The digital age leaves the UK open to catastrophic threats. Drawing on decades of experience in government, Sir Oliver Letwin is here to reveal just how vulnerable we are.

As the world becomes more connected, we grow ever more dependent on technology for every aspect of our lives – and the risk of system-wide collapse becomes more and more real.

Whether it’s a hostile state striking the national grid, like Russia did to the Ukraine in 2016, or a freak solar storm, there are myriad ways any single piece of infrastructure can fail – and when one part goes down, the rest will topple like dominos.

This is no Hollywood doomsday scenario: it’s a picture grounded in real-life case studies, cutting-edge research, and an investigation in the resilience of the UK’s infrastructure by one of most trusted politicians in the country.

Sir Oliver Letwin joins the How To Academy to deliver an incisive, authoritative guide to the risks technology poses to national security and everyday life. In this talk, he will outline how businesses and government should respond to catastrophic black swan events that seem distant and implausible – until they occur.

Sir Oliver will look ten years into the future and imagine a UK in which the national grid has collapsed. Reliant on the internet, automatic electric cars, voice-over IPs, GPS, and the internet of things, law and order would disintegrate. Taking us from high-level government meetings to elderly citizens waiting in vain for their carers, this event is a wake up call for why we should question our unshakeable faith in technology.