Ray Kurzweil

Ray Kurzweil is held in the highest regard in the tech sector. He is the 1978 recipient of the Grace Murray Hopper Award, 1999 recipient of the National Medal of Technology and Innovation, a Lemelson-MIT prize winner and inductee into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. Ray's first gift to the world of technology was the image scanner, before he unleashed optical character recognition (OCR) on the world, allowing us to transform images into text. He invented the first print to speech reading machine for blind people and a synthesiser that could recreate the sound of a grand piano. When hired as a speaker, Ray speaks on these and other incredible experiences from his illustrious career. 

Ray successfully predicted the World Wide Web's emergence and that a chess champion could be beaten by a computer, and while it is easy to brush this off in hindsight, his years of experience working at the forefront of the tech industry make him one of the most sought-after futurists in the world. Some of his more recent predictions include that machines will outsmart humans by 2055 and that in several decades humans will have the power to live indefinitely. Whether you believe in the timeframes or even the content of his speeches, Ray is undisputedly the best at what he does. His book, “The Singularity is Near”, is a New York Times Bestseller that revolutionised the industry. In 2024, Ray published its sequel, “The Singularity is Nearer” – which has been described by Yuval Noah Harari as “fascinating”. 

Ray’s predictions come from in-depth research into the fields in which he works and the possibilities that will come with the progression of artificial intelligence and technology. Such is his pioneering work, that he has been recognised by three US presidents and was named by PBS as one of 16 "revolutionaries who made America". Strong praise has been bestowed on Ray who was also listed by Inc. Magazine as eighth in the "most fascinating" entrepreneurs in the US; in the same article they named him "Edison's rightful heir". 

With interests in artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology and life extension technologies, there are few futurism speakers as well placed to offer a glimpse of our future as Ray. A prolific speaker, his TED talk “The Last 6 Decades of AI – and What Comes Next” explains how AI will improve our lives in the years to come. Now, Ray is available to speak on topics such as AI, digital disruption, biotechnology, nanotechnology, & futurism. If you’re looking for a speaker who is an futurism, artificial intelligence and technology expert, look no further than Ray Kurzweil.