Founded | 2002 |
---|---|
Headquarters | Notting Hill, West London |
No. of locations | London New York City Sydney Athens Hong Kong Tel Aviv Santiago |
Founder(s) | Jeremy O'Grady John Gordon |
CEO | Matt McAllester [1] |
URL | www |
Intelligence Squared is a media company that organizes live debates and other cultural events around the world. [2] It was founded in 2002 in London, [3] where its head office is based, and has affiliates in the US, Australia, and Hong Kong. The debates are held in the traditional Oxford style in front of a live audience. The company produces video and podcast programs, publishing on YouTube, and other platforms. [4] Intelligence Squared is often referred to as Intelligence2 and IQ2. [2]
Intelligence Squared was founded by two media entrepreneurs, Jeremy O'Grady and John Gordon, in 2002. [3] In 2012, the company was bought by art consultant Amelie von Wedel, Yana Peel (CEO of Serpentine Galleries), and David Legg (Commonwealth Bank of Australia Executive General Manager). [5] Hannah Kaye has been executive producer since 2006, [6] and Matt McAllester became managing director in 2018. [5] In addition to debates, Intelligence Squared also hosts interviews, discussions, and panels with such figures as President Jimmy Carter, Eric Schmidt, Sheryl Sandberg, Malala Yousafzai, Patti Smith, and Werner Herzog. [7]
Intelligence Squared licensed the rights to the brand for global expansion and Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates was established in 2006 as a nonpartisan, nonprofit media group by financier and philanthropist Robert Rosenkranz. [8] [9] [10] The organization's mission is stated as being to "restore critical thinking, facts, reason, and civility to American public discourse." [11]
Other Intelligence Squared licensees operate in Sydney (since 2008) and Hong Kong (since 2009). [12] [13] The company has also had partnerships in Kyiv (2008 – 2014), Athens (2010), Israel (2013), and Chile (2014).[ citation needed ] IQ2 debates in Australia are hosted by The Ethics Centre in Sydney. [12]
Intelligence Squared uses the traditional Oxford-Style debate format [14] inspired by the Oxford Union. A motion is proposed, with two speakers arguing in favour and two against. Opening remarks are around 10 minutes in length. This is followed by questions and answers from the live audience, a lively dialogue between the speakers, and short closing remarks by each debater in turn. [14] The audience is polled on their opinion both before and after the debate and the winning side is determined by the side which changed the most minds.
Another format they produce are "Cultural Combat" debates, in which two cultural figures are pitted against each other. These began in 2013 with "Verdi vs. Wagner", which was staged at London’s Royal Opera House with a sixty-piece live orchestra, Stephen Fry in the chair, and John Tomlinson singing Wotan. [15] [16]
Debate topics include foreign policy, religion, history, social policy, politics, economics, science, technology, art, culture, and the environment. [17] [18]
Intelligence Squared U.S. Debates was established in the United States in 2006 as a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution with a mission to "raise the level of public discourse" in America. [19] An award-winning [11] national radio program, [20] podcast, [21] television show, and digital platform, Intelligence Squared U.S. has produced more than 200 live debates since 2006 and made history by hosting the first debate ever between an artificial intelligence and a human being, in partnership with IBM's "Project Debater”. [22] Intelligence Squared U.S. is often referred to as IQ2US. [11]
Intelligence Squared U.S. episodes have been broadcast on NPR since 2007, [23] in addition to Bloomberg Television, [24] [25] BBC, [26] PBS, [27] Newsy, [28] C-SPAN, [29] and education streaming platform Wondrium. [30]
All Intelligence Squared events are recorded and released on the company’s YouTube channel [31] and as part of a weekly podcast series. [32] The company also records podcasts with authors and other intellectuals. [33]
Intelligence Squared debates have also been broadcast globally on BBC World. [34]
Intelligence Squared has partnered with The New York Times, [35] Google, [36] and Vanity Fair. [37]
The first Intelligence Squared and Google VERSUS debate series held its first debate, titled "It's Time to End the War on Drugs", on 13 March 2012. [38] Intelligence Squared has also staged events in partnership with Shell [36] on topics related to climate change and sustainable energy use. Other partnerships include The National Trust, Wellington College, Abbey Road Studios, Baker McKenzie in New York City, Investec, Christie's, the World Health Organization in New York, the United Nations in Geneva, and the University of Chicago.[ citation needed ]
Xinhua News Agency, or New China News Agency, is the official state news agency of the People's Republic of China. A State Council's ministry-level institution founded in 1931, Xinhua is the largest media organ in China.
