Rohit Talwar

 About

  • Rohit talks about how organizations can navigate a rapidly changing reality in his highly customized keynote and helps clients understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change
  • Audiences leave with the key topics and learning takeaways that address how their specific organizatons can address the critical factors of future success.
  • Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, award-winning and thought provoking speaker, strategic advisor, author, entrepreneur, and the CEO of Fast Future.
  • Past clients include: 3M, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, American Express, Barclays, Bayer, BP, Citi, Deloitte, DeutscheBank, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, EE, Emaar, Emirates, Etisalat, and EY.

About Rohit Talwar - Leading Global Futurist, Speaker, Author and CEO of Fast Future & Leads Fast Future Publishing:

Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, award-winning and thought provoking speaker, strategic advisor, author, entrepreneur, and the CEO of Fast Future. He delivers keynote speeches, executive education, consultancy, research, and future-focused leadership mentoring to clients internationally. He helps clients understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change. He works with major corporations, governments, professional services, investors, associations, business schools, and NGOs - to help them anticipate, prepare for and create the future. He has delivered over 1,500 keynote speeches and executive workshops in 70+ countries on six continents.

Rohit leads Fast Future Publishing - delivering a series of multi-contributor books exploring the emerging future. He is the co-author of Designing Your Future, lead editor and a contributing author for The Future of Business, and editor of Technology vs. Humanity. He is also a co-editor and contributor for the recently published Beyond Genuine Stupidity - Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, and The Future Reinvented - Reimagining Life, Society, and Business. He is also working on two forthcoming books: Unleashing Human Potential - The Future of AI in Business, and 50:50 - Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.

His new book Aftershocks and Opportunities – Scenarios for a Post-Pandemic Future published on June 1st, 2020 draws on contributions from 25 thought leaders around the world to explore the emerging possibilities and risks and the resulting critical actions required to navigate our way out of the current health crisis and economic disruption.
Rohit delivers fully researched and completely customised presentations for each keynote, and has the audience spellbound with his story of ending up on Interpol’s most wanted list due to identity theft. He has undertaken a wide range of foresight research studies for clients as diverse as the UK Government, Heathrow Airport, Amadeus, and the European Commission

Rohit’s primary objective is to support clients in exploring and shaping the emerging future - putting people at the center of the agenda. He helps clients understand the key future factors driving innovation, growth and disruptive change. Rohit highlights the new thinking and business models being enabled by exponential technologies such as AI, blockchain, and hyperconnectivity and uses case studies to demonstrate how firms across sectors are reinventing themselves in the era of smart machines. He then explores the mindset shifts and leadership capabilities required to compete in the emerging future. Finally, he demonstrates how to harness the next waves of innovation to unleash human potential and ensure a very human future for our organisations.

Rohit has delivered keynote speeches around the world and for clients across the globe. Example clients include 3M, Abu Dhabi Tourism Authority, American Express, Barclays, Bayer, BP, Citi, Deloitte, DeutscheBank, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, EE, Emaar, Emirates, Etisalat, EY, GE, Generali, IBM, Intel, KPMG, Latham and Watkins, Linklaters, Microsoft, Nokia, Norton Rose Fulbright, Novartis, O2, Orange, PWC, Pepsi, SAP, Sara Lee, Tata, The Singapore Government, The World Government Summit 2016 (UAE), and Twofour54.

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 Topics

What Rohit Talwar Talks About:

THE BIG FUTURE

Business & the Metaverse
The opportunities and benefits of involvement for businesses in the metaverse are starting to emerge, but already a growing number of global brands have announced metaverse plans or are rumored to be about to explore what such a virtual world presence might do for them. Estimates are that, with accelerating interest and adoption rates, catalyzed by Facebook’s Meta strategy, 10-20% of the Fortune 500 and Financial Times Global 500 indices of leading companies will have some sort of presence in one or more metaverses.

We can expect to see all of the major tech players creating a mix of consumer and business facing metaverses—for example, Microsoft’s Mesh already serves the corporate market. The competitive landscape will split between 1) natively decentralized and crypto based metaverses developed largely by new entrants, and 2) the more centralized platforms created by the large tech players and existing online gaming titans.

A range of global consumer brands will look to establish a presence for marketing, sales, and customer experiences. Skills in developing a metaverse presence will be in high demand. Crypto ventures and some physical world entities will start to establish multi-language regional and even global corporate headquarters in different metaverses. This will create challenges and territorial control disputes for national regulatory and tax authorities around the world.

