Sam Jordan

Futurist, the Future Today Institute
Sam Jordan Smiling at the camera in a black button down shirt in front of a black background
  • An authoritative and optimistic voice on emerging tech and trends, and the possibilities they offer to evolve organizations and society
  • Leads a compelling and easy-to-understand discussion about novel technologies and connects those technologies to various industries
  • Examines the new and underrated ideas and technologies that will change the world
  • Authors the “Future of Computing” and “Future of Space” sections of the Future Today Institute’s annual Tech Trends Report, downloaded over 1M times

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Sam Jordan is a futurist on a mission to spread “plausible optimism” about the possibilities of emerging technologies. As a leader with the Future Today Institute (FTI), a foresight and strategy firm founded by world-renowned futurist Amy Webb, Jordan helps organizations dissect the complexities of upcoming opportunities, while also factoring the inherent risks. Her analysis of the data and trends in the ever-changing tech landscape gets organizations unstuck and ready to develop and implement their own customized, future-focused strategies for evolving their businesses.

Exclusively represented by Leading Authorities speakers bureau, Jordan infuses her talks with a compelling blend of passion and conviction as she leads a fascinating exploration into artificial intelligence, computing, meta-science, and the advancements in technology that will make the biggest impact on business and society. With her unique approach, Jordan helps organizations identify which emerging technologies they can integrate into their operations and strategies to power their businesses to the next level, while talking them through the ethical aspects. She is immensely skilled at making otherwise abstract concepts in future trends and technological ethics accessible to any audience. Groups come away from Jordan’s talks with tools for productive action toward progress in overcoming current and future challenges.

At FTI, Jordan maintains a database of thousands of different trends, leveraging her expertise with the firm's unique foresight methodology to advise her clients, some of whom rank in the Fortune Top 20. Together, she works with these organizations to adapt their strategies based on future scenarios that she helps craft. Jordan was also the founder and CEO of TrovBase, a secure data discovery and analysis sharing platform. Previously, she was an IBM client leader helping enterprise clients modernize their IT environments.

In addition to serving as a mentor for NYU Stern MBA students in strategic foresight, Jordan headed the Carnegie New Leaders program at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, during which time, she created programming for the next generation of leaders across sectors to engage deeply with ethics. She was also a national finalist in persuasive speaking and international champion in rhetorical critical analysis as a student, bringing a high level of passion and polish to every engagement.

Sam Jordan believes emerging technologies have the potential to enable a better future for all if we make good choices. Stressing progress over pessimism, she shares her purpose-driven and framework for using today’s capabilities to build a better tomorrow.

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Speaker Video

Sam Jordan: AI is Powering the Future Today

This Time It's Personal: Our Relationship with Computers in the Future

The Disruptive Trends that Are Shaping Tomorrow. As constant technological innovation continues to keep business and society on their toes, Sam Jordan, a well-respected futurist and leader at the Future Today Institute, helps groups wrap their heads around the world of emerging technologies and work through the complexities they present — in business and beyond. As she takes audiences on a mind-bending adventure into what the next five, ten, and twenty years could look like, she presents the most compelling future trends and emerging technologies that are reshaping industries, societies, and the ways we live, work, and do business.

From the rise of transformative technologies (such as Generative AI) to the profound impact of societal shifts, Jordan explores the key drivers that are propelling organizations into the next decade and beyond. As she points to examples for how these megatrends might impact organizations and their specific industries, now and in the future, she outlines the human and ethical considerations they pose, and offers proven strategies for how businesses can identify the tech and trends that align with their goals and implement them for optimal impact.

AI-Driven Business Transformation: Powering the Future Today. In this immersive, future-focused keynote, Sam Jordan, futurist and leader at the Future Today Institute, examines the dynamic world of artificial intelligence and its profound impact on organizations across industries in the modern world. Jordan emphasizes that, as AI continues to evolve industries, it is crucial for organizations to understand and embrace its potential, as well as work through the risks and ethical challenges it presents. Drawing upon her own cutting-edge research and insights, she examines the remarkable ways AI technologies are revolutionizing business landscapes, and how leaders and their teams can seize transformative opportunities to stay ahead in today’s rapidly evolving market.

Strategies for Accelerating Innovation (and Why We Should). Throughout human history, technological evolution has ebbed and flowed — disrupting industries and creating opportunities for organizations to develop new products, services, and solutions that add value and take us into the future. In this fascinating talk, Sam Jordan analyzes the historical conditions that enabled or hindered progress to gain insights into expediting future advancements that can be leveraged in support of organizational goals. By studying key periods of exponential growth and innovation, like Silicon Valley's contemporary tech boom or Athens' Golden Age, Jordan seeks to understand the catalyzing factors behind such progress and apply them to markets today. This journey will encompass economic opportunity and resource and knowledge accessibility, as well as cultural acceptance of risk and failure. In distilling these ingredients for success, Jordan aspires to create a roadmap that organizations can adapt to expedite future solutions to humanity's pressing challenges. The central objective of this talk is to stimulate discourse around cultivating societal values, policies, and opportunities that can fuel innovation and enhance lives.

This Time It's Personal: Our Relationship with Computers in the Future. Personal computing has been redefined. No longer defined by hardware, it now centers on the personal experiences that shape our lives. In this conversation, futurist and tech expert Sam Jordan analyzes how a convergence of social and technological forces has revolutionized personal computing in just the past few years. But more profoundly, we will see how personal computing has become personal through factors like an increasingly integrated work-life experience, global supply chain challenges, and shifting consumer expectations have accelerated this shift. As users, we are all shaping the future of personal computing through the tech we embrace and the habits we form. The coming decade will transform the landscape of personal tech, and this talk delves into that exciting journey — as well as the implications on organizations and their industries. Jordan helps the audience envision what personal computing could become when digital experiences are designed around human experiences. Unbound from any particular device, personal computing will feel profoundly custom and invisibly integrated into our lives. Overall, this speech aims to start a conversation about technology's deepest purpose: serving the human experience.

Democratizing Discovery: A Future Where Independent Research is Not Discernible from Credentialed Research. In this talk, futurist Sam Jordan explores the critical need for transformation within our scientific institutions. Jordan presents a vision of how we can improve the social processes of science to better support discovery, while discussing novel solutions for overcoming the division of labor challenges in science, and the key role of metascience in driving this necessary change. This talk will challenge us to reevaluate our scientific culture and to embrace the potential of metascience for progress.

How Science Fiction Shapes Technology, Society and Our Humanity. Science fiction often inspires new technologies that ultimately transform our societies in complex ways. In this talk, widely respected futurist Sam Jordan explores how sci-fi has catalyzed real-world innovation, while recognizing that the ethical implications of emerging technologies are seldom as simplistic as portrayed in fictional works. Audiences can expect a thoughtful discussion of both the optimistic visions of the future that rally their imaginations, as well as the harder truths about the challenges that accompany rapid technological change within their organizations, and society as a whole. Jordan delves into how science fiction inspired real-world technologies, stimulated novel ideas, and initiated vital dialogues about our technological future, ethics, and humanity. She will contrast the hopeful possibilities of advanced tech bettering our world with the cautionary tales of how it could go wrong.

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