A New Age of Reason

Leverage technology to propel humankind toward a better future

A New Age of Reason: Harnessing the Power of Tech for Good provides a roadmap for integrating emerging world-changing technologies, such as AI/robotics, chips/sensors, and quantum computing, to solve some of today’s thorniest and most pressing problems like climate change and world hunger.

The author offers inspiring examples of companies using technology to positively impact humanity. The book provides an actionable playbook to transform your organization around this mission, including how to develop a tech for good strategy, how to evolve the C Suite to deliver on this mission, how to market it, as well as measure outcomes. The author also discusses the latest technology breakthroughs delivering positive world outcomes, such as:

• Extending a surgeon’s “eyes and hands” via robotics surgical systems to improve patient outcomes
• Computer vision tech that enables farmers to maximize crops to feed our burgeoning population
• AI/robotics that identify and fight wildfires

Bringing together a collective of major thinkers on this subject and providing guidance for a better future, A New Age of Reason: Harnessing the Power of Tech for Good is a timely read for all executive leaders seeking to harness the new wave of technology to solve key societal problems and have a positive impact on the world.

Foreword vii

Introduction xi

Part 1 Technology, Humanity, and a New Age of Reason 1

Chapter 1 A New Wave of Technology to Better Humanity 3

Chapter 2 Agtech and Deere: Tech for Good at Its Best 7

Chapter 3 Technology and the Planet 19

Chapter 4 Innovations for a Healthier Population 35

Chapter 5 Timing Is Everything 47

Part 2 The Potential for Great Leaps 57

Chapter 6 The Seventh Wave of Modern Computing 59

Chapter 7 AI Enriching the Human Experience 73

Chapter 8 Chips and Sensors Everywhere 87

Chapter 9 The Promise of Quantum Computing 97

Chapter 10 Sustainably Powering Our Future 111

Chapter 11 The Surging Biological Systems Wave 127

Chapter 12 Harnessing Technology’s Potential 141

Part 3 Humanity and Technology: The Path Forward 147

Chapter 13 Becoming a Tech for Good Organization 149

Chapter 14 Key Questions to Find Your Pathway 157

Chapter 15 Has Marketing Disappeared? 163

Chapter 16 Putting Innovations on the Path of Good 171

Chapter 17 A Time for Reason 187

Acknowledgments 193

About the Author 195

Notes 197

Index 215

LARRY WEBER is a successful entrepreneur, thought leader, author, and founder of several global marketing companies. He is founder, chairman, and CEO of Racepoint Global, an integrated marketing services agency headquartered in Boston, and founder of Weber Shandwick, a leading global communications firm.

We’re in the midst of a new wave of technology—one that’s ushering our world to an entirely new era. The past several decades have been defined by many technology waves, which transformed business operations and productivity, personal computing, connectivity, the web, social media, and the internet of just about everything. This new wave stands apart because technology has finally evolved to impact a much higher purpose: humanity. This book addresses the amazing opportunity and pressing responsibility we must embrace to use technology to benefit our world, while applying the right guardrails ensuring innovations are not used to society’s detriment.

Current breakthroughs in AI, quantum computing, chips/sensors, new energy forms, and biological systems have been evolving over decades to reach this point. These technologies create the foundation for breakthroughs holding promise to answer some of today’s most pressing problems, from climate change to better health. They can impact our world in ways never before possible, all of which has moved us into this new era: A New Age of Reason.

Just as science and technology were driving forces in the original Age of Reason to better humanity through inventions such as vaccines and the first battery, we must embark this time with the goal of using technology, reason, and the spark of imagination to solve problems that until now appeared unsolvable.

You’ll read about great innovators past and present, be inspired by stories of organizations transformed by tech for good, learn common threads that fuel their success, and get an overview of key technologies that are the driving forces of this era.

A must-read for CEOs, executives, and future leaders, A New Age of Reason provides a roadmap on how to leverage today’s innovations to unite purpose with profit, have a positive impact on humanity, and deliver a profound change in the world.

Praise for A NEW AGE OF REASON

“In our current times it can often be difficult to see a better future. This windshield wiper of a book clears away the fog and the mist, enabling leaders to see how technology will solve big, seemingly intractable problems, and improve the world for everyone.”
— George F. Colony, CEO, Forrester

“We stand at a critical tipping point in which technology now has the capacity to solve some of our most vexing problems. This is true in medicine, climate change, and other important realms. This book illustrates the ‘how,’ giving today’s executives the mindset and approach needed to embrace this critical clarion call.”
— Patrick Wheeler, Executive Director, Center for Digital Strategies at The Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

“This book needs to be widely read, especially among college students and new professionals. Too often contemporary conversations drip with cynicism and nihilism. Weber tells a powerful story about the promise for the next wave of technology to give us the tools to address some of our most pressing problems. Doing so requires replacing fear with creativity and focusing our imagination through, what Weber calls, the Three Es of ethics, engagement, and evolution. Weber lays out a pathway that we all need to hear, embrace, and follow.”
— Adam S. Weinberg, President, Denison University

“Throughout history, new knowledge and technology have been the drivers of human progress. Today, their potential is magnitudes greater, as humanity stands in the midst of multiple great revolutions in science and technology—biotech, digital, AI, the data tsunami, autonomous systems, and nanotechnology. They are unleashing unprecedented waves of innovation at accelerating speed, holding the potential to solve some of our greatest challenges in areas such as food, water, energy, climate, and health. This book shows how these technologies are generating game-changing applications for a giant leap into a brilliant future.”
— Deborah Wince-Smith, President and CEO, Council on Competitiveness

“Purpose and profit are not opposites. No great company was ever founded, or sustained, without an authentic purpose. A New Age of Reason provides a clear path for the journey of uniting purpose and profit to forge stronger ties with customers, attract talent, and build a great brand.”
— Mark Fuller, Co-founder of the Monitor Group, now known as Monitor Deloitte