The Chinese taking back control
The Chinese taking back control
Good Day! This is my weekly newsletter, with a dose of insights into the future. The topic of this newsletter is the exponential times we live in, hence the title of f(x) = e^x, which is the (natural) exponential function.
Recently, I launched my new concept The Digital Speaker and you can now book me as an avatar or hologram. Also, my tech trend prediction for 2021 is out, read it here!
How to Get Started with Conversational AI
My latest article:
Chatbots offer a great way for organisations to improve their business, make it more efficient and increase the customer experience. However, it is important that the chatbot learns in a supervised way and is bound by certain rules that drive your conversation.
Chatbots are a very tangible example where humans and machines work together to achieve a goal. A chatbot is a communication interface that helps individuals and organisations have conversations. But how to start with conversational AI? Here are seven steps to developing your chatbot.
Three Useful Nuggets of Information
My weekly tips from around the web to get you thinking.
1. Enjoying history? Now you can visit historic sites in VR.
Google, together with 3D laser scanning nonprofit CyArk, is now preserving historic sites that are at risk of irreversible damage due to human conflicts or natural disasters. As a result, soon you’ll be able to visit these sites in VR. (The Verge)
2. What if you had no internet, in America?
Broadband internet access seems so common for a large part of the global population. Especially in the USA you would expect. However, in the USA a portion of the population doesn’t have access to broadband, and some have no access to the internet at all. (Motherboard)
3. The Chinese government is taking control of the techindustry.
Chinese tech companies are rapidly developing their capabilities and seem unstoppable. Venture capital is flowing into these startups by the billions. Now, the Chinese government wants to take back control. (Bloomberg)
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam is The Digital Speaker, a world-leading futurist and global AI keynote speaker who helps leaders decide what AI, and the technologies that follow it, mean for their business. He speaks to leadership teams at their retreats and to conference audiences worldwide, and his WAVE framework gives them a way of deciding that they keep using long after he has left the room. His Intelligence Age Scorecard measures how ready an organization is across the four WAVE pillars.
He holds a PhD from the University of Technology Sydney, is a Certified Speaking Professional and Global Speaking Fellow, and ranks among the world’s top futurists on the Global Gurus list (#1 in 2025, #3 in 2026). Salesforce named him one of its 16 leading AI voices. He has written six books, most recently Now What? How to Ride the Tsunami of Change, writes the Synthetic Minds newsletter on Substack, and founded Futurwise. Talk to his digital twin on WhatsApp: +1 (830) 463-6967.
