Futur/io Institute brings Moonshot Thinking to European Corporate Leadership

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Hamburg – July 2019 – Fifty years ago, on July 21, 1969 Neil Amstrong became the first human being ever to set foot on the moon. Only 8 years earlier America’s president John F. Kennedy announced the first manned space flight within 10 years. With this vision, he created the first Moonshot ever. He thought beyond the horizon and beyond what was technically conceivable at that time.

 

The mindset within European companies’ top-level management is rapidly evolving, with an emphasis being placed on the big topics of our time: Digital Disruption, hyper-globalized markets, exponential technologies and the climate crisis. Big topics that draw new lines in the sand. With tremendous changes approaching, the world needs answers and collaboration and cross-pollination across industries. The new Futur/io Institute from Hamburg has developed concepts for cross-industry innovation and collaboration methods that offer crucial perspectives for European executives.

 

“Moonshot Thinking“ is today’s term for propulsive, innovative projects within an organization. The concept is inspired by John F. Kennedy’s ambitious plan to send humans to the moon within 10 years’ time. At their core, contemporary Moonshots take advantage of breakthrough technologies to change the way we live and work for the better. Moonshots have a positive social and ecological impact for potentially millions of people and create unfair advantages for new business opportunities.

 

Harald Neidhardt, publisher of the anthology Moonshots for Europe and curator of the Futur/io Institute, is passionate about developing Moonshots and co-creating  “Desirable Futures”. Futur/io Institute dives into new dimensions of executive education that compel as well as cultivate the fundamentals of Moonshot Thinking: “We are well on our way to help corporate leaders in creating Moonshots for Europe. Our focus is dedicated to Europe because we believe in our potential to position ourselves in a new way next to the American and Chinese dominance in digital platforms.“

 

Futur/io and its 30+ expert faculty members have conceptualized learning methods and insight modules with which European innovation leaders can advance its technological progress and innovation agenda – independent from America’s dominance in Silicon Valley. The Hamburg based institute organizes programmes for executives all over Europe. Throughout the European economy, the need for these kinds of projects is widely recognized – and the European Commission is launching “missions” to create a new way to foster long term innovation goals for their research agenda.

 

Futur/io has already partnered up with major players in the digital industry. 

Among the founding partners is Alpha, the first Moonshot Factory in Europe founded by Telefónica in Barcelona – the second in the world after Google X in Silicon Valley.

 

Maurice Conti, Chief Innovation Officer & Head of Moonshot Ideation at Telefónica Alpha believes: “Companies need new ways of disrupting their markets and themselves to keep up with the pace of change. The next decade will see a rapid evolution of technology, dramatic changes in global demographics, the real effects of the climate emergency, and even unprecedented shifts in human culture. We are looking for ways to create business-fueled breakthroughs that will lead to a Desirable Future. It’s about taking calculated risks now, and building frameworks, expertise and technology that will put us in the best possible position in the future to thrive as businesses and a global society.”

 

Kathrin Haug, Managing Director at Deloitte Digital, sees many benefits for her corporate clients in her founding partnership with Futur/io: “We created a diverse ecosystem of digital thought leaders and future thinkers who exchange learnings about exponential technologies, the success factors of transformation and the value of moonshot thinking in order to tackle change.”

 

According to Thomas von Alm and Stefan Schoepfel, Vice Presidents of SAP Digital Business Services EMEA North at SAP, „goal is to collaboratively create more Moonshots for Europe. SAP Digital Services uses Moonshot Thinking to guide our customers through the process of creating a new exponential business model for their enterprise. We are proud to be a premium partner of the Futur/io Institute.“

 

Futur/io’s international executive programmes are truly one of a kind. They take place in remote areas that emanate a relaxed, harmonious atmosphere where humans and nature can coexist peacefully. Their list of lecturers features the crème de la crème of thinkers from Europe’s leading organizations: Martin Wezowski, Chief Designer & Futurist at SAP, Alexander Mankowsky, Futurist at Daimler, Roxy Güllmeister, Associate Architect at Foster+Partners or Mads Bondergaard, Vice President, Digital Transformation Office at Airbus are some of his manifold, well-known experts that are part of the lecturers and faculty. 

 

The next executive program for Moonshot Thinking takes place from September 18– 20 in Copenhagen/ Malmö and an invite-only CxO programme is scheduled for October 9–11, 2019 at H-Farm / Venice.

 

For more information and ticket request please refer to www.futur.io or contact hello@futur.io 

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