Ignacio Peña, Singularity University, Xprize, Wharton With Futurist Ian Khan

by Ian Khan | Feb 10, 2021 | Ian Khan Blog, Ian Khan's Blog, Podcast

Ignacio Peña, Singularity University, XPRIZE, Wharton with Futurist Ian Khan

In this episode, i speak with Ignacio Peña

Bio

Ignacio Peña is a strategist, an innovator, an advisor and an international speaker. He founded Surfing Tsunamis, a catalyst of abundance, inclusion and regeneration based on the power of transformational innovation. Recent initiatives range from putting in motion Open Space (the youth space program), designing a 35 acre innovation park in the heart of a mega-city and proposing a global Inclusion Moonshot to G20 leaders, to supporting senior leaders to reinvent global organizations and helping highly disruptive entrepreneurs to launch their startups. Ignacio catalyzed the first major Singularity University event in Latin America, co-founded a leading angel investor fund in Argentina, with a portfolio of over 20 disruptive global startups (one of which is already a multi-billion dollar unicorn), and created the first MOOC focused on technology entrepreneurship in Latin America.

Previously, Ignacio worked for over 15 years as strategic consultant for leading corporations, governments, NGOs and associations. He was Partner and Managing Director of The Boston Consulting Group based in Brazil and at Booz & Co. He executed over 100 projects in more than a dozen sectors, was involved in M&A transactions worth over US$5B and has deep experience in strategy, innovation, corporate development and large-scale transformations.

Ignacio is Lecturer at the Wharton School and was selected Bold Innovator at XPRIZE in 2016, when he designed a global prize to make nutritious food ultra-affordable everywhere. He published articles in a range of international media, including the Huffington Post and the Financial Times. He holds an MSc in Economics from UCA, an MBA from the Wharton School, an MA in International Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

About After Shock

The world’s foremost futurists reflect on 50 years of Future Shock—and look ahead to the next 50

Contributors include:

Alan Kay
Aaron Frank
Adrienne Mayor
Alexander Mankowsky
Alexandra Ivanovitch
Alisha Bhagat
Amy Zalman
Anders Sorman-Nilsson
Andra Keay
Andrew Curry
Andy Hines
Anita Sengupta
Anne Lise Kjaer
Aris Persidis
Aubrey de Grey
Barry O’Reilly
Barry Vacker
Bill Davidow
Bill Diamond
Bryan Alexander
Byron Reese
Carlos Osorio
Carver Mead
Cat Tully
Cindy Frewen
Clem Bezold
Daniel Burrus
Daniel Levine
David Brin
David Guston
David Krakauer
David J. Staley
David Weinberger
Deb Westphal
Diane M. Francis
Donna Dupont
Eleanor “Nell” Watson
Eric Daimler
Erica Bol
Erik Qualman
Fotis Sotiropoulos
George Gilder
Grady Booch
Gray Scott
Hannes Sjoblad
Harish Natarajan
Hazel Henderson
Helen Messier
Ian Khan
Ignacio Pena
Jack Uldrich
James Canton
Jane McGonigal
Jason Jackson
Jason Schenker
Jay Gambetta
Jeff Eisenach
Jeffrey C. Bauer
Jerome Glenn
Jerry Fishenden
Joe Dispenza
Joe Tankersley
Joel Garreau
John L. Petersen
John M. Smart
John Sack
John Sanei
John Schroeter
Jonathan Venn
José Morey
Kaitlyn Sadtler
Kirk Borne
Klee Irwin
Kris Østergaard
Lisa Bodell
Maciej Kranz
Martin Guigui
Martin Rees
Maggie Greyson
Michael Tomczyk
Michel Laberge
Mick Ebeling
Moon Ribas
Naveen Jain
Neil Jacobstein
Newt Gingrich
Patricia Lustig & Gill Ringland
Paul Saffo
Paul Stimers
Po Bronson & Arvind Gupta
Ray Kurzweil
Rebecca Costa
Richard Browning
Richard Slaughter
Richard Watson
Richard Yonck
Rodrigo Nieto Gómez
Rohit Bhargava
Ross Dawson
Ruth Miller
Sanjiv Chopra & Pankaj K Vij
Sohail Inayatullah
Sridhar Mahadevan
Stan Rosen
Stephanie Mehta
Steve Waite
Tanya Accone
Terrence (Terry) Sejnowski
Teun Koetsier
Theodore Jay Gordon
Thomas Frey
Timothy Chou
Vikram Mansharamani
Wolfgang Fengler
Zoltan Istvan

