A professor at Brown University and founder of the Unified Growth Theory, Oded Galord has pioneered the exploration of the impact of evolutionary processes, population diversity and human development inequality. His research links these examples to economics.

A graduate in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a PhD in Fine Arts from Tsukuba, Japan, John Maeda is a founder of the Aesthetics and Computing Group at MIT Media Lab.

He is the world's most popular contemporary philosopher. Michael Sandel, Professor at Harvard University and 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, aims to put civic education on the table and connect philosophy with our daily lives. Also on this podcast.

Sara Kuburic is a Serbian-Canadian therapist, researcher and writer, also popularly known as the online millennial therapist. Over the past few years, Sara has grown exponentially in popularity and recognition as a high-level therapist with expertise in psychology. Now, Kuburic is a columnist at USA Today, where she shares tips and ideas about personal life and well-being.

Judit Polgár is a retired Hungarian chess player. She is considered the best female chess player in history. In 1991 she won the International Grand Master title at the age of 15 years and four months, thus becoming the youngest person to obtain that title at the time and breaking the record previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer.

Hadi Partovi is the founder of Code.org, a non-profit educational organization that has developed computer science classes that reach 30% of U.S. students. In addition, he has launched the global 'Hour of Code' movement, reaching millions of students in every country in the world.

On June 24, 1995, Johannesburg's Ellis Park stadium witnessed “one of the most glorious moments in politics and sport of the 20th century”. South African President Nelson Mandela, elected a year earlier in his country's first democratic elections, donned the jersey of the captain of the national rugby team, Francois Pienaar, and walked onto the pitch to greet each member of the team, which was playing in the World Cup final that day. The gesture could have cost Madiba dearly - rugby was the sport of the Afrikaners. ‘Invictus’, a film based on John Carlin's book “The Human Factor”, tells the story.

Alison Gopnik is an American Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Keith Ferrazzi is the world’s top expert in the development of professional human relationships. Both Forbes and Inc. regard him as one of the world’s most «connected» people.

One day, during a talk, she conducted a simple experiment: she asked a group of scholars to close their eyes and point south-eastwards. There were fingers pointed in every posible direction. However, Lera Boroditsky knew that if she asked the same question to a girl from an Aboriginal community in Australia she would point her finger in the right direction.

Canadian experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist, writer and professor at Harvard College, Steven Pinker is known for his vigorous and far-reaching advocacy of evolutionary psychology and computational theory of the mind.

Jessica Grose is a novelist and essayist. Her works of non-fiction have appeared in the The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and The Paris Review Daily, among other publications.  She has a Master´s degree in creative writing from The New School, a Master's degree in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University and a Bachelor's in anthropology from Princeton University. Grose published her debut novel, Hysteria, in 2020.

Doug Lemov is the founder of Uncommon Schools. Rare are the elementary schools that use their own teaching methodology based on values such as respect, hard work and kindness so that students love school from the beginning.

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, MA. He is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can't Focus and What You Can Do About It, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching.

Writer Emily Esfahani Smith draws on psychology, philosophy and literature to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of suffering.

Vinton Cerf is considered by many as the father of the Internet. He was the founding president of the Internet Society. With the Internet, Vinton Cerf completely revolutionized information transmission processes, allowing the unrestricted flow of information around the world.

Siri Hustvedt has published works of fiction, essays, poetry and academic articles. Her work is underpinned by feminism, art, and science.

Tali Sharot is the director of the Affective Brain Lab. She is a professor of cognitive neuroscience in the Experimental Psychology department at University College London and a senior research fellow at the Wellcome Trust.

Susan Cain is a U.S writer and author of the best seller, ‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.’ Her work revolutionized our concept about personality, that argues that modern, Western culture misinterprets and undervalues the skills and traits of introverts.

Lisa Damour is an american psychologist and writer specializing in the development of adolescent and young women. Her first New York Times best seller, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood focuses on the seven distinct developmental stages that girls go through as they grow into adults.

Sonja Lyubomirsky received her PhD in social psychology from Stanford University and is currently Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside.

Noam Chomsky is one of the frequently cited intellectuals in history. Considered the founder of modern linguistics, he has written numerous essays that made their way around the world. In the field of linguistics, he introduced the ‘Chomsky hierarchy’, generative grammar and the ‘universal grammar’ theory.

Matthieu grew up surrounded by ideas and figures from French intellectual circles. He first time traveling was to India in 1967. He obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology at the Instituto Pasteur under the sponsorship of Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine François Jacob.

Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to register for a marathon. During the race they tried to forcibly remove her number - a scene that became immortalized, and the photograph of the moment made its way around the world. Afterwards, the number she wore - 261 - has become a symbol of gender equality in sports.

Convinced that “copy paste” is the foundation of art, writer and artist Austin Kleon has turned his thesis into a way of life. He defines himself as “a writer who draws”. His first best seller  “Newspaper Blackout” is a book of poetry, which he created by re-editing newspaper articles with a permanent marker. “They look like haikus made by the CIA,” Kleon jokes.

What is stoicism and how can it help us manage a life crisis? A doctor and professor of philosophy, Massimo Pigliucci faced a critical juncture with the death of his father and undergoing a divorce. He looked to the ancient philosophers for answers and discovered “virtue ethics,” an approach to life that advances human improvement through the development of values.

