Erika Ilves on asteroid mining

Erika Ilves is an innovation strategist and author on a mission to recruit more people for the ungrateful job of starting hyper-visionary ventures. How well are we, as a civilization, allocating our time and resources? If our goal was to survive and keep evolving as a species, then the answer is "very, very poorly". At least that is the conclusion Erika Ilves arrived at after three years of extensive research that culminated in the co-authored book "The Human Project". In the book, Ilves puts forward an agenda for a species that's serious about its own survival. Now her life's challenge is to help shift more of our civilization's attention and capital out of trivial pursuits and into civilization-advancing ventures. According to Ilves, we need fewer RunPee's (an app that tells you the best time to take a bathroom run at the cinema), and more Space X's (a rocket company on a mission to create a multi-planetary civilization, starting with cheap, reusable rockets). She is currently working on turning The Human Project into a global campaign to get the Connected generation to think seriously about the future of our species. She is also launching road:infinity, an innovation strategy firm focused on growing a new generation of radical entrepreneurs who have the nerve to pursue visions of cosmic proportions. Before embarking on her current mission, Ilves served as an executive at the iconic Norwegian technology company TANDBERG (acquired by Cicso in 2010) and spent 6 years as a consultant with McKinsey & Company where she co-led the Firm's South-East Asian banking practice and managed large-scale performance transformations for banks in Asia-Pacific, Africa and Europe. She holds an LL.M. in International Business Law from the CEU/Emory Law School, a cum laude LL.B. in Law from Tartu University and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 1999. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)