Lai Chee-ying, also known as Jimmy Lai, is a Hong Kong businessman and politician. He founded Giordano, an Asian clothing retailer, Next Digital, a Hong Kong-listed media company, and the popular newspaper Apple Daily. He is one of the main contributors to the pro-democracy camp, especially to the Democratic Party. Although he is known as a Hong Kong political figure, he has been a British national since 1996. Lai is also an art collector.
Emily Maitlis is a British journalist, documentary filmmaker, and former newsreader for the BBC. She was the lead anchor of the BBC Two news and current affairs programme Newsnight until the end of 2021. She is currently a presenter of the daily podcast The News Agents on LBC Radio.
The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an Anglosphere intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence. Informally, Five Eyes can also refer to the group of intelligence agencies of these countries.
Robert Rosenkranz is an American philanthropist and the chairman of Delphi Capital Management, an investment concern with over $35 billion in assets under management, and the founder of a group of investment and private equity partnerships. From 1987 until 2018 he was the chief executive officer (CEO) of Delphi Financial Group, an insurance company with more than $20 billion in assets. Delphi grew from one of his acquisitions and increased its value 100-fold under his leadership.
Phoenix Television is a majority state-owned television network that offers Mandarin and Cantonese-language channels that serve mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau and other markets with substantial Chinese-language viewers. It is headquartered in Shenzhen and Hong Kong. It is also registered in Cayman Islands.
Gary Chan Hak-kan, BBS, JP is a current member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong. He represents the New Territories North East constituency and is a chairperson of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong (DAB) political party.
Scripps News is an American news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, and owned by the Scripps Networks division of the E. W. Scripps Company. It was previously known as Newsy, from its launch in 2008 until December 31, 2022.
National Public Radio is an American non-profit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national syndicator to a network of over 1,000 public radio stations in the United States. It differs from other non-profit membership media organizations, such as the Associated Press, in that it was established by an act of Congress.
Quartz is an American English language news website owned by G/O Media. Focused on international business news, it was founded in 2012 by Atlantic Media in New York City as a "digitally native news outlet for business people in the new global economy". It initially did not have a paywall, then did, then dropped it.
Censorship by Apple refers to Apple Inc.'s removal, omission, or disruption of the spread of content or information from its services or subsidiaries, such as the iTunes Store and the App Store (iOS), in order to comply with Apple's company policies, legal demands, or various government censorship laws.
Edward Joseph Snowden is an American and naturalized Russian citizen who was a computer intelligence consultant and whistleblower who leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2013 when he was an employee and subcontractor. His disclosures revealed numerous global surveillance programs, many run by the NSA and the Five Eyes intelligence alliance with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European governments and prompted a cultural discussion about national security and individual privacy.
Marques Keith Brownlee, also known professionally as MKBHD, is an American YouTuber and professional ultimate frisbee player, best known for his technology-focused videos as well as his podcast Waveform. As of December 2023, he has more than 20 million subscribers across all channels and 3.93 billion total video views. Vic Gundotra, a former senior vice president of Google, called Brownlee "the best technology reviewer on the planet right now". At the 10th Shorty Awards in 2019, he was named "Creator of the Decade" The former name of his YouTube channel is a concatenation of MKB and HD. With New York PoNY, he is the 2022 WFDF World Champion in the Open Category for ultimate Frisbee.
Bellingcat is a Netherlands-based investigative journalism group that specialises in fact-checking and open-source intelligence (OSINT). It was founded by British citizen journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins in July 2014. Bellingcat publishes the findings of both professional and citizen journalist investigations into war zones, human rights abuses, and the criminal underworld. The site's contributors also publish guides to their techniques, as well as case studies.
MeWe is a global social media and social networking service. As a company based in Los Angeles, California it is also known as Sgrouples, Inc., doing business as MeWe. The site has been described as a Facebook alternative due to its focus on data privacy.
Nigel Ng Kin-ju is a Chinese-Malaysian comedian and YouTuber. He is best known for co-creating and portraying Uncle Roger, a character representing a middle-aged Asian uncle with an exaggerated Cantonese accent who is usually seen aggressively critiquing people's attempts at cooking Asian food.
China Uncensored is a YouTube commentary channel that focuses on sensitive political issues in China with elements of humor and irony. The show opposes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Chris Chappell is the host of the series.
The 32nd anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests featured events in China and elsewhere on, and leading up to, 4 June 2021 – to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, in which the government of China ordered the army to fire on protestors, killing hundreds, if not thousands, of people.
Open to Debate Foundation is a nonpartisan, nonprofit media group that produces nationally broadcast debates and conversations on a wide array of topics spanning technology, law, global affairs, culture, science, medicine, and public policy issues. The mission of the organization is to "address the extreme polarization of our nation and our politics" and "restore critical thinking, facts, reason, and civility to American public discourse".