J.M. Ledgard

J.M. Ledgard (born 1968) is a British born novelist and an expert in advanced technology, nature, and risk in emerging markets.[1] He works with conceptual artists.

J.M. Ledgard
Born1968 (age 51–52)
Shetland Islands
OccupationNovelist, technologist, foreign and war correspondent
Notable work
Giraffe (novel), Submergence (novel)

Early life

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

Career

Foreign and War Correspondent

After reporting on the Romanian revolution for The Scotsman as a student,[1] he worked as a foreign political and war correspondent for two decades. He reported lead stories from 60 countries for The Economist, including stints in Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa.[2] His emphasis was on security, natural resources, and macroeconomics. He reported on several conflicts and is a founder member of The Frontline Club. He was a contributing writer to 1843, The Economist's sister magazine. He writes occasional long pieces for The Atlantic and other publications.[3]

Novelist

Ledgard is the author of two novels, Giraffe (2006)[4][5] and Submergence (2013),[6][7] which was made into a film in 2017 of the same name by Wim Wenders.[8] His work has been compared to W.G. Sebald and John Le Carré.[9] He has referred to his writing as “planetary”.[10] Submergence was a New York Times Book of the Year and a pick of the year by Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, NPR, and New York.[11] Giraffe is considered a cult novel in the animal rights movement.[12] A book of essays, Terra Firma, concerned Africa and technology.[13]

Futurist
A radical but possible plan to connect African nations with cargo drones
Linnaeus, a prototype for interspecies money transfer

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.[14] He works with leading artificial intelligence scientists and roboticists to improve outcomes in often very poor communities and for nature. He was an early proponent of drone technology.[15][16] He invented the concept of blood delivery by drone, introducing the American startup Zipline into Rwanda.[17] He advanced the idea of droneports across the tropics, realising together with the architect Lord Norman Foster[18] a droneport prototype at the 2016 Venice Biennale. His cargo drone work has been taken up and scaled by the World Bank, the UN and commercial partners.[19] He supports digital self-sovereignty and was involved in early mobile money.[20] Since 2018, he has been focused on how artificial intelligence will perceive nature.[21] He was a visiting professor in AI and Nature at the Czech Technical University.[22] He is presently developing a prototype for interspecies money, by which rare non-human life forms may revalue themselves to improve their chance of survival.[23] He is an early proponent of the interspecies, an attempt to better comprehend other species using new technologies.[24]

Art

He collaborates with major artists on nature based projects, including on the deep ocean and digital futures with Olafur Eliasson,[25] on the interspecies with Tomas Saraceno,[26] and Federico Diaz[27] on nature based projects.

gollark: I think that trade just vanished.
gollark: I do have an IOU of 30 balloons for that ND I got one time going, so yay balloons.
gollark: But, generally speaking, it's because balloons are nice, and the hatchlings very cute.
gollark: I have no trades whatsoever up now.
gollark: What do you mean?

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. Ledgard, Jonathan (2004-04-01). "The Valley Of The King". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  4. Flint, James (2006-03-04). "Review: Giraffe by JM Ledgard". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  5. Connolly, Kate (2007-03-30). "Tall story: the mystery of the Prague giraffe massacre". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  6. Skloot, Floyd (2013-06-07). "Into the Abyss". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  7. 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.
  8. Whittaker, Richard; 4:41PM; Apr. 13, Fri; 2018. "Wim Wenders Talks About Submergence". www.austinchronicle.com. Retrieved 2020-08-10.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. "FSG Originals | Terra Firma Triptych". FSG Originals. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  10. Gourevitch, Philip. ""There Is Another World in Our World": A Conversation with J. M. Ledgard". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  11. "Book Review: 'Submergence'". NPR.org. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  12. Lindner, Elsbeth (2006-08-20). "Giraffes penned in zoo wake up dazed Czechs". SFGate. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  13. "Terra Firma Triptych". Work in Progress. 2015-07-10. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  14. Taub, Ben. "Jonathan Ledgard Believes Imagination Could Save the World". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  15. Wakefield, Jane (2019-01-26). "The airport that welcomes drone flights". Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  16. "Drones and Droneports Under African Skies". The Possible. 2017-08-31. Retrieved 2019-10-12.
  17. "Drohnen statt EselÜber Ruanda entsteht das erste Last drohnen-Netzwerk der Welt.Profitiert am Ende wieder nur der Westen?" (PDF). Retrieved 21 April 2020.
  18. "Foster reveals vaulted drone port prototype at Venice Biennale". Dezeen. 2016-05-27. Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  19. "African Drone Forum – Transforming mobility through technology". Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  20. "Subscribe to read | Financial Times". www.ft.com. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  21. "Een revolutionair plan: dieren die mensen betalen om voor hen te zorgen". De Standaard (in Dutch). Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  22. "Professor Jonathan Ledgard will lecture at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering - News service - Czech technical university in Prague". aktualne.cvut.cz. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  23. "Linnaeus – first interspecies money transfer service". Retrieved 2020-04-21.
  24. "Interspecies I/O". interspecies.io. Retrieved 2020-08-13.
  25. "Studio Olafur Eliasso... • Publication • Studio Olafur Eliasson". olafureliasson.net. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  26. "ON AIR · STUDIO TOMÁS SARACENO". STUDIO TOMÁS SARACENO. 2018-10-13. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
  27. "Signal Festival - I'm Leaving the Body / 2019". www.signalfestival.com. Retrieved 2020-08-10.
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