Book talk: 'Wicked Problems: How to Engineer a Better World'

Our world is filled with pernicious problems. How, for example, did novice pilots learn to fly without taking to the air and risking their lives? How should cities process mountains of waste without polluting the environment?

Challenges that tangle personal, public, and planetary aspects - often occurring in health care, infrastructure, business, and policy - are known as wicked problems, and they are not going away anytime soon.

In this talk, the Author of Wicked Problems, engineer Guru Madhavan, will illuminate how wicked problems have emerged throughout history and how best to address them in the future. He will examine best-known tragedies and lesser-known tales, from the efficient design of battleships to a volcano eruption that curtailed global commerce.

An homage to society’s innovators and maintainers, Guru will offer a refreshing vision for all backgrounds to build a better future and demonstrate how engineering is a cultural choice - one that requires us to restlessly find ways to transform society, but perhaps more critically, to care for the creations that already exist.

Guru will be joined in conversation by Sir Charles Godfray, Director of the Oxford Martin School.

The talk will be followed by a drinks reception and book signing.