Publication Details
ISBN Print: 978-0-9997364-4-9
ISBN eBook: 978-0-9997364-5-6

Full Transcript : Hi friends this is Ian Khan and you’re listening to the Ian Khan show. This is an aftershock special episode and I’m speaking with a co contributor to the recent book aftershock. I’m speaking with Ignacio Pena today and he’s a strategist and investor and international speaker strategic advisor to senior leaders, startups, corporations and governments. He’s also the founder and CEO of surfing tsunamis a catalyst of abundance, inclusion and regeneration through high impact initiatives and transformational innovation NAS who is also lecturer at Wharton and faculty at Singularity University.

Let’s speak with Ignacio Ignacio Pena Welcome to the Ian Khan show a very warm welcome and you are in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Tell us how is life down there because I am freezing here in Canada. beautiful weather. Very happy to be here with you. Excellent. So Ignacio, just for our viewers. This conversation is happening because you and I both are part of Aftershock this amazing book that john Schroeder put together 50 other futurists from the world are part of this. They have written their thoughts ideas about Alvin Toffler, Heidi Toffler, their book Future Shock, and really what the future is all about unprecedented change. And we’re living in that era of unprecedented change today. 2020 has been marked as the year off, I’m marking it as a Europe of COVID-19. And this is one of the biggest changes that I believe has occurred in humanity. Let’s talk about Toffler, let’s talk about the future. Let’s talk about things that we can change and things we should look forward to in the future. Tell me a little bit about yourself. I’ve read your article in the book. And the book starts off with Where there is no vision the people perish. Proverbs 2918 that’s the start off your chapter. Tell us your relationship with change. Fantastic. Let me tell you a little bit about myself. And the way I see the future. Then I studied economics, I worked for 15 years in strategy consulting firms at Booz Allen Hamilton and then for 2030 years at the Boston Consulting Group based in Brazil, leading the strategy practice area in Latin America and working for that period with about 100 in 100 project for large corporate clients focused mostly on on growth strategies. Then the last 10 years, I came back to George and Tina and I’ve been working focused on innovation. Basically, I came back to India, so the country in very bad shape, and that’s myself, okay, how can I get back? How can I contribute? If I don’t do that? Why would expect anybody else to do it? Because I’m in a privileged position. So for several years, I’ve worked for free on trying to find an answer worries hope for a country like Argentina, where is hope for a region like Latin America and the Caribbean? And basically, the answer that I came up with was it suddenly it’s not in raw materials, hope, I think that that faces makes a massive tsunami of change, like climate change, aging population, fast pace automation comes from the massive technology revolution that we are seeing unfold, powered by exponential technologies like artificial intelligence, mobile, telecommunications, synthetic biology, free printing, face technology, things like this. And basically, what I saw was that the cost of innovation has fallen dramatically, and access to global markets has increased and today’s accessible by anyone, every everywhere. So basically, what I saw was that there was an opportunity to catalyze a better future for Latin America. And and also, I think that is applicable for the world, I see the opportunity for a future of abundance, inclusion and regeneration, so dramatically improving our standard of living eradicating poverty and creating a more inclusive society and turning the clock back on environmental destruction. I am basically I’ve been working the basket that 10 years to catalyze that future by transforming and helping to transform a Latin American region of innovation, and also by working to activate the industries of the future. But I think that many of the challenges that America faces today are also faced by other Western countries like like the United States and Europe, I think that we have a massive opportunity ahead. And we’re really not tackling it in a proper way. I think that we should really be bolder in terms of embracing the change that is coming. And basically, in terms of what we see today, you were mentioning the COVID crisis. I agree with you it is a significant challenge. But but it’s only a prologue of the change that is coming our way. I think it’s a perfect case for future shock. I think that change is unfolding at a faster pace than we can recognize or actually adapt to. And this is, I think, a case of Future Shock. And I would argue that the way out of users are the antidote for a future show is hope and empathy and and sort of a bold