Jamie Metzl Keynote Speaker

Jamie Metzl is a technology futurist and geopolitical expert, novelist, entrepreneur, media commentator, and Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council. He previously served in the U.S. National Security Council, State Department, Senate Foreign Relations Committee and as a Human Rights Officer for the United Nations in Cambodia.

Jamie is a former Partner of a New York-based global investment firm, serves on the Advisory Council to Walmart’s Future of Retail Policy Lab, is a faculty member for Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine conference, was Chief Strategy Officer for a biotechnology company, and ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District in Kansas City in 2004. He has served as an election monitor in Afghanistan and the Philippines, advised the government of North Korea on the establishment of Special Economic Zones, and is the Honorary Ambassador to North America of the Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy.

Jamie appears regularly on national and international media discussing Asian economic and political issues and his syndicated columns and other writing on Asian affairs, genetics, virtual reality, and other topics are featured regularly in publications around the world. He is the author of a history of the Cambodian genocide, the historical novel The Depths of the Sea, and the genetics thrillers Genesis Code and Eternal Sonata. His book ‘Hacking Darwin: Genetic Revolution and the Future of Humanity’ tells the story of our genetic past, present, and future. CNN’s Sanjay Gupta says, “If you can only read one book on the future of our species, this is it.” Nature calls it “Propulsive, fact-packed and engrossing,” and says “Metzl has a knack both for clarifying granular scientific and moral complexities, and for seeing the big picture.”

A founder and Co-Chair of the national security organization Partnership for a Secure America, Jamie is a board member of the International Center for Transitional Justice and the American University in Mongolia, and a member of the Advisory Board of the Brandeis International Center for Ethics, Justice, and Public Life. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations is a former White House Fellow and Aspen Institute Crown Fellow.

Jamie holds a Ph.D. in Asian history from Oxford, a JD from Harvard Law School, and is a magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University.

Speaking Topics:

• The Biology Revolution Will Change Everything. Are You Ready? The miraculous synthetic mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are just small, early examples of how the genetics and bioengineering revolutions will transform our world. Faster than most people understand or appreciate, our growing, superhuman capabilities to restructure the building blocks of life will fundamentally alter the way we prevent and treat disease, make babies, generate energy, grow food, store data, and create materials. But while this process had already begun before COVID-19, the pandemic has catapulted the biology revolution to a new phase just like World War II supercharged electronics and space travel generations ago. And just like the information technology revolution started small then “ate the world,” the biology revolution is about to change much of everything. Most businesses and other organizations are not ready. In this mind-expanding talk, visionary futurist Jamie Metzl describes how the biology revolution will play out over the coming years and what we can all do on a personal, professional, and global level to prepare and thrive.