Paradox 16“ and the anomalies of the modern world

On Thursday 07.04.16, six luminaries from various fields came together at our well-known "Mock-Up" exhibition and training centre for the first Stuttgart dialogue on society and the economy. Each held a presentation on their specialist field while also taking a broader look at the world at large.

Organiser Frank Augustin, editor-in-chief of the Stuttgart-based philosophical economic journal agora 42 and Markus Turber from the intuity design office define the series of discussions thus: "Paradox brings together free spirits who manoeuvre beyond prevailing thought." The idea for the event was developed in a rather mundane setting: over beer in a bar.
The first six discussion partners for the premiere of this temporary think tank were quickly found: Theo von Bomhard, a pioneering computer scientist and for many years head of the Corporate Strategy department at Robert Bosch GmbH, opened the session followed by Lutz Kloke, a biotechnologist at TU Berlin who is researching into the 3D printing of organs. The two men set out their ideas to an audience of over 120 people.
The presentations given by Niko Paech, an environmental economist and sustainability researcher, and Katharina Reuter, a business consultant for sustainability issues, added further fuel to the discussion. Education was the subject of the final third of the evening. Marie Glück began by reporting on a path that took her to India and Madrid before joining Ludwigsburg's Urban Development Office. Finally the philosopher and author Richard David Precht picked the German school system to pieces, closing the session with the words: "Teachers are like eunuchs. They know how to do it but they can't."

The evening gave us plenty of food for thought and we are looking forward to the next event in the series.
(Photos: Tom Bloch, Stuttgarter Nachrichten)