CEO Futures Briefing: Saving the Internet and mushroom packaging

Insights April 19th, 2021

Each week Nikolas Badminton curates a weekly list of insights and learnings for progressive executives, world leaders and foresight practitioners – CEO Futures Briefing: Saving the Internet and mushroom packaging

This week we look at Tim Berners-Lee’s plan to save the Internet (good luck with that), the whitest ever paint, mushroom packaging replacing styrofoam, space tourism, and the relentless music creators Pomplamoose.

Also featured is an insightful interview on the Exponential Minds Podcast with Rotem Petranker who talks about the psychedelic renaissance and the importance of open science.

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If you have questions about these things we’re sharing, or a challenge with seeing the futures for you and your organization? Reach out to speak with Nikolas today to arrange a time to talk.

Three articles to read

Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee thinks his creation is out of control. Here’s his plan to save it

In 1989, while tinkering with a system to share scientific notes, a 34-year-old CERN scientist named Tim Berners-Lee invented something that would change everything. You might have heard of it: the World Wide Web. Fast-forward three decades and 4.57 billion users later, he’s on a mission to save his creation. Specifically, save it from a mounting privacy problem.

However, after years lobbying others to take charge, Berners-Lee himself is trying to turn our online world upside-down (or, as he says, “the right way up”). His idea: Solid, a new system aiming to drastically decentralise the web. At its core, it’s a platform allowing you to store your private information in Personal Online Data Stores (PODS) which you have full power and sight over.

Whitest-ever paint could help cool heating Earth, study shows

The whitest-ever paint has been produced by academic researchers, with the aim of boosting the cooling of buildings and tackling the climate crisis.

The new paint reflects 98% of sunlight as well as radiating infrared heat through the atmosphere into space. In tests, it cooled surfaces by 4.5C below the ambient temperature, even in strong sunlight. The researchers said the paint could be on the market in one or two years.

White-painted roofs have been used to cool buildings for centuries. As global heating pushes temperatures up, the technique is also being used on modern city buildings, such as in Ahmedabad in India and New York City in the US.

Saudi Arabia Plans to Plant 50 BILLION Trees – And Reduce Carbon Emissions by 60%

Home to some of the world’s largest, driest, and hottest shifting-sand deserts, Saudi Arabia is uniquely placed to suffer from rising global temperatures, as are their Gulf neighbors.

The Green Saudi and Green Middle East initiatives aim to take the crown of the world’s largest tree-planting effort—50 billion across the Arab states, as well as efforts at home to more than double the size of the Kingdom’s protected areas, and create an enormous drive for green energy that would reduce global carbon emissions by 8% and domestic emissions by 60%.

Three videos to watch

Could Mushroom Packaging Replace Styrofoam?

A biotech company in upstate New York – ECOVATIVE – designs products made from the root structures of mushrooms. It takes about a week to grow their alternative to styrofoam packaging. And their vegan meat can be sliced into whole cuts and crisps up like bacon when fried.

SPACE TOURISTS with Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker

Nikolas Badminton talks to Jeff Sammut on SIRIUS XM’s Canada NOW about civilian space travel and the evolution of the space tourism business.

Pomplamoose is a Weird “Band”

Pomplamoose is not a normal band. I made this documentary to show you the people, process and money behind Patreon CEO Jack Conte’s weird and wonderful band. Music and content machines.

A conversation that counts

Each week we dig into the archives of all of the interviews Nikolas has undertaken with the insightful and entertaining Exponential Minds Podcast. This week we feature Rotem Petranker who talks about the psychedelic renaissance and the importance of open science

The last word…

“We have art in order not to die of reality.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

About Nikolas Badminton

Nikolas Badminton is the Chief Futurist at futurist.com and a world-renowned futurist speaker, consultant, researcher, and media producer. He helps trillion-dollar companies, progressive governments and the media shift their mindset from “what is” to “WHAT IF…” The result is empowered employees, new innovative products and incredible growth that leads to more revenues and a more resilient future.

Nikolas advised Robert Downey Jr.’s team for the ‘Age of A.I.’ documentary series, starred in ‘SMART DRUGS – a Futurist’s journey into biohacking’, and features on CTV, Global News, Sirius XM regularly. His mind-expanding research and opinion can be found on BBC, VICE, The Atlantic, Fast Company, Techcrunch, Business Insider, Huffington Post, Forbes, Sputnik and Venturebeat.

Nikolas provides the opening chapter – ‘Start with Dystopia’ in a new book – ‘The Future Starts Now: Expert Insights into the Future of Business, Technology and Society’ for Bloomsbury. He is currently researching and writing a new book that equips executives and world leaders with insights and foresight tools to imagine disruption, strengthen strategic planning, and see unforeseen risks.Nikolas is a Fellow of The Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures and Commerce – The RSA. The organization has been at the forefront of significant social impact for over 260 years with notable past fellows including Charles Dickens, Benjamin Franklin, Stephen Hawking, Nelson Mandela, and Tim Berners-Lee.