Gordon Watson has taken over the reins at luxury phone brand Vertu at a crucial junction for the company. I previously encountered the brand, famous for its high end communications devices, when I presented at EQT’s annual conference, a Swedish private equity group that had acquired the company from Nokia. Late last year, Vertu was bought by Chinese investors and is on the verge of launching a new suite of data driven, luxury concierge services to complement its high end handsets. Visiting their headquarters in England, I spoke with Gordon about the future of mobile devices, and what luxury might mean in a technology context.

Ankur Kothari is a pioneer in the area of robotic process automation and the design of digital back offices. A co-founder of Automation Anywhere, he has been working over the last decade on transforming entire industries by introducing them to a digital workforce and human–robot partnerships that can help them scale efficiently. We met up in Hyderabad, a city in India where many of the world’s biggest companies locate their outsourced IT and back office operations. We have all heard that robots may be coming for our jobs, but I was curious to learn - will anyone really be sad to see transactional, routine tasks done by a machine rather than a human being?

One day Rob Lilwall, an ordinary geography high-school teacher, decided to drop everything to cycle from Siberia to London via China, Australia and Afghanistan. The journey took 3 years, covering over 50,000 km. He didn’t stop there. Soon after, he attempted another trip from Mongolia to Hong Kong. 5,000 km. In winter. On foot. An adventurer, author and motivator - Rob and I caught up to talk about overcoming obstacles, the call to adventure, and how to survive being chased by bandits in Papua New Guinea.

Professor Ian Goldin is Professor of Globalisation and Development and Director of the Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford. Previously he was Vice President of the World Bank, and also served as an adviser to President Nelson Mandela on economics and development. He is the author of 20 books on innovation, globalisation and economics - and it was his latest title, ‘Age of Discovery: Navigating the Risks and Rewards of Our New Renaissance’ that we spoke about over coffee when we caught up in Dubai. Despite populist claims that countries and individuals are better off alone, Professor Goldin believes that the modern age is inextricably connected and interdependent. And that’s a good thing - as just like the original Renaissance, we are about to live through a new age of innovation, transformation and reinvention.

When I wrote my last book, ‘The Dictionary Of Dangerous Ideas’, I wanted to find a platform that represented the future, rather than the dusty past of publishing. That brought me to Blurb, and many years later to their offices in San Francisco where I met up with their founder, Eileen Gittins. Starting her career in imaging at Eastman Kodak, Eileen left to found a number of successful digital companies before coming up with the idea of creating a simple digital platform for authors to produce high quality books. We spoke about where books will go in the future, how games like Minecraft help teach kids computational thinking, and what can be done to encourage more young women to become entrepreneurs.