How are you and your business preparing for the metaverse?

Aftershocks and Opportunities: Planning our Future
In this customized, fast paced, fun, mind expanding, and highly interactive session, global futurist, entrepreneur, and award winning speaker Rohit Talwar will explore how organizations can navigate a rapidly changing reality. He draws on insights from his new book Aftershocks and Opportunities – Scenarios for a Post-Pandemic Future and his current work helping clients around the world to anticipate and respond to the transformational changes and accelerating digital pace of digital disruption taking place. The talk is always tailored to the client’s specific needs, situation, and sector. Key topics and learning takeaways will include how we can address the following critical factors of future success:

  • Scenarios – Preparing for a range of possible scenarios for 2020-2023 and using the worst case scenario to drive strategy and innovation
  • Disruption – Navigating through and beyond the deep disruption of the pandemic when the world around us seems so uncertain and fragile
  • Prioritization – Learning to cope with turbulence, prioritize our key initiatives, and take greater control of the future to help our business, our workforce, and our families thrive in a fast changing landscape
  • Future of Work – Adopting a digital mindset and prepare for the changing future of work and an increasingly technology-enabled workplace
  • Technology – Understanding the capabilities, applications, likely pace of development, and critical implementation success factors of key technologies such AI, machine learning, robotics, blockchain, 5G, cloud, IoT, digital twins, quantum computing, and biological computing
  • Innovation – Driving the innovation agenda to make sure we can take advantage of science and technology developments in everything from AI to synthetic biology, smart materials, and brain and body enhancements
  • Growth – Increasing the flow of new growth opportunities for our business by enhancing the quality of our horizon scanning and network connections
  • Learning and Self-Development – Embracing continuous learning to identify the critical enablers of personal transformation and improve our resilience, responsiveness, flexibility, and problem solving abilities
  • Flexibility – Adapting to the volatility of the external environment and the uncertainty of forecasts through an approach of constant experimentation
  • Leadership – Developing the new leadership, management, organizational, and process design capabilities to operate in increasingly paperless digital world.

Global Forces and Scenarios
An overview of the major political, security, economic, socio-demographic environmental, scientific, technological, and commercial forces, trends, ideas and developments shaping the next 5-20 years and the scenarios that could emerge.

The Future Reinvented – Re-imagining Life, Society and Business
Drawing on this recent book, Rohit explores how our notions of the future are themselves being reinvented. He challenges us to re-imagine how life, society, key industries – and the conduct of business could be transformed by a combination of radical technological, scientific, social, and economic developments shaping the decade ahead. The Future Reinvented offers unique snapshots of different aspects of a future in which the very tenets of reality are undergoing deep and vital transformations. Rohit’s talks on The Future Reinvented cover transformations in life and society, industries, and business – and present holistic future scenarios that encourage strategic thinking about what lies beyond the hype.

Using a futurist perspective, The Future Reinvented offers glimpses of the future across a range of business sectors such as legal, automotive, and sales – as well as in different areas of everyday life including retirement, education, and health. Attendees are presented with vivid imagery which brings to life a number of different possible futures. These include workplace scenarios of people performing side by side with artificial intelligence or robotic colleagues; humans obtaining physical enhancements to become smarter, stronger, or more psychologically resilient – and strategies for how we might live in a “post-jobs world.” The presentation provides a powerful foundation for futures thinking – and scenario planning in both a personal and organizational context. Rohit also identifies early warning signals and signposts of critical emerging changes and developments on the horizon that could shape the next future.

THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS

Ensuring a Very Human Future of Business
In the face of accelerating change, the digitization of business and the rise of AI – how can businesses stand aside from the crowd and create successful people-centred strategies that will enable them to retain their differentiation and market edge?

Global Megatrends and the Future of Business, Work and the Workplace
What are the forces, technologies and ideas driving the future of business? What scenarios, strategies, business models, organizational approaches – and ways of working are emerging in response? How can we navigate our business in turbulent times – and build the capacity for rapid adaptation, experimentation and learning?

This talk is designed to help leaders from global corporations through to start-ups think about the future of business – and the changes in mindset and behaviour that will be required to navigate a fast-changing world. The next five years will see a revolution taking place in the way business is conducted. Powerful megatrends and exponentially advancing technologies are combining with disruptive new ideas – to drive radically new commercial strategies, business models, organization designs, and workplaces. The distinctions and boundaries will start to blur between large global firms and highly adaptive start-ups.