vision that allows us to come out of those holes, serve those tsunamis that are coming our way and build a better future together. Incredible. Thank you so much, that really summarizes a lot of things and helps it ends Stand where you’ve come from now you’ve also been part of X PRIZE you you have a few initiatives that are on your website as well. Tell us about that. Yeah. So basically in this 10 years as a catalyst, I’ve been doing lots of things I invested in 25 startups together with friends and we, I mean, out of that we already have one unicorn and others that may become unicorns. I help policymakers to mean design strategies of how to turn one Osiris into a hub for innovation, entrepreneurship and technology and faculty at Singularity University. I helped singularity to do some of the first events in Latin America and internationally Actually, I’m also lecturer at Wharton. And I’m basically do a course together with a friend and a professor from Wharton called no Kapoor, we do a course on technology, entrepreneurship, and innovation in Latin American in Argentina, and Chile now, specifically, and now I’m an advisor, also to startups and to other corporations. And I did work with with experts. Basically, I gathered together a group of 35 people, we all put some money. And we basically work together with XPrize to design a concept that I then scale to another level in a proposal for the G 20. And the concept was basically the abundance games which appear in a global competition to basically put the power of innovation at the service of the most vulnerable by catalyzing innovations that would make fresh, nutritious food affordable everywhere. But then not not just food, but also other concepts. So with the sign that concept, it hasn’t been turned into a reality yet. But as I mentioned, I later took that concept and presented it an even bolder idea, which was the inclusion moonshot for the mean, during the Z 20. organization here in Buenos Aires, unfortunately, it didn’t turn out into a reality, but I keep working on it. Yeah. So basically, I see an opportunity to pull the power of innovation at the service of this patient of inclusion, abundance, inclusion and regeneration, you talk a lot about and you just mentioned it as well, you talk about hope and empathy. So let’s talk about that. You know, today, we are definitely look at technology as a big enabler to do many things, whether it’s, you know, utilizing the power of data, and then doing something with AI technology, blockchain chain technology, whatever technology to extract value from data, we can look at automation, we’re looking at so many different things that are hopefully planned, many entrepreneurs are working on it. You know, you mentioned the unicorn and unicorns and stuff. What about hoping empathy? Do you believe that technology and the fact that future sharp, the rapid change of things is lacks empathy and hope? I think that doesn’t necessarily lack empathy and hope? When you see, for example, Elon Musk, creating SpaceX and Tesla, I think his basic premise or question was, what is the most positive thing or contribution that AI can do for humanity. And that has led to amazing results. And I would argue that is sort of the purpose driven, Human Centered sort of approach is that I think we should have I think that we should not fall into sort of idolatry of technology as technology will save us think that technology offers us incredible tools. And I would argue sort of the paintings and the brushes that we need to paint a better future. But in order to make a masterpiece of the future, I think that we have to put, we have to have a human centered you. And if you look at me, in a very pragmatic view, at work innovation community is doing right now, I think that in a way it is doing that, when, for example, we see design thinking, which is an empathy driven sort of methodology, a flourish. So I think that it’s there. But I think that we could put it more in the center, and we could translate it also into public policies and into bolder patience. I think that he could also be more at the center of sort of corporations that are acquired large corporations, which I think that by large, have have lost sight of their purpose and need to rethink their purpose in the new context. In the next decade, we’re going to see more change that humanity has ever seen, unless you step back and sort of you think about how this creation, this corporation can be useful for people and can really improve lives in the most positive way, I think that it’s unlikely that you’re going to find the strength to renew that company. So at any rate, it’s empathy and hope a but within sort of the market driven societies. I think that the possibilities there, the reality is there. But but I think we I mean, we could have I mean, if we want to step out of sort of fear, a place of fear and sort of lack of hope. We need to think about how we can be useful for others and also touch