Lasse Syversen was last week’s breakfast speaker and presented a picture show that depicted his journey from 1950 (his birthdate) toward 2030. His first job was as an office equipment salesman, and his first computer had less memory than today’s watches. Programs were stored on magnetic cards. In 1980 he went to work for General Electric (where he got his first mobile phone!).

If today’s leaders are asked to list the “megatrends” that are shaping the business world of tomorrow, three are likely to top most lists:

• One is the accelerating shift in Exonomic power from West to East. Specifically, the “EX” refers to “the “unmeasured, perhaps even ’immeasurable’ forces that are in economics.”
• Another is financial-market instability and recession, at least for those in the world’s more developed economies.
• The third is Technological progress.

The world will get to seem smaller, that’s for sure. It will be difficult to maintain borders and also to know where people are. Ultimately, though, the technology will never be more effective than the people who use it.

• Watch the video

Last week’s breakfast speaker was Dr. Jackson Janes, President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University who spoke to us about the development of the Euro Dollar in Europe which is the current trading base for 300 million people in seventeen countries in Europe.

The Euro began as a trading base on January 1, 1999. To date, Germany has maintained the most stable economy of all members. It is hoped that Germany’s Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, will remain as the Euro Head in Brussels (her German re-election taking place in September, 2013). The growing pains of the Euro will continue to abound. Hopefully, they will all focus on developing a strong trading group across the Atlantic Ocean.

The Euro is the currency of 17 European Union countries: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, The Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

• [fancy_link color=”black” link=”https://nbrotary.org/?p=1286″]Watch the video[/fancy_link]

Bruce Fowler’s program last week drew on his early career as a marine biologist, and his life-long interest in photography and scuba diving. He showed underwater photographs that he and his son took in areas around the earth including Sharm el Sheikh-Egypt, Miyako Island in the Ryuku island group—East China Sea, Truk Atoll-Micronesia, Hawaii and Grand Cayman island and Nassau, and the Bahamas in the Caribbean Sea.

The photographs were spectacular, especially the pictures of marine life— nocturnal moray eels with their sense of smell, lion fish, blue spotted fish,rays with their 500 volts of electricity, butterfly fish, Angel fish, Star fish, and on and on.

Bruce observed that “We are living on a space ship that is mostly covered with water and upon which we are ultimately dependent. It is my hope that all will enjoy the underwater photographic art as we circle the globe in 30 minutes.”