Ten questions with Professor Shannon Vallor

 

 

What does innovation mean to you?

Innovation, to me, means the novel transformation of an existing process, practice, artefact or institution. Importantly, innovation does not automatically entail progress!

 

What has been your biggest success?

My biggest success has been contributing to a world where it is increasingly understood that the words ‘ethics’ and ‘values’ belong in any conversation about technology and innovation.

 

What failure has helped shape you?

In my first university course in Philosophy, I received a decidedly mediocre mark, which was a huge shock. It drove me to double my efforts, to see whether I’d hit a hard limit or whether I was just lazy; fortunately it was the latter (which taught me to never accept a personal limit until I’ve tested it.)

 

What would your friends say your greatest strengths and weaknesses are?

My friends would say my greatest strength is my self-control, and my greatest weakness is my reluctance to surrender it. As a child, I learned to cope with chaos by planning for every contingency and guarding against every disaster; but sometimes you need to just breathe and let life happen.

 

What book do you recommend to others?

There’s not just one, it depends on the kind of reader you are! It might be The Fall by Camus, The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler, Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, or Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.

 

If you had one more hour in the day how would you spend it?

Sleeping. No question.

 

What scares you?

Our collective inertia and group denial in the face of avoidable planetary ruin.

 

What piece of advice has stuck with you?

Loss is the price you pay for loving, and fear is the price you pay for trying. And both are absolutely worth it.

 

What future innovation would you like to see happen in your lifetime?

An innovation in what we collectively value. Even if we found the secret to making abundant, clean energy or traveling to the stars, it likely wouldn’t change the world for the better unless our dominant social values changed with it.

 

What gives you hope?

I think of human history, and how many times we’ve lost our way collectively and individually, and how many times we’ve found a path again, seeing our way through the darkness to something better.