Our resources
Ways to think about the future of everything
We are curious about the future. We are committed to sharing our insights. We have carefully curated lists of resources on the most interesting and important topics.
They contain podcasts, videos and written analysis and bring together researchers and thought leaders to discuss the future of business, society and technology, and the weird and the wonderful things that impact our world.
How to use these resources
Resources include both written analysis and multimedia content (podcasts and videos) hosted on the SBI website. Multimedia content includes HTML embed codes that can be directly imported into many Learning Management Systems (LMS) to encourage direct student engagement. Videos and podcasts also include links to relevant articles and full transcripts for accessibility.
These resources will be updated monthly, showcasing the latest insights from SBI. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest or email us if you need any assistance in finding resources.
Dive into our showcase of resources that explore how the future of business aligns with the UN’s 17 goals for sustainable development.
Topics of interest
Agriculture and food
Food innovations, VR cows and hacking farmers
From the chicken of tomorrow and milk without cows, to the clean meat and from food crises and changing values to hacking tractors and digitising agriculture, all about the future of food and agriculture.
AI and algorithms
Big data, ethics and black boxes
Everything machine learning and artificial intelligence. Facial recognition (even for fish), deep fakes, monitoring and surveillance, black boxes, bias in algorithms, and the ethics of AI, over and covert impacts, industry transformation and the race for technological supremacy.
Automation
Robots, self driving cars and chatbots
Everything machine learning and artificial intelligence. Facial recognition (even for fish), deep fakes, monitoring and surveillance, black boxes, bias in algorithms, and the ethics of AI, over and covert impacts, industry transformation and the race for technological supremacy.
Big ideas
Robots, self driving cars and chatbots
Big ideas: is it time for Universal Basic Income (UBI) or the four day work week, what’s the future of work and does our survival depend on relentless exponential growth?
Big tech
Competition, anti-trust and monopolies
The Frightful Five (Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and Alphabet, the parent company of Google) and the BAT (Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent). From platform competition to antitrust and monopolies, business models, fiduciary moats, innovation, privacy, regulation and free speech. The battle of the giants.
Calling BS
Hype, fantasy and exponential growth
As Harry Frankfurt put it in his classic On Bullshit: “One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognise bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves.”
Helping you navigate the BS about the future: identifying it, seeing through it, analysis and argument. Whether it is ‘exponential growth, Killer AI, bike shring schemes, misinformation, disinformation or the Juicero.
China
996 work culture, digital silk road and entrepreneurship
Everything China: from how it skipped email and went straight to WeChat, to the Digital Silk Road and solar farms you can see from space, China’s demographic timebomb, 996 work culture, electric buses and selling products via live-streaming, from entrepreneurship to innovation and everything tech. Did we mention WeChat and Little Red Book?
Cities
Smart cities, co-housing and liveability
The cities of tomorrow: from smart cities and co-housing, to the world’s most liveable places and urban entrepreneurship, from how Uber is changing cities to the Hyperloop, and why you can tell a lot about a city just by looking at the kerbside.
Climate, sustainability and the environment
The climate crisis, renewables and biodiversity
How will we try to solve the climate crisis and how will we live with climate change? Why lifestyle changes aren’t enough to save the planet, what coronavirus means for climate and the environment, batteries, renewables, recycling, energy futures and fighting climate change.
Crime
Organised crime, VR prisons and hacking Jeeps
Organised and reorganised crime, hackers, piracy, cybersecurity and the prisons of tomorrow. Find out why owls are in dangers once societies go cashless, how to hack a Jeep and how a pandemic reorganises crime, whether that’s supply chain redesign, pivoting business models, digital transformation, new competitive advantages, or remote work.
Data
Big data, surveillance and oil
How big is big data? Why data is not the new oil and why robots are not coming for us, how we collect share and use data: insights on the future of data, data science and data analytics.
