NZ Knowledge Management Network

Dr Bacon is one of the world's most popular speakers on technology and the factors that shape human society. In his daily work, he is on the management team overseeing the construction and operation of the most complicated technical project in history: the International Space Station. He is the author of three popular books; My Grandfathers' Clock, My Stepdaughter's Watch and The Parallel Bang.

This podcast is a recording of a talk he gave at an NZKM event hosted by Intergen in Wellington. 

What does the Parallel Bang mean to your organisation, our community, our society and our world?
World economics, work, education and leisure are being transformed before our very eyes. In the last decade, we've tripled our knowledge of astronomy, pinpointed the age and size of the cosmos, counted its galaxies, and found the theory that will link all known physics of the universe. The patent rate has more than doubled. We've decoded out genome. We've doubled our life expectancy. We've changed the workforce and the workweek. We've engineered machines a few atoms in size. More than two thirds of the citizens of the western world are now linked to the Internet.

Futurist, technological historian and engineer Dr Jack Bacon presents a compelling vision that human thought - which houses the parallel universe of all the models of the physical universe - is undergoing an explosive new phase of development not unlike the surge that occurred in the Renaissance. This time, however, it's taking less than a decade, and it's on an exponential trajectory that will take humanity to amazing new heights. In these few thousand days we're living through something of astounding significance as computing, communications, medicine, psychology, politics, transportation, agriculture, and world economics all "throw on the afterburners."

Fasten your seatbelt and prepare for the explosive growth of understanding in the 21st century.