Theo Priestley

Brainstormer, Business mentor, Change Agent, Consultant, Entrepreneur, Explorer, Global soul, Idea generator, Startup, Technologist, Writer/Editor

Hi, I’m Theo Priestley. I've spoken around the world at industry conferences, written a load of articles for a variety of publications, and even appeared on the odd podcast or two about technology trends. In the beginning I was a strong technology advocate and industry commentator, having held Vice President and Chief Evangelist positions at large, global enterprise software companies and spent time as an independent futurist but over the years having analysed and watched the trends take over I've realised that some of the paths taken are not the best. These are exciting times to be living in but futurism isn't as strong as it once was, and its impact on providing foresight into the dangers of making the wrong decisions in technology and policy that affect every aspect of business and humanity is at its weakest. Hence, I'm an antifuturist. I seek to reexamine how the future should look through a hyper-critical lens, rather than hype. Technology creates opportunities wherever you look, but it also generates threats beyond anything we've imagined to date. Oddly enough, dystopian science fiction is not an instruction manual for Silicon Valley to follow, and yet here we are.

The future, technological harmony with humanity, climate change, space exploration, artificial intelligence.

Organised TEDxBruntsfield in 2016. Speaker at TEDxGlasgow - "Would You Be Happy To Follow A Robot Leader?" - in 2017.