RSA Events

Award-winning filmmaker Raoul Martinez visits the RSA to reflect on one of the most urgent questions of our time – are we really free? Informed by over a decade of research, Martinez will lift the veil on the mechanisms of control that pervade our lives, from the lottery of our birth to the consent-manufacturing influence of concentrated wealth and power. Tackling economics, philosophy, politics, criminology, psychology and environmentalism, it shows that the more we understand how the world shapes us, the more effectively we can shape our world.

Depending on who you ask, our current generation of youngsters are either ‘snowflakes’ in need of greater resilience, or the product of the economic, political and social insecurity that has come to define our times, creating new pressures which have helped to drive up rates of mental distress. What implications does this have for policy making in the UK, and how can we deliver on government commitments to improve mental health care for children and young people? Join us to discuss these challenges and potential solutions with an expert panel including Sarah Brennan, Chief Executive of Young Minds, Lord Victor Adebowale, Chief Executive of Turning Point and NHS England Board Member, and Jonny Benjamin, campaigner and activist.

Co-founder of n+1 magazine and one of the most highly acclaimed essayists in the US today, Mark Greif is one of the most exciting writers of his generation. His essays examine the vicissitudes of everyday life under twenty-first-century capitalism, and he repeatedly challenges us to rethink the world and demand something better. What is the right way to be and act given the many local and global challenges we face –is it possible to stay honest in dishonest times? Counter-intuitive and revelatory in his insights, Greif forces us to confront the excuses we make to console ourselves about our impact on the world. He visits the RSA to explore the philosophical and political arguments laid out in his essay ‘The Meaning of Life, Part II’, which touches on thoughts on a universal citizen’s income, poverty, property and ‘morally relevant inequality’

In her part-manual, part-manifesto “Feminist Fightclub”, journalist and critic Jessica Bennett brings together the personal stories of a group of women who met regularly in New York City to explore and confront the external (sexist) and internal (self-sabotaging) behaviors that continue to plague women in the workplace —as well as the system that perpetuates them. At the RSA, Jessica Bennett joins us for a special “in conversation” event to share these revealing workplace stats and stories. A leading voice in feminist popular culture today, Bennett offers a new vocabulary for all-too familiar sexist archetypes, and her combat techniques provide practical hacks for pushing back.

What separates effective communicators from truly successful persuaders? The world’s foremost expert on influence reveals the results of three decades of research. Thirty years in the making, Robert Cialdini’s new book Pre-Suasion is the eagerly awaited follow-up to his bestselling, genre-defining Influence. Cialdini’s latest research shows that the secret to persuasion doesn’t lie in the message itself, but in the key moment before that message is delivered. He visits the RSA to show that the best persuaders spend more time crafting what they do and say before making a request. In this way, they gain a singular kind of persuasive traction by arranging for recipients to be receptive to a message before they encounter it. Cialdini calls this pre-suasion. “To persuade optimally,” he says, “it’s necessary to pre-suade optimally.” In other words, to change minds most effectively, a pre-suader must change initial “states of mind.”

With his AI project DeepMind, Demis Hassabis has said he is leading “an Apollo programme for the 21st century”. But how far can AI really take us? Demis Hassabisis the co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, a neuroscience-inspired AI company, acquired by Google in 2014. He is now Vice President of Engineering at Google DeepMind and leads their general AI efforts, including the development of AlphaGo, the first program to ever beat a professional player at the game of Go. In this special event at the RSA, Demis Hassabis offers a unique insight from the frontiers of artificial intelligence research, and shares his latest thoughts on AI’s potential to help solve our biggest current and future challenges, from healthcare to climate change.

The rapid pace of technological innovation has an enormous impact on the economy and society. Spreading the gains of technological progress calls for significant system change in education, work and wider learning, to ensure that everyone has access to the power, resources and opportunities to work, create, connect and learn. In his President’s Lecture for 2016, Simon Nelson will explore how increasing access to education, delivered online in a flexible way, can help towards addressing some of the world’s future needs. He will suggest the transformation that needs to take place to make the education system fit for purpose, and outline new approaches to emerging societal challenges that will ensure generations of learners are inspired, engaged and empowered.

How can we support teachers to keep improving throughout their careers? What does the very best teacher training and professional development look like? And how do we ensure that it is designed for maximum impact on the education and life chances of those who need it most? At the RSA, our expert panel assess the rationale for, and likely impact and implications of, the new standards, and share their insights into designing and delivering cutting-edge professional development with the potential to transform outcomes for students, especially in areas of greatest disadvantage.

What does the revolution in work mean for us today? With an ever-increasing divide between the rich and the rest, the traditional solutions – improved education or wage subsidiaries, for example – will no longer work as they once did. In order to navigate our way across today’s rapidly transforming economic landscape, we must radically reassess the very idea of how, and why, we work. Join the Economist’s Ryan Avent at the RSA as he tackles the future of work, the state we’re currently in - and how we could get out of it.

What are the benefits and risks of the increasing scale and power of data assets controlled by governments and corporations? In a time of rapid advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence, if we are to make better use of the vast quantities of data produced by new technologies - from gene sequencing to driverless cars – it’s crucial to mitigate the risks as well as embracing the advantages of Big Data. Roger Taylor, writer and chair of the Open Public Services Network at the RSA, joins other key players to discuss the need to understand the scale of the information about ourselves held by governments and corporations, and to ensure that this access is constantly open to democratic challenge.