Alex Beard has spent a decade dedicated to educational research. He is a member of Teach for All, a worldwide network of independent educational organizations that seek to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to fulfil their potential. He has traveled the world studying the most innovative, ground-breaking educational methods. Of everything he has learned on his travels, he stresses that we should “take creativity more seriously” and that we are at the threshold of an “educational revolution”.

We live in a “tyranny of positivity” say U.S. psychologist Susan David: “Society demands that the ill remain optimistic, that women don’t show outrage, and that men don’t cry,” she says. According to her research, most people judge themselves for feeling “negative” emotions like anger, disappointment or sadness. But “repressing or denying these emotions makes them stronger and lead us to deadlock,” she maintains.

250 students were expected to register for Yale University Professor Laurie Santos’ class “Psychology and the Good Life”. Instead it became a mass phenomenon with 1,200 registered students. She later offered her class “The Science of Well-Being” online, and it went viral around the world. Why? Because human beings have spent thousands of years searching for happiness, to no avail.

Why do we fall in love? The neurobiologist and anthropologist, Helen Fisher, began studying love scientifically using brain scans in her research on 49 men and women. Some of the group were madly in love, while others had been rejected. Shortly thereafter, individuals who continued to be in love after three decades of marriage were included in the sample of research subjects.

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and string theory expert, is one of the most well known scientific commentators in the world. He received his doctorate from the University of California in 1972, and for three decades has held the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.

“What if I told you there was something that you can do right now that would have an immediate, positive benefit for your brain including your mood and your focus? Would you do it?” With this starting point, Wendy Suzuki, Psychology Professor and Neuroscientist at the New York University’s Center for Neural Science, has spent years inspiring a sedentary society with problems with excess weight, stress and anxiety.

Mary Gordon is an educator and the founder of ‘Roots of Empathy’ and ‘Seeds of Empathy’, two revolutionary educational programs based on the development of empathy and in nurturing emotional literacy from early childhood. According to Mary Gordon, “many of the problems afflicting society, like violence and poverty, are rooted in a lack of empathy.”

“My dear refugee and friend, never quit learning, never quit dreaming. Never lose hope.” This is how the letter starts that Muzoon Al-Mellehan has dedicated to the boys and girls who suffer the toll caused by armed conflict. She also had to flee. At 14, she escaped Syria with her family, headed for a refugee camp in Jordan. She brought with her only the essentials: her schoolbooks. During the three years she spent in refugee camps, she fought to raise awareness among families that children should continue studying. In 2017 she became the first UNICEF goodwill ambassador with refugee status. She now lives in the United Kingdom where she is studying international relations: “My message for world leaders and international organizations is that they should focus their efforts on ensuring that children have access to quality education, no matter the circumstances in which they find themselves.”

David Matsumoto is a psychology professor at San Francisco State University (SFSU). His mastery of microexpressions, gestures, non-verbal behavior, culture, and emotion have made him one of the leading experts in these areas. Currently, he is the director of the Emotion and Culture Research Laboratory at SFSU, focused on studies that revolve around social interaction, and communication. In addition, Matsumoto founded the East Bay Judo Institute in El Cerrito, California. He has a seventh-degree black belt and is a licensed class-A trainer and referee.

Keith Devlin is one of the world’s greatest advocates for mathematics. The British Mathematician  insists that maths in the 21st century depends on creativity. Devlin is the author of more than 30 popular science books; a university professor, as well as the co-founder and director of H-STAR, the Human-Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research Institute at Stanford University. His research focuses on the use of different methods for teaching mathematics to the general public.

Should children, to grow up healthy, do dangerous things? According to Gever Tulley, founder of Brightworks School and Tinkering School, two educational initiatives based on learning through experimentation, controlled risk can be a powerful educational tool. This educator firmly believes that education needs to free itself from parental over-protection. “We need brave boys and girls, who are prepared to confront the challenges of the world to come.” The message for fearful parents is clear: “Don’t let your fear be the only thing that interferes with your child’s autonomy.”

Michael Sandel is the Professor of Government at Harvard University and one of the most highly regarded and well-known philosophers in the world, his classes at Harvard are wildly popular and always fully packed. Last October he received the 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences because, according to the jury, he has “managed to transmit his dialogic, deliberative approach to debate to a global audience.” Sandel believes that faith in debate has been lost, which is one of the reasons why public discourse in democratic societies worldwide seems so empty. He explains: “We are afraid to talk with our co-citizens about big questions such as justice, what it means to be a citizen, and the common good because we are afraid we won’t agree,”.

Ranga Yogeshwar is one of the most popular scientists in Germany, a board member of several research institutions and founder of several scientific initiatives. He is a frequent star on German television and radio, where he has hosted numerous shows and debates. In his most recent book called “Next Exit: The Future” he analyzes how science and technology will transform our lives. Ranga Yogeshwar travels the world giving lectures on the challenges posed by innovations and how they are changing societies.

Tony Wagner is one of the most renowned experts working in education around the world. A high school teacher in the U.S. for more than a decade, he currently works at the Harvard Innovation Lab. For years he has advocated for a new approach to education. In fact, he is on the board of several educational institutions and public organizations. Wagner contends that the current educational model needs to change so that young people can build an assured future focused around what they want and what jobs are likely to exist. He argues that the role of schools needs to be reexamined, given that knowledge is now found everywhere, not just in the classroom, and consequently, educational roles are changing.