healthcare where parents will know and begin responding to their children’s future risk of developing hereditary disorders like early onset Alzheimer’s and coronary heart disease starting before their children have even been born. In addition to predicting these types of health outcomes, genetic analysis will also enable us to predict and ultimately influence the genetic components of broader human traits like the IQ, athletic ability, and personality style of our future children. The genetics revolution will fundamentally transform our healthcare, the way we make babies, and the nature of the babies we make, but health professionals, the business community, and society at large are not at all ready. In this provocative and mind-expanding talk, Jamie Metzl elucidates how genetic and other technologies are transforming healthcare, explores where things are headed and what is at stake, and lays out key principles for how health industry professionals and the business community can prepare for a revolution that is coming far sooner than most people recognize.
R/Evolution at the Intersection of AI and Genomics
After decades of slow progress during the long “AI Winter,” the field of artificial intelligence is now blossoming in an “AI Spring” fundamentally transforming the way we live, work, and innovate. But the AI revolution won’t just change what we do, it will ultimately transform who we are. Most people already appreciate that genome sequencing and other genetic technologies with alter the way we treat cancer and other diseases. But the healthcare applications of genomics are just a station along the way in this profound revolution at the intersection of AI and Genomics. The ultimate destination is nothing less than the transformation of our evolutionary trajectory as a species. While the idea of creating humans with exceptional traits like higher IQ, disease resistance, or the ability to live longer and healthier lives may seem the stuff of science fiction, this future is far closer than most people understand or appreciate. In this mind-blowing and highly entertaining talk, futurist Jamie Metzl explains in clear, colorful, and concise language the coming revolution at the intersection of AI and genomics with its incredible promise and frightening danger, and explores what every person, company, and country can and must do to prepare.
What You Need to Know About the Future
Converging political, geopolitical, and technological revolutions are making now the greatest moment of global change at least since 1945 and possibly ever. With nationalism rising around the world, the post-war international order in rapid decline, China significantly expanding its global influence, and the AI, genetics, blockchain, and other revolutions shaking the foundations of the world we’ve known, the pressure is mounting for individuals, companies, and countries to either understand and quickly adapt to these converging super-trends or pay a massive competitive price. In this talk spanning the wide range of factors transforming our world at lightning speed, geopolitical expert and technology futurist Jamie paints a vivid picture of where we are heading and outlines key principles for how individuals, companies, and countries can best position themselves to ride the rising tidal wave of revolutionary change.
Think Like a Sci-Fi Writer: How to unlock your and your organization’s hidden potential in an era of revolutionary change
The future is coming at us faster than ever before. As the pace of technological change in fields like artificial intelligence, genomics, and robotics increases exponentially, the sands of national and international politics are shifting under our feet more than at any time since the end of WWII. But while this moment of radical change creates great peril for organizations that stick too rigidly to traditional ways of thinking and operating, it provides unparalleled opportunities for those who challenge themselves to think differently, creatively imagine future scenarios, and set out on a journey to succeed in a radically new environment. Organizations must, in other words, begin thinking like science fiction writers. In this wide-ranging and highly focused talk, Jamie clearly explains the converging mega-trends reshaping our world, describes how science fiction writers draw on evidence from the present to build a world of tomorrow, and outlines a specific road map for how organizations can use the powerful tool of thinking more like science fiction writers to better prepare for the future and unlock hidden organizational potential.
What You Need to Know About Asia in One Hour and One Slide
Asia’s rapid rise is reversing a current of westernized globalization that has flown for five hundred years. Understanding how Asia is transforming itself and the world is no longer just a matter of curiosity for outsiders, it is essential to making smart decisions. In this wide-ranging talk spanning thousands of years and multiple cultures, Asia expert Metzl draws on history, culture, science, technology, and politics to explain the background, drivers, and implications of Asia’s rise.
Global Geopolitics in an Age of Trump
The “America First” foreign policy of the Trump administration is hastening the demise of the post-War international system that was already in a state of crisis. But how will global peace, security, and stability be maintained in a world that has become dependent on American internationalism? In this talk spanning five hundred years of history, Jamie Metzl explores how our world today is structured in response to the destruction of the two World Wars and what it will mean to return to a world defined by strong states in a balance of power system. As the post-War era draws to a close, the ghosts of history are returning with a vengeance — with the world order, the global economic system, and the military balance hanging in the balance. The coming world disorder will create enormous challenges for companies and other organizations but even greater opportunities those who understand and prepare for what is coming.
Rising China and the Shifting Geopolitics of Asia
Fast-rising China is not just changing Asia, it is fundamentally transforming the global order. China’s economic growth, military expansion, behavior in the South and East China Seas, growing presence around the world, and increasingly emboldened foreign policy present a growing challenge to the US-led global system created in the aftermath of the Second World War. With America less able to serve as guarantor of the international system, and Europe incapable of realizing a coordinated foreign policy strategy and unwilling to invest sufficiently in military readiness, efforts to address major crises, promote a single set of rules governing the global economy, and support human rights around the world are faltering. But with China’s investment and manufacturing-based growth strategy losing steam, China itself will need to find a new model if it is to avoid stagnation. Living in a post-American world will have enormous consequences and touch every aspect of our lives. Jamie explores the key drivers of our fundamentally transforming world, what it will mean for global politics, economics, and culture, and how businesses and other organizations can best prepare.
