Jonathan Ledgard

Jonathan M. Ledgard (born 1968) is a Scottish born journalist, author and an expert in advanced technology, emerging markets, nature and literature.[1]

Early life

Ledgard was born in 1968 in the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland.[2]

Career

Journalism

Beginning in 1998[1] he worked as a foreign political and war correspondent for 15 years, with particular expertise in emerging economies, security, business, and natural resources. He reported in Central Asia, Latin America, the Balkans, Afghanistan, and Africa. He was the East Africa correspondent for The Economist.[2]

Author

Ledgard is the author of two novels, Giraffe (2006)[3][4] and Submergence (2013),[5][6] which was made into a film in 2017 by the same name.[7]

Futurist

He was a fellow and director at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne since 2012,[1] and has been involved in promoting super advanced technology in Africa and across the tropics.[8] He works with leading artificial intelligence scientists and roboticists to improve outcomes for nature and often very poor local communities. He was an early proponent of drone technology.[9][10] He invented the concept of blood delivery by drone, introducing the American startup Zipline into Rwanda.[11] He advanced the idea of droneports across the tropics, realising together with the architect Lord Norman Foster[12] a droneport prototype at the 2016 Venice Biennale. His cargo drone work has been taken up and scaled by the World Bank and other partners.[13] Since 2018, he has been focused on artificial intelligence and nature and is developing a prototype for interspecies money transfer, by which rare non-human life forms can receive money and spend it on their survival.[14]

References
  1. "Jonathan M. Ledgard". World Economic Forum. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  2. Taub, Ben (2019-09-16). "Jonathan Ledgard Believes Imagination Could Save the World". ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  3. Flint, James (2006-03-04). "Review: Giraffe by JM Ledgard". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  4. Connolly, Kate (2007-03-30). "Tall story: the mystery of the Prague giraffe massacre". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  5. Skloot, Floyd (2013-06-07). "Into the Abyss". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  6. Gourevitch, Philip (2013-04-30). ""There Is Another World in Our World": A Conversation with J. M. Ledgard". ISSN 0028-792X. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  7. Whittaker, Richard; 4:41PM; Apr. 13, Fri; 2018. "Wim Wenders Talks About Submergence". www.austinchronicle.com. Retrieved 2019-10-12.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. Taub, Ben. "Jonathan Ledgard Believes Imagination Could Save the World". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  9. Wakefield, Jane (2019-01-26). "The airport that welcomes drone flights". Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  10. "Drones and Droneports Under African Skies". The Possible. 2017-08-31. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  11. "Drohnen statt EselÜber Ruanda entsteht das erste Last drohnen-Netzwerk der Welt.Profitiert am Ende wieder nur der Westen?" (PDF). Retrieved 21 April 2020.
  12. "Foster reveals vaulted drone port prototype at Venice Biennale". Dezeen. 2016-05-27. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  13. "African Drone Forum – Transforming mobility through technology". Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  14. "Linnaeus – first interspecies money transfer service". Retrieved 2020-04-21.
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