I spoke to 99 big thinkers about what our ‘world after coronavirus’ might look like – this is what I learned
Back in March, my colleagues at the Frederick S. Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer-Range Future at Boston University thought that it might be useful to begin thinking about “the day after coronavirus.” For a research center dedicated to longer-term thinking, it made sense to ask what our post-COVID-19 world might look like.
In the months that followed, I learned many things. Most importantly, I learned there is no “going back to normal.”
My season of learning
The project took on a life of its own. Over 190 days, we released 103 videos. Each was around five minutes long, with one simple question: How might COVID-19 impact our future? Watch the full video series here.
I interviewed leading thinkers on 101 distinct topics – from money to debt, supply chains to trade, work to robots, journalism to politics, water to food, climate change to human rights, e-commerce to cybersecurity, despair to mental health, gender to racism, fine arts to literature, and even hope and happiness.
My interviewees included the president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, a former CIA director, a former NATO supreme allied commander, a former prime minister of Italy and Britain’s astronomer royal.
I “Zoomed” – the word had become a verb almost overnight – with Kishore Mahbubani in Singapore, Yolanda Kakabadse in Quito, Judith Butler in Berkeley, California, Alice Ruhweza in Nairobi and Jeremy Corbyn in London. For our very last episode, former U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon joined from Seoul.
For me, it was truly a season of learning. Among other things, it helped me understand why COVID-19 is not a storm that we can just wait out. Our pre-pandemic world was anything but normal, and our post-pandemic world will not be like going back to normal at all. Here are four reasons why.
