Dr Simon Eassom has a PhD in Applied Ethics and has been a thought leader on the relationships between humans and machines and humans and animals for more than three decades.

 

As a philosophical anthropologist in the university sector he has researched and explored concepts around consciousness, artificial intelligence, and the possibility of singularity, publishing work on the likelihood of a cyborg future for humans.  His work has been contextualised across many areas, most notably with a focus on human performance and the application of technology to sport and on the ethics of the use of technology in the exploitation of animals for human interests.

 

In the corporate sector he has worked for IBM in the development and use of its Watson AI engine and the development of its ‘point-of-view’ for application to sectors such as education.

 

As CEO of Futures in Focus, he has consulted with numerous organisations around the impact of technology on work, the necessity for meaningful lifelong education, and the requirements for new styles of leadership and new ways of developing leaders.

 

Currently, as the Executive Director of the leading think-tank on alternative proteins and food systems transformation, Food Frontier, he is focused on the application of technology to protein production and how re-thinking the future of food is essential to help humanity combat climate change, food poverty, and food security issues, as well as addressing diet-related disease.