Leader & Advisor, the Founder of GreenFuturists and the Creator / Host of The Future Show. Gerd also serves as Visiting Professor at the Fundacao Dom Cabral (Sao Paulo, Brazil). He is well-known as the Co-author of the influential book ‘The Future of Music’ (Berklee Press, 2005), and as the author of ‘The End of Control’ (2007), ‘Music 2.0’ (2008), ‘Friction is Fiction’ (2009, Lulu Publishing), and ‘The Future of Content’ (Kindle-only, 2011). Gerd’s background is in music and the music business; in 1985 he won Berklee College’s ‘Quincy Jones Award’ and subsequently spend 10 years working as a professional guitar player, composer and producer. He then caught the Internet bug and became a digital media entrepreneur and start-up Internet CEO, based in San Francisco, for 7 years. In 2002, Gerd returned to Europe and started his career as a Futurist, Keynote Speaker and Strategic Advisor. He now travels around the globe and speaks at many major conferences and events, company retreats, seminars and in-house trainings on the Future of Business, Sustainability, Environmental Policy and Climate Change, Media, Content and Entertainment, Technology, Marketing, Advertising & Branding, Telecommunications and many more topics. In 2011, Gerd widened the scope of his work to include some of the most pressing ‘green’ issues such as sustainability and sustainable capitalism, renewable energy, climate change and global warming (see Green Futures Mag on Flipboard). In September 2013, Gerd announced a major shift of focus and speaking topics to ‘Human Futures‘. Gerd is considered a leading expert on topics such as the future of humanity, big data and privacy, digitally native business models, the networked society, a sustainable business ecology, social media, social business and So-Lo-Mo communications, TV & Radio futures, mobile strategies, innovation, leadership and entrepreneurship, consumer trends, UGC and peer production, copyright and IPR issues, next-generation advertising, marketing and branding, and more recently the development of ‘green futures‘ scenarios. In 2006, The Wall Street Journal called Gerd ‘one of the leading Media Futurists in the World’. In April 2014, Gerd launched The Future Show (TFS) . TFS is the first web-TV show that explains the fast-paced world of technology to a general consumer and business audience in an irreverent, critical, engaging and exciting way. Gerd is a fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts (London), a member of the World Future Society and a visiting professor at the Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil. A native German and long-time US-resident (San Francisco and Boston), he now resides in Basel, Switzerland.