New business ecosystems will emerge, new relationships will develop between employers and employees – and technologies such as AI will transform our productivity and streamline our processes. Old jobs and roles will be automated, new ones will emerge and the best firms will harness technology to perform routine tasks – and free up their staff to focus on more creative and customer-focused activities that generate new opportunities. Indeed, over that timeframe, traditional notions of work and jobs might start to be challenged – as people find a different balance between employment and leisure time. Concepts such as guaranteed basic incomes and services, robot taxes – and ethical technology charters will all be part of the business agenda.

Innovating the Future
This highly tailored session explores the latest thinking and case examples on the innovation process – and how organizations are using innovation to respond to emerging trends and to help shape the future. Key topics include:

  • Current trends in innovation
  • Using foresight to shape the front end of innovation
  • Case examples of innovation from relevant sectors around the world
  • Exponential innovation – driving step-change improvements through radical ideas and smart solutions
  • Critical technologies enabling future innovation
  • Developing key innovation skills across the workforce
  • Embedding an innovation culture

Tapping the Opportunities in Industries of the Future
The global economy could grow from around US$78Tn to US$120Tn over the next 7-10 years. More than half of that growth will come from sectors and businesses that are only just emerging – or that have not yet been created. This represents an incredible opportunity for entrepreneurial start-ups and global corporations alike. Those who are willing to get close to these new sectors as they emerge could realize incredible growth opportunities – and secure their futures. From autonomous vehicles, drones, and intelligent assistants, through to synthetic materials, nanotechnology, and human enhancement – the growth potential is immense.

This talk will highlight a range of sectors that could grow to be worth US1Tn or more over the next decade – and highlight practical strategies for identifying and developing opportunities in these emerging industries. How can we change the mindset in the organization to develop innovative new offerings that support the changing needs of current businesses and consumers? How can we adapt to succeed in fledgling sectors? How can we harness new and emerging technologies to help in the pursuit of exponential innovation and growth?

The Future of Learning and Development
In this fast-paced talk, Rohit highlights how learning and talent development will become central to the future of business survival – and growth in a fast-changing world. His talk explores the key forces that are shaping the operating environment for business – and the implications for learning and development (L&D). Key topics covered include:

  • The forces of change shaping the future of business
  • The central role of L&D in helping organizations navigate and grow in a rapidly changing and uncertain business environment
  • How L&D strategies and approaches are evolving to support the needs of the learner
  • The growing integration of L&D and talent management
  • New theories of learning and approaches to L&D delivery – from nursery to adult education
  • The power of social learning
  • Key technologies such as AI that will become a growing part of learning ecosystems
  • Ensuring that technology is there to serve the learner
  • Raising digital literacy/technological awareness – and developing a ‘new world’ mind set across the business
  • Supporting self-directed learning – and the embedding of learning components in business applications and workflow tools
  • Evolving the culture of learning to meet future needs

Banking and Financial Services
Rohit leads a continuous programme of research on the future of financial services. He delivers keynote speeches around the world on current disruptions, emerging developments – and future scenarios for banking, investment, and financial services. These encompass everything from global change drivers, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Blockchain – through to FinTech, InvesTech, RegTech, InsureTech, PropTech, cryptocurrencies, asset class innovation, and investment trends.

The Future of Financial Services – Disruptive Trends Enabling Exponential Growth and Improvement
Rohit Talwar believes that while there is a lot of excitement about the current wave of digital innovation and Fintech ventures – they are unlikely to drive truly exponential growth. He will explain how the underlying disruptive technologies such as AI, Blockchain, and social media can offer the potential to facilitate genuinely exponential thinking to enable improvements in efficiency, customer acquisition rates, new products – and revenue growth. Key topics to be addressed include:

  • Driving forces for change
  • Understanding the current wave of FinTech ventures
  • How technologies such as AI and blockchain could evolve in the next five years – and the potential applications in banking in and financial services
  • The evolution of asset classes, mediums of value and exchange, stock markets – and trading platforms
  • Now and next in the evolution of cryptocurrencies, ICOs, Stablecoins – and the new distributed financial services
  • How disruptive technologies are enabling the transformation and creation of new industry sectors
  • How can financial services tap into the resulting exponential growth opportunity

The Future of Banking and Financial Services – Smart Strategies for an Open World
As the banking world dives deep deep deep into the Open Banking ocean to deliver the technology requirements and meet regulatory commitments, it is critical that we stand back and ensure to maintain clear sight of the big picture of how we want our organizations to evolve in a rapidly changing world – where there will be literally no fixed points around which to anchor our strategies. So how can we win in a game where the rules of play, the participants – and the game itself are changing constantly?

