UNSW Centre for Ideas

Join a full house at the Sydney Opera House with Nobel winning scientist Jennifer Doudna and Big Ideas' host Natasha Mitchell to discuss the huge social, ethical, and scientific implications of the CRISPR gene editing revolution. From curative therapies to gene edited babies - will we use it to hack our own evolution? 

Cooperation is our superpower, and democracy is a foundation of human progress. But we take them for granted at our peril. In some of the strongest democracies, democratic principles are being undermined while many voices are ignored. In this conversation Nobel Prize laureate Tawakkol Karman tells her story of her dete

Facts matter. The scientific process matters. The ability to think critically is essential to navigate our world, to make good decisions and to solve some of the world’s most intractable problems. Nobel Prize laureate Saul Perlmutter believes everyone can learn the skills scientists use to think critically so that they

Breakneck cultural change means growing up today is a completely different experience from growing up in the 1950s, or the 1980s, or even the 2000s. Psychologist and author of Generations and iGen Jean Twenge, researcher and geriatrician expert on ABC’s Old People's Home for 4 Year Olds and Teenagers Stephanie Ward, an

Australia has been a close ally of the United States since 1940, but what does this mean for contemporary politics when democracy is more fragile than ever? Chaired by Festival favourite Barrie Cassidy, one of Australia’s most experienced political correspondents and analysts, this expert panel features former BBC fore

What can we expect from a world of deepfakes where anything you see or hear might be synthetic and the output of AI? Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at UNSW, Toby Walsh unpacks untruths and warns of a future inundated with machine-generated content, predicting that soon, 99% of what we read, see, and hear