base with the fact that there are people that are in a much worse position that we are, so people are afraid of coming out, for example of their houses fine, I understand that I think we should stay home and be safe. But at the same time, we should remember that, for example, the policies that are lockdown policies that we’re implementing are expected to increase the number of hunger deaths these days. From 150 million to 265 million 430 million people are going to die for from hunger only this year due to loose economic policies. And I would argue that, that if we looked at this with empathy and we thought about those people, then we would probably look for solutions that take those people into consideration and Modi in a better place. So you’ve said that 135 million people across the world are going to die because of hunger this year in 2020 135 million, an additional 130 5 million. So the expectation is it will go from 130 million to 265. Approximately, let’s start with 130. The lower point 130 million, we’re also living in the era of COVID-19, 2020, we cannot ignore it COVID-19 has been everywhere. And although it’s a pandemic, that’s claiming a lot of lies, I think worldwide, the toll is around 150, less than 200,000, isn’t it? America is at 80,000 right now, plus the others from Europe, you know, 150,000, approximately, and the coverage that COVID-19 is getting is it has taken over everybody’s life. We all are checking the News, the news is talking about COVID-19 24. Seven, how how can we even compare that with 135 million lives that are lost every year? But we don’t hear about it? And why is that? I mean, if you look at the massive problems that humanity is facing things like climate change, like aging population, I would argue sort of drug addictions, I mean, all these things have to do with selfishness that way they generate or too much debt in the world has to do with a generation that has sort of, in a way mortgage the future without consideration for the next generation, right. So everything is valid in order to optimize your present. And as indeed, it has been doing that for 90 years. And the results have been horrendous. Yeah, a way to come out of that is to think about our children, and to think about, okay, how can we leave a better future for them? I would, I would argue that that sort of empathy. And when we think about sort of hunger, as you were saying, We’re not talking about that, I would, I would argue that that’s lack of empathy. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, they’re, they’re dying, but they’re far away. And it’s not okay. You know, it’s not okay. You also talk about the concept of air. I really like it. Tell our viewers a little bit about your concept of air. Yes. So I mean, in a time of crisis, we all feel sort of suffocating. It’s like, a thing that I would argue that humanity needs Air and Air is abundance, inclusion and regeneration. And it connects back to what you were saying, people without a vision shall perish. I think this is something that we known for 1000s of years. And today, we’re lacking this vision, we’re lacking sort of the Apollo program kind of mindset of let’s go for the moon. But let’s go for the moon in terms of creating a better society create a better society, not by going to socialism, or things that have failed. But by using the power of innovation to create this future of abundance, inclusion and regeneration in terms of abundance, we have an opportunity to make a step change in productivity, and basically unlock growth engines that can add three to 5% growth per year. And if you take one example, artificial intelligence, I mean, it’s supposed to mean has the potential to add 1% of GDP growth per year for the coming years 1.2% that compares to 0.3% of the steam engine. And so it’s several times more powerful than the steam engine. And it makes sense because I mean, the steam engine basically allowed us to augment our muscle that artificial intelligence will help us to augment our brains, right? So add to that the possibility of digital services of telework on a massive scale. Add to that things like intrapreneur innovation add to that electric mobility in renewable energies, synthetic biology, and so for industry 4.0 and you have the possibility to create a future of abundance. Yeah, then let’s take inclusion. In terms of inclusion, we could make basic necessities several times cheaper than than what they are today. So take food for example, imagine the impact that for example, alternative proteins is going to have which require much less land much less water than traditional agriculture is going to have in terms of making meet and basic commodities, food commodities more affordable. Or imagine, for example, creating applications that would allow I mean, most of the people that have hungry today are smallholder farmers in Africa or Asia. Imagine creating artificial intelligence applications or applications in smartphones that will