DLD Conference

We’re witnessing the largest loss of life since the age of the dinosaurs. “Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history”, the United Nations warn, as species extinction rates are accelerating. The loss of entire life forms is clearly the second great drama of nature that defines our time, along with climate change. Why bother? Because biodiversity is of vital importance to all of us. Many medical drugs are based on knowledge about the healing powers of plants, but 80% of all animals and plants on Earth remain unknown. How will we find a potential cure for cancer if we let “superhero plants” (as the UK’s National History Museum calls them) go extinct? This is just one of many examples why biodiversity matters. It’s such an important topic that we’ve created an entire event for it. Please join us on September 12 and 13, 2024, in Munich for DLD Nature. Attendance is complimentary. All you need to do is apply online and tell us why you’d like to be a part of the event: https://lnkd.in/eBnijM9u What makes DLD Nature special is our approach of “connecting the unexpected” and presenting solutions, rather than merely analyzing the challenges our planet is facing. When you join us, expect to meet inventors, developers, researchers and decision-makers from both business and politics, who will all bring their own perspectives to the discussion. Speakers include Ursula von der Leyen, President of the EU Commission; pioneering artist Refik Anadol; Sandrine Dixson-Declève, Co-President of the Club of Rome; Günther Thallinger, Member of the Board of Management at Allianz, and Prof. Dr. Martin R. Stuchtey, Founder of The Landbanking Group. Your hosts will be Steffi Czerny (DLD), Maria Furtwängler (MaLisa Stiftung), Dr. med. Eckart von Hirschhausen (Stiftung Gesunde Erde - Gesunde Menschen), Helmut Schoenenberger (UnternehmerTUM), Auguste von Bayern (BIOTOPIA Lab | Naturkundemuseum Bayern), and Jan-Gisbert Schultze (Acton Capital). If you’re wondering why we changed the name from “DLD Capital Nature” to “DLD Nature”, the answer is simple: We decided to broaden the scope of the event to dive deeper into the geopolitical implications of biodiversity loss. Apply now if you want to be a part of DLD Nature and help shape a better future for all of us. We look forward to seeing you in September!

Want to know how we can bolster our democracies? Apolitical co-founder Lisa Witter sat down with our editor Karsten Lemm to discuss the decline in trust in current governments and what we can do as individuals to strengthen democracy. Read the full interview here 👇 https://lnkd.in/e46Cf-Ry

On this International Day for #Biodiversity, we're excited to introduce a new conference format dedicated to sparking crucial conversations about our planet's future: DLD Capital Nature is here to challenge and inspire! Together with Maria Furtwängler (MaLisa Stiftung), Dr. med. Eckart von Hirschhausen (Stiftung Gesunde Erde - Gesunde Menschen), Helmut Schoenenberger (UnternehmerTUM), and more thought leaders, we're spotlighting biodiversity—the basis of our life and the decisive factor to drive economic value in the future. 🌐 Did you know? Over half of global GDP relies on nature's services. Biodiversity isn't just the foundation of life—it's a potent driver of economic value for the future. 🤝 Experience cutting-edge technology, innovative practices, and powerful collaborations aimed at fostering a nature-positive future. 📅 Join us September 12-13 at Munich Urban Colab for a transformative two-day event. Engage with top scientists, activists, and industry experts as we address the urgent need to preserve and regenerate our natural world. We'll be focusing on how protecting the environment and having a strong economy can go hand in hand. In fact, the healthier our planet, the better our chances for future prosperity. Learn more about the event on our website: https://lnkd.in/eHya-yX3 Let's unite our efforts to protect, restore, and transform how we interact with our planet. 🌍💡 #biodiversity #economy #ecosystem #sustainability #planet #planetaryhealth #dld