Decision making
Good intentions, marshmallow tests and thinking fast and slow
How do we make decisions and how are those decisions influenced by external factors? From monkeys with money to thinking fast and slow, discover how decisions are shaped and formed.
Digital humans
Digital immortality, CGI influencers and holograms
The ethical, societal and business implications of living with digital humans, digital avatars and digital agents. CGI influencers and news anchors, deep fakes and technologies for digital immortality and much more.
Disruption
Startup deflation, boring problems and innovation centres
What is disruption? How is the world has changing? From Tesla’s real potential for disruption to Silicon Valley’s startup deflation, Lil Nas X and country music’s problem, innovation centres and industry transformation.
Diversity, equity and inclusion
Subtle sexism, design exclusion and difficult women
From board diversity to design’s exclusion problem, the subtle sexism of your open plan office, the persistent gender pay gap, inequality and why we need difficult women.
Economy
Going cashless, the triple bottom line and capitalism in crisis
From board diversity to design’s exclusion problem, the subtle sexism of your open plan office, the persistent gender pay gap, inequality and why we need difficult women.
Electric vehicles
Greener cars, Tesla’s disruption and electric buses
Why are electric cars so much harder to build than reusable rockets? What fax machines can teach us about electric cars? From Tesla’s Model X to China’s electric buses: everything electric.
Energy
Policy, security and the batteries of tomorrow
Batteries, energy security, and solar farms you can see from space: energy futures and fighting climate change.
Entrepreneurship
Startups, China tech and intrapreneurship
Social entrepreneurship, urban entrepreneurship, the myth of the intrepreneur and entrepreneurship in the era of big tech.
Fake futures
Deep fakes, click farms and fake milk
The term ‘fake’ gets flung around with increasing frequency: fake news, fake videos (deepfakes), fake milk, fake reviews, fake followers and even cheap fakes. Sorting fact from fiction is not a competition sport: understanding what the tech can – and can’t do – empowers us to make better judgements.
Future of work
Remote work, 996 culture and automation
Highlights from our ongoing conversations about the future of work. The four-day work week or #996? A future of automation, the rise in remote worker monitoring and workplace health screening. Will the gender pay gap disappear? What is the future of unions? Is the office dead? Management and leadership in the age of AI. Coworking and gig work.
Future trends
Megatrends, hype cycles and predictions
Understanding global megatrends, looking back at predictions and forward at hype cycles, the benefits and pitfalls of predictions and how will the coronavirus shape the future?
Gadgets and tech
Augmented reality, wearables and money in cricket
From augmented reality to vacuum cleaners and from fitness trackers to flame throwers. Why your camera wants to kill your keyboard and do wearable devices deserve to die, how can museum live and much more in future tech.
Gig economy
Worker protests, self-driving Ubers and failing bike shares
Gig work changes and worker protests, platforms and access, the future of work and unions.
Health and science
Satirical science, telehealth and toilets
Everything heath and science: from the rise of telehealth and changes to healthcare, to quantum computing, from toilets and microbes to science reporting and satirical science.
History
Steam trains, chicken competitions and 3D printing
Looking back to look forward: what the past teaches us about the future. What do fax machine, world war chickens, ATMs, iPods, coffee beans steam trains tell us about what’s coming next.
Human behaviour
Motivation, genius nerds and bad ideas
What people do and why. Why are we lonely? How do we come to agree what we’re collectively working towards? Why doesn’t anyone answer their phone any more? Skim reading, following, motivating, consumerim and the myth of the loner genius nerd. Thinking with Daniel Kahnemann, Jonathan Haidt on good intentions and bad ideas, misbehaving with Dan Ariely and more.
Industry change
Motivation, genius nerds and bad ideas
Industry change far and wide: from fashion to crime, from polarisation in the global watch industry, the movie industry and cinemas to telehealth and changes to healthcare, from the oil industry to advertising and banking, from the economics of massive cruise ships to food transformation.