be accessible to these people that allow them to apply permacultural techniques like having an assistant that teaches them how to walk them step by step to create a sort of to apply these these techniques that we know can produce abundance of food, even in harsh environments, so that they can multiply their yields without having tractors or fertilizers or things like this and in terms of regeneration, if you think about the power of renewables, solar win. But then also compact fusion, for example, combat nuclear fusion, if you think about the power of bioplastic. So we have the possibility to actually turn the clock back and heal them by when I mean electric cars today are already cheaper if you don’t take the perspective of total car ownership, total cost of ownership are cheaper than conventional cars, and they’re going to become much cheaper. So this vision of air is possible is just that there are massive resistances to this change. And sometimes there is also the lack of strategic planning and sort of a productive road to make those things happen. I think Ignacio also mentioned that, you know, you’re an investor and you work with startup companies. And I really believe the future is in the hands of companies and innovators that are solving some big problems with the simplest of solutions, right? That’s I mean, simplicity is the key. But it’s also addressing these problems that nobody’s looking at. You also mentioned a little bit of that in, in your chapter and aftershock where you’re talking about technologies, such as 5g technologies in Africa that are making a change on the ground in Latin America, tell us a little bit about what are you seeing happening in the startup ecosystem, generally, not just as an investor, but as an innovator yourself and as an investor as well, like, what is going on there? Well, if you look at there’s a global startup revolution taking place. And basically we’re seeing sort of innovation come out of Silicon Valley, and spread throughout the United States, we have seen the emergence of several sort of startup ecosystems in places like New York or in Colorado or in Miami, there’s also a new ecosystem, there are many places that were throughout the United States where this is happening, but also outside outside of the US. So clearly, in Israel, this began I mean, early Israel has been sort of a an early starter in this. But then, if you look at China, for example, to a Chinese is, has a venture capital industry that is similar to the US. And this has happened over the course of 10 years. And thinking is happening, although I am sad to say that a smaller scale, in Latin America, I mean, Latin America, the venture capital ecosystem has multiplied is growing at 100% per year today is at about a $4 billion, the potential is four $400 billion per year. And we already have clear demonstrations of sort of the the potential of the ecosystem to create value at a large scale. So we have for example, Mercado Libre, which is worth around $40 billion, and basically, is a company out of Wuhan Osiris, that when people come to the water, students come to see this, they can believe it. It’s really, really a massive company. And they’re just starting, or if you look at, for example, so the logic, a company that I’m collaborating with, I helped to sort of do their friend to do some of their first rounds and an investor also, and then they basically, and they’re three blocks away from my house here in Palermo. And basically, they they created satellites cost hundreds of 1000s of dollars instead of hundreds of millions of dollars. And they’ve been doing that this for several years. They were very good. I think that’s something like 12 satellites in space, but they’re creating a constellation of over 200 satellites in space to provide high resolution imagery of every point on the earth. Yeah, near real time. So basically, what we’re seeing is that even in sort of deep tech spaces, it is possible to innovate from a remote places in economic environments like Argentina, so if it can be done in Argentina can be done anywhere. Yeah, excellent. And I think that gives the opportunity for emerging countries to rethink their position in the world. I would argue that we’re seeing this happening in China. If you look at sort of the growth engines that I was mentioning there, I would say there are 10 growth chains, like things like e commerce, like mobile payments, artificial intelligence, we say this, renewables, you see that China has been very strategically taking an unfair share of each of industry industries, due to strategic foresight. And I think that it’s very important that the rest of the world sort of catches up with this mindset and begins to claim their share of the future, putting the future on top of the past. So giving priority to the future rather than the past. I want to talk a little bit about how digital transformation and we’ve been hearing digital transformation for years. I mean, it’s