The second issue of “The Promptah” is out! You can download our new people magazine for curious minds for free as a PDF or find it in print at select Lufthansa lounges in Germany and the U.S. Guaranteed to be a collector’s item. We chose to publish Promptah no. 2 on the 300th birthday of Immanuel Kant, the famous German philosopher who also gave us our #DLD24 motto “Dare to Know”. As one of the most prominent thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment, Kant, we feel, also fits perfectly into today’s new age of enlightenment. On the one hand, we see scientific breakthroughs and business innovation at an unparalleled pace; on the other hand, this cambrian explosion of knowledge and new capabilities raises many questions regarding ethics, democracy, freedom and our power to control the technologies we’re inventing. AI is perhaps the most prominent example of this trend. So we’ve asked Gary Marcus how capable systems like ChatGPT really are, and how they could be improved. Artists Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst told us why they find working with algorithms “new, strange and exciting”. Amazon CTO Werner Vogels shares examples of AI helping to improve healthcare access, sustainable food production and more. McKinsey & Company analyst Michael Chui illustrates practical uses of AI in business. And author Kenneth Cukier explains why we may have to redefine our place in the universe – once again – if artificial intelligence becomes powerful enough to outshine the human intellect. Another big topic of this Promptah issue is sustainability. Shifting to a regenerative, more inclusive economy would benefit both people and planet, as you’ll hear from Aenne Burda Award winner Sandrine Dixson-Declève. Infineon Technologies top executive Andreas Urschitz highlights the importance of green data centers and intelligent chip design to bring cloud computing and AI in line with decarbonization goals. Social inclusion is a crucial aspect of a sustainable economy as well, and we’re particularly excited about our conversation with Nigerian chess master Tunde Onakoya regarding his educational project Chess in Slums Africa. To raise money for his NGO, Tunde just broke the record of the for the longest chess marathon – congratulations, Tunde! There’s far too much going on in the new Promptah to mention here, including a fantastic interview with Alexander Kluge – one of Germany’s most prominent philosophers of today. So we invite you to head over to our website, download the PDF and simply start reading: https://lnkd.in/ebed6qB7 We’re grateful to our fantastic speaker community for sharing their insights; to our partner Christian Teichmann (Burda Principal Investments) for making The Promptah happen; and to all of you who are curious to learn more about the new age of enlightenment. Thank you and happy reading!

In a world awash with data, too many of us resemble whales encountering plankton, just “floating around in some numbers”, Cassie Kozyrkov believes. “It’s very appealing these days to say, ‘Oh, the data. Oh, the model, the AI system’ – and forget all about the why.” Cassie used to be Google’s first ever Chief Decision Scientist before leaving a few months ago to create her own company. She is now the CEO Data Scientific. At #DLD24, Cassie told us why she feels that data alone is not enough. “We laugh at people who say, ‘If it’s written in a book, it must be true.’ We understand that that is nonsense.” Data is “basically a book” as well, Cassie says. “Books have human authors. Data has human authors. It doesn’t represent reality. It’s not the full picture.” Whether in our personal lives or in business, we should see data merely as a tool that can assist us in making more informed decisions, Cassie argues. “Our decisions, that’s what matters. That’s how we impact the world around us.” One of the trickiest challenges is avoiding confirmation bias – the human tendency to use data merely to back up decisions we would have made anyway. That’s why it’s important to define specific goals in advance, before you see the data, Cassie says. “If you don’t have any criteria set you will think you’re making a decision based on the data”, she explains. “But what you’ll actually be doing is whatever you wanted to all along.” To make the most of the available data, “we need better skills and habits”, Cassie believes – that’s why she’s made it her calling to teach decision intelligence. “If you want to have a better life, the best skill you could learn is being a better decision maker”, Cassie says. “Because your life boils down to two things: all the things you can’t control, the random chaos and luck – and the thing under your control, which is the quality of your decisions.” Watch Cassie’s highly engaging DLD24 conversation with Axios journalist Ina Fried to dive deeper into this fascinating topic! https://lnkd.in/eGMXNZZh

