Hybrid Reality: Thriving in the Emerging Human - Technology Civilization, co-authored by Dr. Parag Khanna and Ayesha Khanna, co-directors of the Hybrid Reality Institute, discuss the recently published book at Civil Service College Singapore Centre for Governance and Leadership.
Their new book explores the frontier of the information revolution: The Hybrid Age. In this era of disruptive technologies, accelerating change, and deep anxiety about the future, the Khannas explain how the "balance of innovation" has superseded the military "balance of power" as a measure of national potential, and provide a global tour of how the smartest countries, cities, and companies are harnessing new technologies to gain an edge. Whether the future is a dystopian global class struggle over technology or a Pax Technologica of transparency, access and equity will depend on spreading not IQ or EQ, but TQ: technology quotient.
In advance of their recent move to Singapore, the Khannas wrote in Bloomberg BusinessWeek that "Singapore is not just a city-state; it is perhaps the world's leading 'info-state.' In this age where geo-technology is the key driver of geo-economics and geopolitics, it is the info-state that will have the upper hand. Info-states harness in knowledge and technology what they lack in size or military muscle. Info-states thrive by providing not just security, but also connectedness to rapidly advancing markets and technologies."
Bio
Parag Khanna
Parag Khanna is Director of the Global Governance Initiative and Senior Research Fellow in the American Strategy Program at the New American Foundation. He is author of The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order (Random House, 2008).
During 2007 he was a senior geopolitical advisor to United States Special Operations Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. From 2002-5, he was the Global Governance Fellow at the Brookings Institution, managing the World Economic Forum’s Global Governance Initiative, an independent, international project to assess the level of effort and cooperation among governments, the private sector, civil society and international organizations in implementing the United Nations Millennium Declaration.
From 2000-2002 he worked at the Forum in Geneva, where he specialized in scenario and risk planning.
Prior to joining the WEF, Parag was a Research Associate at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, conducting research projects on terrorism, conflict resolution in Central Asia, U.S. policy towards South Asia and defense policy.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in International Affairs and a minor in Philosophy from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, a Masters Degree from Georgetown’s Security Studies Program, and is earning a PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics. He also studied at the Freie Universitaet Berlin.
Parag's essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times, Harper’s, Policy Review, The National Interest, Foreign Policy, Los Angeles Times, Prospect (U.K.), Slate.com, The New Republic, Survival (U.K.), Current History, GOOD, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, New Statesman (U.K.), Strategy+Business, Washington Times, Daily Star (Lebanon), Indian Express, India Today, OpenDemocracy.net (U.K.), TheGlobalist.com, and Correspondence. He has been featured on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera International, National Public Radio (NPR), Doordarshan (India), MTV Desi and other media.
His travel writing has covered countries including Russia, Lebanon, Cambodia, Turkey, and Pakistan. He has coined or pioneered such terms as Geodiplomacy, Bollystan, Second World, and Multi-Americanism.
Having traveled in close to 100 countries, Parag is a member of the Explorers Club. He had been a Next Generation Fellow of the American Assembly (2007-8), Visiting Fellow at the Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore (2006), Non-Resident Associate of the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University (2004-5), and a Visiting Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, India (2004). In 2002 he was awarded the OECD Future Leaders Prize. He speaks German, Hindi, French, Spanish, and basic Arabic.
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