unbelievable sometimes to think that we’re still using so much paper in industries or there’s so much inefficiency in many different industries from accounting to banking to health care, name it, there’s inefficiency in the system, no matter what technologies such as, say blockchain are pushing the limit a little bit to help us accelerate or a very simple example is just digital, you know, conferencing, web conferencing, many people are now jumping on board and people are working remote. So this this whole era of digital revolution is now being accelerated because humanity is being pressured or humanity’s being pushed in a certain direction by COVID-19, especially in 20 2020. Tell our viewers, give us your piece on what digital transformation should mean like, should companies jump into digital solutions? Can we trust digital solutions, many startups are creating new platforms and stuff, I want our viewers to understand that there’s a sea of solutions out there, and it’s time to jump into it. Absolutely, there are people who think that rises will be sort of an opportunity to go back to the past. And I think that it’s on the contrary, in every three, one of the fields that I mentioned, what we’re seeing is sort of the future a coming faster than than before. So if you see, for example, the share of ecommerce over retail sales in the US, we’re seeing a massive jump, if we see telework, I mean, we see soon the platform that we’re using multiplied by 30, the number of users in less than six months. So we’re seeing these in a VC renewables, they’re not taking such a big hit as, as fossil fuels, if we see automation is actually accelerating the demand for sort of electric cars. And I mean, in all these areas, we’re seeing sort of the future and a plane at fast forward speed. Okay. So I think that it’s if the case was there, in the past, it’s only grown bigger. But I would argue that that digital transformation is really probably not the best the best concept we did a course a few years back in Miami with several owners and CEOs of some of the largest groups in Latin America. And we spoke about sort of disruptive innovation, but also digital transformation. And when we saw when we were discussing digital transformation, I would say that the energy level was lower versus when when we think in terms of techniques and sort of disruptive innovation. And I think that is the problem with digital transformation is that it’s maybe not bold enough in the sense that sometimes people take digital transformation for as being a Oh, I’ll do the same thing as in the past, but I’ll do it in a digital channel, and then you’re not really getting it, what you need to think about is that your entire industry and the boundaries of your industry are going to be redefined. And you have to sort of look at your the playing field in a new way and suddenly take into consideration that digital is taking over the world. I mean, take an example. ecommerce, take another example, digital payments. This is just beginning. But it’s I mean, it’s going to explode also realize that sometimes emerging countries, even in Africa are ahead of developing countries in this space. So for example, Kenya is ahead of the US in terms of the penetration of mobile payments relative to GDP, China is way ahead of the US in terms of mobile payments. And this also allows us to have more synergy about the fact that this is coming. So first of all, we have to realize that this is coming in a huge way. It’s coming faster than than what we imagined. And you need to take digital transformation in a sort of a disruptive way in a in a way that is very fundamental and totally redefined the way that you work and centered on the idea that software is eating the world and this technology, exponential technologies allow us to redefine all the industries. So if you’re not going to be disrupting, you’re going to be disrupted. Absolutely. If you’re not disrupting you’re going to be disrupted. So we’re out of time. I really appreciate you jumping on board on the Ian Khan show. Tell us where our viewers and listeners can find you. If you have a website. My website is suffering genomics.com and you can also find me in my email address is a P and a dot A Ignacio IGN a [email protected] all right pena [email protected]. Ignacio, thank you so much. Stay safe. And I hope you’re able to join us again in the future. I really appreciate your time. Goodbye from us and enjoy your time. And thank you so much. Thank you and I look forward to another opportunity and it was a big pleasure. You’re very welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Ignacio. Hey, friend, this is Ian Khan. If you like what you saw on my video, then please subscribe to my YouTube channel and be inspired every single day with innovative content that keeps you fresh, updated and ready for the future. For more information. Also visit my website at Ian khan.com

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