Dr. Ewelina Kurtys - Building the Brain That Powers Tomorrow's AI

Dr. Ewelina Kurtys - Building the Brain That Powers Tomorrow's AI

Most conversations about AI focus on what machines can do faster than humans. Fewer conversations ask the more uncomfortable question: what actually makes human intelligence… human? On June 18th, my guest on Inspiring Conversations will be neuroscientist and deep-tech strategist Dr. Ewelina Kurtys [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ewelinakurtys/], whose work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, AI, biological computing, and emerging technologies. Ewelina’s journey began in brain imaging and neuroscience before moving into medical imaging, AI, commercialization, and frontier technologies. Today, she works across areas including AI agents, neuromorphic systems, organoid intelligence, and bio-inspired computing, helping bridge the gap between complex research and real-world adoption through her work with FinalSpark. Our conversation is titled: “What Happens When Computers Start Thinking More Like Humans?” Because beneath all the headlines about AI, automation, and productivity sits a much bigger question. If we start building systems inspired by the human brain itself, what does that mean for how we understand intelligence, decision-making, creativity, and even work? And perhaps more importantly: Are we racing to recreate human intelligence artificially while still struggling to understand the humans already inside our organisations? This conversation will explore neuroscience, AI, biological computing, the future of work, and the increasingly blurry line between technology and humanity. #InspiringConversations [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23inspiringconversations&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #ArtificialIntelligence [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23artificialintelligence&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Neuroscience [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23neuroscience&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #FutureOfWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23futureofwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Leadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Innovation [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23innovation&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HumanCenteredLeadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23humancenteredleadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Technology [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23technology&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #AI [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23ai&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WorkplaceCulture [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23workplaceculture&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WetwareComputing [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23wetwarecomputing&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #OrganoidIntelligence [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23organoidintelligence&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HappinessAtWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23happinessatwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #podmatch [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23podmatch&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED]

Richard Clarke - Happy People, Leaving Anyway

Why Happy Teams Still Leave Most organisations do not realise they have a retention problem until someone leaves. Before that, everything often looks fine. People are friendly. The culture seems positive. The perks are there. Teams laugh together on calls. Engagement scores are respectable enough to avoid panic. And yet, underneath the surface, something quieter is happening. People disconnect slowly. Not because they hate the company. Not because the leadership team is terrible. But because too many organisations still confuse visible positivity with actually meeting human needs at work. Richard Clarke [https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardmclarke/] learnt that lesson the hard way. After founding a tech company in the Canary Islands, Richard believed he was building the kind of workplace people genuinely wanted to be part of. The team got along well, people enjoyed their work, and by most standards the culture looked healthy. Then one day, half the team told him they were thinking about leaving. What followed was seven years of research, experiments, measurement, and uncomfortable learning about what really drives happiness, engagement, and retention inside teams. Not the LinkedIn version. The real version. In this episode of Inspiring Conversations, Richard and I explore why so many well-intentioned leaders still get workplace culture wrong, why perks and “being nice” are often misunderstood as solutions, and what actually changes when organisations start listening properly to what their people need. We also talk about the hidden signals leaders miss before disengagement shows up in resignations, performance issues, or burnout. Because sometimes the most dangerous workplaces are not the openly toxic ones. They are the ones where everything appears fine… right until people start leaving. #InspiringConversations [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23inspiringconversations&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Leadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WorkplaceCulture [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23workplaceculture&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #EmployeeEngagement [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23employeeengagement&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HappinessAtWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23happinessatwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Retention [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23retention&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #FutureOfWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23futureofwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #PsychologicalSafety [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23psychologicalsafety&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #LeadershipDevelopment [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadershipdevelopment&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #EmployeeExperience [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23employeeexperience&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #TechLeadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23techleadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #PeopleAndCulture [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23peopleandculture&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WorkplaceWellbeing [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23workplacewellbeing&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #podmatch [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23podmatch&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED]