Inequality
Social mobility, tech against poverty and the billionaire raj
Tackling inequality has become a priority around the world, and yet efforts to reduce it have so far failed to even slow it. Today eight billionaires hold the same wealth as half the world’s population and 82% of the global wealth generated in 2017 went to the wealthiest 1%.
Algorithms, machine learning and AI have already started to encode bias and further drive inequality. Addressing inequality requires a significant, concerted and collaborative effort and its principles need to underlie our work whether it is in business, technology or health. Resources from academics, Nobel Prize winners, leaders of industry and community.
Infrastructure and supply chains
Hyperloop, power grids and smart cities
A look into the future of infrastructure and supply chains: transport, power grids, smart cities, hyperloops and cybersecurity.
Leadership and management
Misbehaving, flat hierarchies and stupidity
From the power of followership to organisational stupidity, and from flat hierarchies to changing values at work.
Marketing
Smart brands, logo design and influencers
Everything marketing: smart brands, influencers, advertising, social media and selling products via live-streaming, logos and positioning, CEO insights and pandemic challenges.
Population and demographics
Demographic timebombs, generational categories and digital natives
Population crises, demographic timebombs, generational categories, millennials, Gen Z, digital natives and more.
Power
Shifting trust, technology and inequality
Discussions and interviews with thought leaders and acclaimed academics on how the nature of power is changing in the 21st century, whether it’s inequality, big tech, trust or generational change.
Privacy
Smart devices, data breaches and activity tracking
Is privacy an antitrust issue? Employee monitoring or corporate surveillance? Why is the tax office looking at your social media? How can fitness apps can reveal military secrets? Selling privacy, breaching it and rethinking it.
Space
Plants on Mars, space agencies and satellite pollution
Space agencies and space junk, growing food on Mars, why the night sky will never be the same, why getting back to the moon is so damn hard, and more space stuff.
Special projects
Banking Royal Commission, COVID-19 and co-working spaces
Surprising insights
Old Town Road, fax machines and drones
Our most surprising insights from why size matters and corporate inequality, to the real-life implications of Game of Thrones, from why are electric cars so much harder to build than reusable rockets, to why cost per like is the new cost per wear, from the chicken of tomorrow to Lil Nas X and Old Town Road. The weird and the wonderful.
Surveillance
Facial recognition, Internet of Things and corporate surveillance
Employee monitoring or corporate surveillance? Facial recognition and how the internet of things is spying on you. Fitness apps can reveal military secrets and your vacuum cleaner knows what you’re doing.
Transport
Commuting, the card industry and ultra longhaul flights
How commuting will change, ultra-long-haul flights, ride sharing and more.
SBI special projects
What does the Banking Royal Commission mean for the future of business education? How is COVID-19 changing the way we do business? Which Chinese cities are investing in artificial intelligence?
Discover our special projects, resources designed to give key insight into issues that are impacting the world as we know it.
Banking Royal Commission
How do we understand the implications of the royal commission into the financial sector?
COVID-19
The impact of COVID-19 on the future of business, industries, the economy, governments and society
COVID-19 is changing the world, from disrupting the global economy to reshaping how we think about work.
Disvover our COVID Business Impact Dashboard, a “living initiative” that constantly updates and adapts its insights and resources from a wide-range of experts.
Coworking Spaces Australia
An introduction to the coworking phenomenon and understanding the industry in Australia
China’s intelligent cities
Assessing the artificial intelligence capabilities of Chinese cities in 2020
Megatrends
What are the fundamental forces that are changing our world?
What are megatrends and how they are shaping the future of business? What are the fundamental forces that are changing our world?
Each megatrend is explored in a short video explainer that we trust will start important conversations and provoke responses across business, government and community.
Where to find more
If you need help finding the right resources, please send us an email.
Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can follow Sydney Business Insights on Flipboard, LinkedIn, Twitter and WeChat to keep updated with our latest insights.