Sad news from the DLD speaker community: We mourn the loss of Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman, a distinguished professor at Princeton University and pioneer of behavioral #economics. “Daniel was an outstanding scientist, a dear friend and, most importantly, he was a Mensch”, DLD founder Steffi Czerny says. Steffi first brought Daniel Kahneman to DLD Munich in 2009 to speak about the Great Recession and explain why so many people made irrational decisions about buying houses and going into debt while money was cheap and the economy was still booming. This, of course, was Daniel Kahneman’s speciality: using #psychology to explain why we buy or don’t buy, how we shop, and what influences our #decision-making. For his work on revealing cognitive biases and quirks that influence human #judgment, he was awarded The Nobel Prize for economics in 2002. In “Thinking Fast and Slow”, published in 2011, Daniel Kahneman shared his research in such a captivating way that the book became a worldwide bestseller. He stayed in touch with DLD over the years and joined us for DLD All Stars in 2021 to speak about his latest book, “Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgement”, which he wrote with his colleagues Olivier Sibony and Cass Sunstein. Their conversation is full of fascinating insights about the hidden factors that influence human decision-making. Watch the video on our website to learn more: https://lnkd.in/ewgnww5y We were happy to welcome Daniel Kahneman at our DLD New York dinner in November 2023, where he joined us with his longtime partner Barbara Tversky. You can find images in our Flickr gallery: https://lnkd.in/e2KDZN8b Our thoughts are with Barbara Tversky, Daniel Kahneman’s family and everyone who held him dear. We were honored to have him be a part of the DLD community and will always fondly remember him.

Last week the world witnessed the first ever #jetsuit #race – an exiting event for all onlookers but especially for DLD speaker Richard Browning, founder of Gravity Industries and the inventor of the “Iron Man”-style jetpacks that made the pilots speed across the harbor of Dubai with breathtaking twists and turns. For us, the race brought back fond memories of Richard’s thrilling demo flight at DLD Campus Bayreuth in the summer of 2018 and his futuristic DLD Munich talk six months earlier. At both events you could hear the audience gasp each time Richard described how he came up with this novel way of flying. Why not strap micro jet engines to your body, two on each arm, one on the back, and thrust yourself in the air with the help of some 1,000 horsepowers? That’s the equivalent of what a Ferrari or Maserati has under the hood, of course – and Richard felt it was a good start to realize his dream of giving humans a new way to fly. We took the occasion to look back at Richard’s DLD talks, which look quite prophetic from today’s perspective. Read our article to find out how Richard and his team developed their groundbreaking jet suit, why #AugmentedReality and #3Dprinting played a crucial role – and how this sci-fi way of flying might have many other applications beyond racing. For example in search and rescue missions. Congratulations, Richard! Onwards and upwards! https://lnkd.in/dKDKPeXh

Relive the unforgettable moments of #DLD24 with our highlights video below. 👇 Your support is our greatest inspiration. A big thank you to all who participated and contributed! ❤️ Join us in revisiting the innovation and connections that made #DLD24 truly special. Plus: Stay connected for future updates—subscribe to our newsletter or keep an eye on our page for what's coming next: https://lnkd.in/eKKji-6f Lisa Witter Kenneth Cukier Werner Vogels Michael Chui Tunde Onakoya Sandrine Dixson-Declève Gary Marcus

Missed out on #DLD24? Don't worry, we've got something for you! 🌟 Relive the best moments and catch up on all the sessions at your own pace. Our YouTube channel is just a click away, filled with all the content from the conference. Start watching here: https://lnkd.in/efUB2qx6

Big thanks to everyone who joined us for the fantastic three days of #DLD24! We loved seeing the mix of familiar and new faces, sharing thoughts and ideas – whether it was during the conference, over dinner, or at that epic party last night. We can't wait to do it all again and are already counting down to the next DLD Munich! Under this year's motto, Dare to Know, we asked a lot of questions and got even more answers. Share below what you've learned and what new insights you've gained at the conference. 👇 Did you miss any sessions? No worries! Check out all the panels on our YouTube channel: https://lnkd.in/efUB2qx6 Hope to see you all again really soon!