In this fast paced, entertaining, and highly thought provoking keynote speech, global futurist Rohit Talwar will help us to explore how the world beyond banking and financial services might continue to change and evolve in the next five years – and what this could mean for our strategies, business models, service offerings, organizational structures, human capabilities, and technology solutions. Key topics that could be explored would include:

  • Government and Regulation
  • Socio-Economics
  • The Distributed Future of Financial Services
  • Science and Technology
  • Tomorrow’s Customers
  • The Exponential Opportunity
  • Disruption to the Model
  • Ensuring A Very Human Future
  • Winning in Turbulence

EXPONENTIAL TECHNOLOGIES

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Other Emerging Technologies
What are they and how fast are they developing? What are the potential benefits, impacts and implications for society, business and government? What are other people doing with them? How should we start our journey with AI and other potentially disruptive emerging technologies? How can we address the broader strategic, organizational and human impacts and implications?

Beyond Genuine Stupidity – Ensuring AI Serves Humanity
This presentation draws on Fast Future’s recent book that explores critical emerging issues arising from the rapid pace of development in artificial intelligence (AI). Rohit argues for a forward looking and conscious approach to the development and deployment of AI – we must ensure that it genuinely serves humanity’s best interest. In his fast-paced and inspiring talks, Rohit presents a compelling case to get beyond the genuine stupidity of narrow, short term, and alarmist thinking – and look at AI from a long-term holistic perspective. The reality is that AI will impact current sectors and jobs – and hopefully enable new ones.

Rohit explains that a smart approach requires us to think about and experiment with strategies for adopting and absorbing the impacts of AI – encompassing education systems, reskilling the workforce, unemployment and guaranteed basic incomes, robot taxes, job creation, encouraging new ventures, research and development to enable tomorrow’s industries, and dealing with the mental health impacts. In his talks, Rohit presents a range of AI case examples – and explores the potential impacts on sectors ranging from healthcare and automotive, to legal and education. The implications for business itself are also examined from leadership and HR, to sales and business ethics.

Disruptive Exponential Technologies – The Next Five Years
Our lives, our societies, our businesses, and our countries are being transformed through the application of truly transformational technologies that are forcing us to rethink every aspect of life on the planet. However, the changes we’ve experienced so far are nothing compared to what could happen in the next five years – as exponentially advancing fields of science and technology start to combine and drive successive waves of disruption. This talk will highlight the expected advances, applications, and implications over the next five years – in critical fields such as AI, robotics, intelligent assistants, autonomous vehicles, Internet of Things, cloud computing, 5G, blockchain, cryptocurrency, cybersecurity, immersive media such as augmented and virtual reality, next generation computing, hyperconnectivity, 3D/4D printing, synthetic biology, human augmentation, vertical farming, DIY healthcare, automated construction, and new materials.

Wild Frontiers – The Future of the Internet
Rohit Talwar will explore how the internet could evolve over the next decade. He will highlight the key social, economic, commercial and technological forces and developments that will shape the operating environment – and then go on to examine how the capabilities, functionality and access modes for the internet could evolve. He will highlight possible scenarios for how the management and governance of the web could evolve – emphasizing the implications, challenges and choices for business, government, and the internet services sector.

An Immersion in the Augmented Future
The future is being shaped by powerful forces of change and this fast paced presentation will explore how they are shaping the future of business and society – and the role immersive technologies such as Augmented and Virtual Reality can play in helping us understand and respond to change. Key topics to be addressed will include:

  • Forces shaping the future of business and society
  • The impacts and potential of exponential technologies such as AI, immersive tools, blockchain, and the Internet of Things
  • How we can harness the power of immersive technologies to help us understand and prepare for a world in constant transformation
  • Creating a very human future – harnessing the technologies in service of people

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 Recent Publications

Rohit Talwar is a revelation - why is he not on our television screens every night? He is easily one of the most thought provoking presenters I have seen. He challenges everything we assume about technology & work - and has an incredible ability to draw non-intuitive insights from what is happening now and what might happen in the future.

Global Head of Finance Practice, DataArt

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