Esther Duflo is an economist known for her pioneering work in the field of the economics of development and the fight against poverty. In 2019, she received the Nobel Prize in Economics, making her the second woman in history to win this prestigious award, and the youngest to date.

A recognized thought leader, scholar and presenter, Noreena Hertz was cited by The Observer as "one of the world's leading young thinkers" and by Vogue as "one of the world's most inspiring women".

Dan Lyons is a New York Times bestselling author, screenwriter and journalist. His books include Shut Up: The Power of Keeping Your Mouth Shut in an Endlessly Noisy World and Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Startup Bubble.

Philippa Perry trained as a psychotherapist and has been working in the field of mental health for over 20 years. In 2010, she published a graphic novel, Couch Fiction, which depicts the process of psychotherapy.

As a young boy, like any child, William had his own dream: to start a school. But he was born in a place where dreams rarely came true.

Afghan footballer and activist, founder of Girl Power, which uses sport, leadership and education as a means of inclusion and empowerment for migrant, asylum-seeking and refugee women at risk of social exclusion, Popal was captain of the Afghan women's national soccer team.

Architect of the theory of the Third Industrial Revolution, in which he thoroughly analyzes the economic, environmental, social and cultural impact of new technologies on the global economy, Rifkin is one of the most renowned contemporary communicators.

Andrea Wulf is a historian and writer. She was born in New Delhi, India, before relocating to Germany as a child. She completed her studies in History of Design and teaches this subject at The Royal College of Art in London.

Frans de Waal is a renowned primatologist and ethologist born in the Netherlands in 1948. He is Professor of Primate Behavior in the Department of Psychology at Emory University and Director of the Living Links Center, which is affiliated with the Yerkes National Research Center in Atlanta.

A professor at Brown University and founder of the Unified Growth Theory, Oded Galord has pioneered the exploration of the impact of evolutionary processes, population diversity and human development inequality. His research links these examples to economics.

A graduate in Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a PhD in Fine Arts from Tsukuba, Japan, John Maeda is a founder of the Aesthetics and Computing Group at MIT Media Lab.

He is the world's most popular contemporary philosopher. Michael Sandel, Professor at Harvard University and 2018 Princess of Asturias Award for Social Sciences, aims to put civic education on the table and connect philosophy with our daily lives. Also on this podcast.

Sara Kuburic is a Serbian-Canadian therapist, researcher and writer, also popularly known as the online millennial therapist. Over the past few years, Sara has grown exponentially in popularity and recognition as a high-level therapist with expertise in psychology. Now, Kuburic is a columnist at USA Today, where she shares tips and ideas about personal life and well-being.

Judit Polgár is a retired Hungarian chess player. She is considered the best female chess player in history. In 1991 she won the International Grand Master title at the age of 15 years and four months, thus becoming the youngest person to obtain that title at the time and breaking the record previously held by former World Champion Bobby Fischer.

Hadi Partovi is the founder of Code.org, a non-profit educational organization that has developed computer science classes that reach 30% of U.S. students. In addition, he has launched the global 'Hour of Code' movement, reaching millions of students in every country in the world.

On June 24, 1995, Johannesburg's Ellis Park stadium witnessed “one of the most glorious moments in politics and sport of the 20th century”. South African President Nelson Mandela, elected a year earlier in his country's first democratic elections, donned the jersey of the captain of the national rugby team, Francois Pienaar, and walked onto the pitch to greet each member of the team, which was playing in the World Cup final that day. The gesture could have cost Madiba dearly - rugby was the sport of the Afrikaners. ‘Invictus’, a film based on John Carlin's book “The Human Factor”, tells the story.

Alison Gopnik is an American Professor of Psychology and Affiliate Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.

Keith Ferrazzi is the world’s top expert in the development of professional human relationships. Both Forbes and Inc. regard him as one of the world’s most «connected» people.

One day, during a talk, she conducted a simple experiment: she asked a group of scholars to close their eyes and point south-eastwards. There were fingers pointed in every posible direction. However, Lera Boroditsky knew that if she asked the same question to a girl from an Aboriginal community in Australia she would point her finger in the right direction.

Canadian experimental psychologist, cognitive scientist, linguist, writer and professor at Harvard College, Steven Pinker is known for his vigorous and far-reaching advocacy of evolutionary psychology and computational theory of the mind.

