Kaila Colbin is the New Zealand Ambassador for Singularity University (SU). SU is by no means your standard university. This corporation was set up to educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity's grand challenges.
Since its inception, SU has empowered individuals from more than 85 countries to apply exponentially growing technologies, such as biotechnology, artificial intelligence and neuroscience, to address humanity’s grand challenges: education, energy, environment, food, health, poverty, security, space and water.
Tell us a little about what you do?
I'm the New Zealand Ambassador for Singularity University, co-founder and Chair of the non-profit Ministry of Awesome, and the Curator of TEDxChristchurch. I'm also Chairman of the Board of the New York-based Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts, Deputy Chair of CORE Education Ltd, and a member of the Advisory Board for Te Pūtahi - Christchurch centre for architecture and city-making.
What are you currently working on?
I'm working on the upcoming SingularityU New Zealand Summit happening November 14-16, and on TEDxChristchurch coming up in October.
Tell us more about your role as the New Zealand Ambassador for Singularity University
I attended their executive programme, and was so moved by what I learned there, and so overwhelmed by its importance to our lives, that I wanted to share it with as many people as possible in New Zealand.
In the past year and a half, I've given dozens of public talks to introduce people to the concept of exponential technologies. Now we're bringing a Summit to New Zealand - essentially a condensed version of the exec programme I did - so hundreds of people can get the kind of deep immersion in this content we need to be able to act on it.
Why did you decide to bring the Singularity University Summit to New Zealand?
I came away from Singularity University with a sense of profound responsibility and urgency to bring this to New Zealand. I like to say I swallowed the red pill and washed it down with Kool-Aid…
Humanity is kind of unprepared for what lies ahead, and we can't get prepared until we start to grasp how much we're going to be impacted by these technologies, and how quickly.
What can we expect to see at the Summit?
The Summit will be a three-day exploration of a future that is already here. We'll go into a range of accelerating technologies: self-driving cars, biotechnology, networks, artificial intelligence, and more. We'll also do some deep dives into "So what?", with sessions on the future of crime, the future of work, the future of education, the ethics of technology, and the grand challenges that face humanity.
The aim of the Summit is to give people a robust enough immersion in this content that we can start to have the really thorny conversations: what are the ethics of self-driving cars? What kinds of policies and regulatory framework do we need? Do we need to adopt a Minimum Basic Income to deal with technological unemployment? And if so, what are the philosophical implications of a world without work?
How important is it that we start learning about exponential technology – artificial intelligence, robotics, and nanotechnology, for example – to solve global problems?
It's essential. Not because technology can solve every problem, not by a long shot. But I think anyone looking to solve problems has to understand the surrounding context and available resources. Thanks to exponential technologies, our context is changing rapidly and so are the resources available to us.
What advice would you give entrepreneurs hoping to enter the exponential technologies space?
Get started! Nothing is holding you back.
What book/s should everyone read?
Not a book, but I highly recommend Wait But Why's two-part series on artificial intelligence, and his four-part series on Elon Musk.
Who keeps you grounded?
My partner! Thank goodness for him. And my stepsons. Recently I was having a conversation with the youngest -he's just turned 3. I said, "You're cool." He replied, "YOU'RE cool." So I said, "You're awesome." And he replied, "You're dumb." Hard to maintain an ego in the face of that kind of brutal honesty.
What do you do to relax?
I watch US late-night political comedy. Although Trump is so horrible that it hasn't been particularly relaxing.
If you could invite three people to dinner who would they be?
Elon Musk, John Oliver and Samantha Bee. And Barack Obama. And Justin Trudeau.
What is your top life hack?
It's not a "life hack" in the sense of a shortcut, but I find that forcing myself to have conversations I'd prefer to avoid is one of the most productive, powerful things I can do.