Intelligence Squared is a media company that organizes live
debates and other cultural events around the world.
It was founded in 2002 in London,
where its head office is based, and has affiliates in the
US,
Australia, and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
. The debates are held in the traditional
Oxford style in front of a live audience. The company produces video and
podcast
A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...
programs, publishing on
YouTube
YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...
, and other platforms.
Intelligence Squared is often referred to as Intelligence
2 and IQ2.
History
Intelligence Squared was founded by two media entrepreneurs,
Jeremy O'Grady and John Gordon, in 2002.
In 2012, the company was bought by art consultant Amelie von Wedel,
Yana Peel (CEO of
Serpentine Galleries
The Serpentine Galleries are two contemporary art galleries in Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, Central London. Recently rebranded to just Serpentine, the organisation is split across Serpentine South, previously known as the Serpentine Gallery, ...
), and David Legg (
Commonwealth Bank of Australia
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), or CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, busine ...
Executive General Manager).
Hannah Kaye has been executive producer since 2006,
and Matt McAllester became managing director in 2018.
In addition to debates, Intelligence Squared also hosts interviews, discussions, and panels with such figures as President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1 ...
,
Eric Schmidt,
Sheryl Sandberg
Sheryl Kara Sandberg (born August 28, 1969) is an American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist. Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is al ...
,
Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai ( ur, , , pronunciation: ; born 12 July 1997), is a Pakistani female education activist and the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Awarded when she was 17, she is the world's youngest Nobel Prize laureate, and the second P ...
,
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946)
is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''.
Called the "punk poet ...
, and
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...
.
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
Robert Rosenkranz (born August 5, 1942) 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 equit ...
.
The organization's mission is stated as being to "restore critical thinking, facts, reason, and civility to American public discourse."
Other Intelligence Squared licensees operate in
Sydney (since 2008) and
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
(since 2009).
The company has also had partnerships in
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
(2008 – 2014),
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
(2010),
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
(2013), and
Chile
Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...
(2014). IQ2 debates in Australia are hosted by
The Ethics Centre in
Sydney.
Debate format
Intelligence Squared uses the traditional Oxford-Style debate format
inspired by the
Oxford Union
The Oxford Union Society, commonly referred to simply as the Oxford Union, is a debating society in the city of Oxford England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest ...
. 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.
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
The Royal Opera House (ROH) is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. It is the home of The Royal Ope ...
with a sixty-piece live
orchestra
An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families.
There are typically four main sections of instruments:
* bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...
,
Stephen Fry
Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...
in the chair, and
John Tomlinson singing
Wotan.
Debate topics include foreign policy, religion, history, social policy, politics, economics, science, technology, art, culture, and the environment.
Intelligence Squared U.S.
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.
An award-winning
national radio program, podcast, 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
Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech r ...
and a human being, in partnership with
IBM's "
Project Debater”.
Intelligence Squared U.S. is often referred to as IQ2US.
Intelligence Squared U.S. episodes have been broadcast on
NPR
National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...
since 2007,
in addition to
Bloomberg Television
Bloomberg Television (on-air as Bloomberg) is an American-based pay television network focusing on business and capital market programming, owned by Bloomberg L.P. It is distributed globally, reaching over 310 million homes worldwide. It is hea ...
,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
.
channel and as part of a weekly podcast series. The company also records podcasts with authors and other intellectuals.
.
The first Intelligence Squared and
VERSUS debate series held its first debate, titled "It's Time to End the War on Drugs", on 13 March 2012.
on topics related to climate change and sustainable energy use. Other partnerships include