The Springtij Conference 2018 took place in one of the most beautiful places in nature. Terschelling, a pristine West Frisian island in the Northern part of The Netherlands, provided the perfect backdrop for this type of Wake-up conference. Here one can see, breathe, and directly experience the beauty of nature that we must protect if we want to survive. To imagine that “in a business as usual scenario, this paradise on earth will have been engulfed by the Ocean in 100 years from now due to Climate Change is very sad but very probable” stated keynote speaker Dr. Mariana Bozesan.

In her speech, “In Search for a New Balance in Investing”, she focused on the importance of exponential tech including Artificial Intelligence (AI), bio-tech and nano-tech in addressing the most pressing issues regarding climate change. While her words were welcomed by the younger generation, it was interesting to realize how many people are still unaware of the accelerating pace with which these technologies are entering our society. More importantly, their extraordinary complexity appears to go undetected by most of us until it might be too late to influence their potentially negative impact in our lives, manipulated voters being just one case in point. Not only that, but we could miss the opportunity to use these technologies to address the most urgent threats including climate change. In her view, the biggest issues we are facing are not climate change, radicalization, growing populism, not even the threats potentially posed by exponential tech, but our inability to change our mindsets fast enough to do what is necessary to prevent the worst.

“Fear is the wrong motivator. If we want to succeed, we must deliver hopeful messages and empower people to do what is necessary to preserve our beautiful blue planet”. (Dr. Mariana Bozesan)

This is what the AQAL Foundation does together with the Club of Rome within the context of the Investment Turnaround and the implementation of our Moonshots.