Scott Trumpolt - Why Employees Stop Trusting the Black Box

The Black Box at Work: Why Employees Stop Trusting How Value Is Decided Most people do not expect work to be perfect.But they do expect it to make sense. They want to understand how decisions are made. Why some people progress faster than others. Why recognition feels inconsistent. Why “people-first culture” sometimes disappears the moment compensation enters the conversation. And this is where many organisations quietly lose trust. Because compensation is never just about money. It becomes a reflection of fairness, transparency, communication, and whether people feel genuinely valued, or simply managed. On June 4th, my guest on Inspiring Conversations is Scott Trumpolt, M.A., G.R.P. [https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-trumpolt-m-a-g-r-p-257a6b317/], Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Trumpolt Compensation Design Solutions (TCDS). With more than 30 years of experience across global HR and compensation leadership, Scott has worked with organisations across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, helping leaders bring compensation practices “out of the black box” and into something people can actually understand. We will explore: • Why unclear compensation systems damage culture faster than many leaders realise • The connection between transparency, trust, and employee engagement • Why people often disengage long before they resign • What compensation reveals about what organisations truly value • How leaders can create reward systems that support both business performance and human wellbeing Because sometimes the biggest problem at work is not disagreement. It is silence around the things people think about every single day. #InspiringConversations [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23inspiringconversations&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Leadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WorkplaceCulture [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23workplaceculture&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #EmployeeEngagement [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23employeeengagement&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Compensation [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23compensation&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HR [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23hr&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Transparency [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23transparency&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #FutureOfWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23futureofwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HappinessAtWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23happinessatwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #LeadershipDevelopment [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadershipdevelopment&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #OrganisationalCulture [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23organisationalculture&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #TrustAtWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23trustatwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HumanCenteredLeadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23humancenteredleadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #podmatch [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23podmatch&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED]

Keith Kuperman – Calm Until It Isn't: What Disaster Zones Teach Us About Leadership

Calm Until It Isn’t: What Disaster Zones Teach Us About How Organisations Actually Function Most organisations are not in crisis. And that is exactly the problem. Work gets done. Targets are met. Meetings happen. On the surface, everything looks fine. But clarity is often assumed, not tested. Roles are loosely understood. Communication works, until it suddenly doesn’t. Nothing breaks hard enough to force the conversation. So we wait. We wait for pressure. We wait for something to go wrong. We wait until the stakes are high enough that we have no choice but to respond. Keith Kuperman has spent years working in environments where that luxury does not exist. When you are dealing with hurricanes, wildfires, or community emergencies, there is no space for vague roles or half-aligned teams. Decisions matter immediately. Communication has consequences. And “we’ll figure it out later” is not an option. That kind of environment reveals something most workplaces never get to see clearly. How people actually show up. How decisions really get made. And where the gaps have been hiding all along. This conversation is not about disaster response. It is about what those environments expose, and what organisations can learn before things go wrong. Because most teams do not fail in crisis. They fail in the quiet build-up to it. If you are leading a team, working in one, or quietly wondering why things feel harder than they should, this one will land. #InspiringConversations [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23inspiringconversations&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Leadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Teamwork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23teamwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Resilience [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23resilience&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WorkplaceCulture [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23workplaceculture&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HappinessAtWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23happinessatwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Communication [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23communication&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #podmatch [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23podmatch&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED]

Audley Stephenson – The Engine You Already Have

What does it actually take to be bold inside a life that was not designed for it? Most of us have been taught that boldness belongs to certain kinds of people. The ones who took the leap. The ones who walked away. The ones with the perfectly timed story of risk and reward. But Audley Stephenson [https://www.linkedin.com/in/theaudman/] spent over 30 years inside public service, one of the most cautious institutional environments imaginable, while simultaneously building one of Canada's longest-running independent podcast networks. More than 3,000 conversations. Six shows. And not once did he wait for the perfect conditions. His upcoming book, Living Your Best Audacious Life, arrives this spring. But what this conversation sits with is something quieter than the boldness we celebrate. The kind that shows up inside ordinary days. Inside organisations that were not built for it. Inside the moments when life hands you uncertainty and no clear script. Because audacity, as Audley sees it, is not a personality type. It is a practice. And that changes everything.So the question worth sitting with is this. What small act of boldness have you been postponing, and what is it actually costing you? If you lead people, feel the pull between playing it safe and living with more intention, or simply wonder whether there is a bolder version of your working life waiting, this conversation might land closer than expected. #InspiringConversations [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23inspiringconversations&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #HappinessAtWork [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23happinessatwork&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Leadership [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23leadership&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #Audacity [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23audacity&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #WorkplaceWellbeing [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23workplacewellbeing&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #BoldLiving [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23boldliving&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED] #podmatch [https://www.linkedin.com/search/results/all/?keywords=%23podmatch&origin=HASH_TAG_FROM_FEED]