Jessica Grose is a novelist and essayist. Her works of non-fiction have appeared in the The Los Angeles Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and The Paris Review Daily, among other publications.  She has a Master´s degree in creative writing from The New School, a Master's degree in cultural reporting and criticism from New York University and a Bachelor's in anthropology from Princeton University. Grose published her debut novel, Hysteria, in 2020.

Doug Lemov is the founder of Uncommon Schools. Rare are the elementary schools that use their own teaching methodology based on values such as respect, hard work and kindness so that students love school from the beginning.

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, MA. He is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can't Focus and What You Can Do About It, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty, and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching.

Writer Emily Esfahani Smith draws on psychology, philosophy and literature to write about the human experience—why we are the way we are and how we can find grace and meaning in a world that is full of suffering.

Vinton Cerf is considered by many as the father of the Internet. He was the founding president of the Internet Society. With the Internet, Vinton Cerf completely revolutionized information transmission processes, allowing the unrestricted flow of information around the world.

Siri Hustvedt has published works of fiction, essays, poetry and academic articles. Her work is underpinned by feminism, art, and science.

Tali Sharot is the director of the Affective Brain Lab. She is a professor of cognitive neuroscience in the Experimental Psychology department at University College London and a senior research fellow at the Wellcome Trust.

Susan Cain is a U.S writer and author of the best seller, ‘Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.’ Her work revolutionized our concept about personality, that argues that modern, Western culture misinterprets and undervalues the skills and traits of introverts.

Lisa Damour is an american psychologist and writer specializing in the development of adolescent and young women. Her first New York Times best seller, Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood focuses on the seven distinct developmental stages that girls go through as they grow into adults.

Sonja Lyubomirsky received her PhD in social psychology from Stanford University and is currently Distinguished Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside.

Noam Chomsky is one of the frequently cited intellectuals in history. Considered the founder of modern linguistics, he has written numerous essays that made their way around the world. In the field of linguistics, he introduced the ‘Chomsky hierarchy’, generative grammar and the ‘universal grammar’ theory.

Matthieu grew up surrounded by ideas and figures from French intellectual circles. He first time traveling was to India in 1967. He obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology at the Instituto Pasteur under the sponsorship of Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine François Jacob.

Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to register for a marathon. During the race they tried to forcibly remove her number - a scene that became immortalized, and the photograph of the moment made its way around the world. Afterwards, the number she wore - 261 - has become a symbol of gender equality in sports.

Convinced that “copy paste” is the foundation of art, writer and artist Austin Kleon has turned his thesis into a way of life. He defines himself as “a writer who draws”. His first best seller  “Newspaper Blackout” is a book of poetry, which he created by re-editing newspaper articles with a permanent marker. “They look like haikus made by the CIA,” Kleon jokes.

What is stoicism and how can it help us manage a life crisis? A doctor and professor of philosophy, Massimo Pigliucci faced a critical juncture with the death of his father and undergoing a divorce. He looked to the ancient philosophers for answers and discovered “virtue ethics,” an approach to life that advances human improvement through the development of values.

Alex Beard has spent a decade dedicated to educational research. He is a member of Teach for All, a worldwide network of independent educational organizations that seek to ensure that all children are given the opportunity to fulfil their potential. He has traveled the world studying the most innovative, ground-breaking educational methods. Of everything he has learned on his travels, he stresses that we should “take creativity more seriously” and that we are at the threshold of an “educational revolution”.

We live in a “tyranny of positivity” say U.S. psychologist Susan David: “Society demands that the ill remain optimistic, that women don’t show outrage, and that men don’t cry,” she says. According to her research, most people judge themselves for feeling “negative” emotions like anger, disappointment or sadness. But “repressing or denying these emotions makes them stronger and lead us to deadlock,” she maintains.

250 students were expected to register for Yale University Professor Laurie Santos’ class “Psychology and the Good Life”. Instead it became a mass phenomenon with 1,200 registered students. She later offered her class “The Science of Well-Being” online, and it went viral around the world. Why? Because human beings have spent thousands of years searching for happiness, to no avail.

Why do we fall in love? The neurobiologist and anthropologist, Helen Fisher, began studying love scientifically using brain scans in her research on 49 men and women. Some of the group were madly in love, while others had been rejected. Shortly thereafter, individuals who continued to be in love after three decades of marriage were included in the sample of research subjects.

Michio Kaku, a theoretical physicist and string theory expert, is one of the most well known scientific commentators in the world. He received his doctorate from the University of California in 1972, and for three decades has held the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City College of New York.