Create the Future

It's been a year of elections around the world. How do engineering and design choices affect the candidates running and results generated in our elections? And why do we have far more channels to rate our Uber drivers than we do our politicians?Host Guru Madhavan chairs a political summit with:Charles E. Phelps, provost emeritus of the University of Rochester and expert in health economics.Eswaran Subrahmanian, research professor at Carnegie Mellon University and expert in decision support systems.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

Super shoes are reshaping distance running. Thanks to innovative materials and construction, this new type of footwear is engineered to help runners go quicker with less effort. So how fast can we go in the future? And is it cheating?!Ready? Set ... Go! Host Roma Agrawal races through a fascinating conversation with:Jared Ward, long distance runner, Olympian, and BYU professor.Wouter Hoogkamer, researcher at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who studies human locomotion and biomechanics.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

Stronger than steel, more robust than concrete, more flexible than wood? Is bamboo the construction industry's new miracle material. And do bamboo buildings really perform better in earthquakes?Host George Imafidon constructs a fascinating conversation with Seb Kaminski, a structural engineering specialising in bamboo and seismic design.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find episode transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

How might flocks of birds, nests of ants, and swarms of bees influence the future behaviour and self-organisation of robots? Welcome to the world of swarm engineering, where sci-fi meets bio-mimicry.George Imafidon hosts a soaring conversation with Dr. Razanne Abu-Aisheh, a robot swarms expert from Bristol University.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find episode transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

Robotic spacecrafts? Manned missions to Mars? Affordable tourist trips to the stars? New life found? What is the likely future of space flight?Host Guru Madhavan pilots a soaring, speculative conversation with:Charles F. Bolden Jr., who in 2009 was appointed NASA Administrator by President Obama, making him only the second astronaut to hold that position.Professor Dava Newman, aerospace engineer, director of the MIT Media Lab, and holder of the Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics chair at MIT.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

Could the creation of reversible glue unlock a new future for the way we recycle plastic bottles and their labels?Host George Imafidon gets stuck into a sticky conversation about glue with:Professor Mark Geoghegan, Roland Cookson Professor of Engineering Materials at Newcastle UniversityDr Adriana Sierra Romero, a nanotechnologist with a focus on polymer and polymer nanocompositesNew episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find episode transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

Cement production creates around 7% of man-made carbon emissions. Meanwhile, in the UK crumbling concrete is forcing schools to close ...So how big a problem is concrete, exactly?! George Imafidon gets in the mixer to discuss it with:Prof. Kevin Paine, Director of the Centre for Climate Adaptation and Environment Research at the University of Bath, focussing on the development of smart and innovative concrete technology.Dr Cyrille Dunant, Principal Research Associate at the University of Cambridge, working on zero emissions cement.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find episode transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

The way we make music is changing. AI songs are everywhere - even The Beatles used the technology last year. So what does a digitised, computerised future mean for the fate of artists and their acoustic instruments?Episode host Anna Ploszajski - a materials scientist and keen trumpeter - faces the music with:Lex Dromgoole, audio engineer & CEO of Bronze AI.Tom Fox, instrument maker, music hacker, & creative director of Hackoustic.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.

Why do we fixate on plastic as the main waste issue of our time? Is all plastic bad? Have we got Bags For Life and paper straws totally wrong?Anna Ploszajski - materials scientist and storyteller - assembles her first edition of Create The Future with:Dr Alicia Chrysostomou, polymer consultant and author of Plastics: Just A Load Of Rubbish?Dr Kat Knauer, polymer scientist and CTO of the BOTTLE Consortium, who are focused on developing new chemical upcycling strategies for today's plastics and redesigning tomorrow's plastics to be recyclable-by-design.New episodes - conversations about how to rebuild the world better - every other Friday.Find podcast transcripts on our website.Follow @QEPrize on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook for more.