Ayesha Khanna on Hybrid Reality: Take Education Into Your Own Hands!

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Ayesha Khanna is the co-founder of the Hybrid Reality Institute and co-author of Hybrid Reality book for Kindle.

During my Singularity 1 on 1 interview with Ayesha Khanna we discuss a variety of topics such as women and technology; whether men are from Mars and women from Venus; her book Hybrid Reality and what she calls the hybrid age;  smart cities; the philosophy and politics of technology; big brother and hacktivism; government policy, higher education, and unemployment; technological progress and freedom; her recent start-up Urban Intel…

In addition to the title, my two most favorite quotes from Ayesha are:

The hybrid age is a new sociotechnical era that is unfolding as technologies merge with each other and humans merge with technology – both at the same time.

I want people to stop talking about statistics and start talking about human beings.

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Who is Ayesha Khanna?

Ayesha is CEO of Urban Intel, Asia’s e-learning platform for professional skills development. Urban Intel provides the skills training that equips current and prospective employees of corporations and governments to meet the demands of Asia’s rapid urbanization. A technology and innovation strategy expert, Ayesha has over 15 years of experience advising clients and cities on product development, digital branding, and customer experience. Ayesha is also Director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, directs the Future Cities Group at the London School of Economics, and is a Faculty Advisor at Singularity University.
Prior to founding Urban Intel, Ayesha founded the Hybrid Reality Institute, a research and advisory group focused on emerging technologies and their policy and economic consequences for cities. She has written on technology, innovation, and intelligent cities in BusinessWeek, TIME, Newsweek, Forbes, Strategy+Business, and Foreign Policy. She is the author of the books Straight Through Processing (2008) and Hybrid Reality (2012).

Ayesha has a BA (honors) in Economics from Harvard University, an MS in Operations Research from Columbia University, and is completing her Ph.D. on urban information infrastructures at the London School of Economics.

Ayesha is on the Board of Advisors for Humanity+, on the Scientific Advisory Board of the Lifeboat Foundation, a Fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and was co-curator of TEDxGotham. In 2010, she co-chaired the Innovation Advisory Board for the New York City congressional campaign of Reshma Saujani.