RTL Today - The Lisa Burke Show RTL Today

From soft diplomacy to block voting, Luxembourg's last entrant in 1993 to Tali, this show is full of Eurovision fun & folklore before the big day in May!



Eurovision!



We’re almost there!



Eurovision 2024 will take place in Malmö, Sweden, on 11 May with semi-finals on 7 and 9 May. It is the third time that Malmö has hosted the Eurovision Song Contest following 1992 and 2013 editions, and the seventh for Sweden. It’s happening in Sweden of course because of Loreen’s win in Liverpool in 2023.



Tali Golergant, the artist representing Luxembourg, will be performing in the first of the two semi-finals. The ‘big five’ (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK) are pre-qualified for the Grand Final.



The Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) is the single biggest event to bring Europeans (and a global audience) together. It was even sponsored by the European Commission for some time. More people vote in this competition than the European elections. It is a strong tool of cultural diplomacy.



Dr. Dean Vuletic has given the Eurovision Song Contest deep academic analysis. He designed the world’s first university course on Eurovision, which he taught at New York University. Whilst a researcher at the University of Vienna, he researched and wrote the first-ever scholarly book on the history of Eurovision, Postwar Europe and the Eurovision Song Contest. He currently teaches at the University of Luxembourg, amongst other roles. You can find Dean’s commentaries, interviews and op-eds across global media. Dr. Vuletic can also be seen featured in films such as ‘When Franco Stole Eurovision’ and ‘Eurovision: Secrets and Scandals’, amongst others.



The competition has been in existence since 1956, and Luxembourg will be taking part for the first time since 1993 when Jimmy Martin performed. Jimmy talks about performing in Millstreet, County Cork, and the changes to Eurovision since that time. Jimmy was already an established rock musician before Eurovision and has continued to make that his career.



The BBC used the phrase ‘United by Music’ and that’s now been taken as an official slogan for the contest going forward. The Eurovision Lights serve as the theme art which is meant to conceptualise the northern lights and sound equalizers.

And 37 public broadcasters will be present.



Eric Lehmann is Head of the Luxembourgish Delegation and has attended the ESC since 1998. Eric talks about building the necessary team to support Luxembourg’s re-entry to the Eurovision Song Contest, and the pre-selection process through the Luxembourg Song Contest. Part of the team Eric had to build around Tali includes hair & make-up. And in that position is the very talented Luca de Michèle who has worked on many fashion shows around the world.



Roger Saurfeld has attended Eurovision since 2000 and is one of the organisers for the Eurovision Previews such as that in Bissen on 19 April where all the Luxembourg Song Contest candidates will perform their entries with money donated to the LUkraine asbl.



Rafaela Teixeira, or Rafa Ela, one of the eight finalists of the Luxembourg Song Contest, talks about the family built through the competition process and her own music writing as a form of connection with others and to her own life experiences.



Let us know your thoughts on all things Eurovision! Will you be watching? Who’s your first choice? Do you believe Eurovision can be a cultural force for political good?



Subscribe to the Podcast and get in touch!



Please do subscribe to the podcast on Apple and / or Spotify. It would be great if you could rate and review too - helps others find us.



Tune in on Today Radio Saturdays at 11am, Sundays at noon and Tuesdays at 10am.











https://www.instagram.com/taligolergant/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deanvuletic/

https://www.instagram.com/deanvuletic/

https://www.instagram.com/iamluca94/

https://www.instagram.com/jimmymartinmusic/

https://www.

Exciting launch! Our very first Book Club show with Today Radio's Vanessa Phelan and Sarah Tapp. Every month we'll share recommendations and take on a new book, as voted by our readers.



It all started with Sarah chatting about the wonderful interview she did with Dr. Susan Rogers on her tome about music cognition and cyberaustics: "This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You"



And then the conversation took a book curve into what we're reading, what we've enjoyed over the past few months, and we thought it would be great to build a community around our love of books and reading.



So here we are! We would love you to help build this community with ideas and recommendations.



Each month we will try to bring recommendations and also include YOUR recommendations.



You will have no doubt heard both of my colleagues on Today Radio as Sarah Tapp hosts The Hangover and Vanessa Phelan is a newsreader and contributing journalist for RTL Today.



Here's a bit more about us...



Well me you know about I guess as you're listening to the show. What's relevant and something I don't normally talk about is that I write and consult on children's science books for DK in the UK. You can find my books here. I love giving back to the science I once studied and with books, this is one avenue. I wrote the Mini Scientist series when my girls were tiny as I realised experimenting is our first language. Before words.



Vanessa grew up in the States and moved to Luxembourg in 2017 after 12 years in Dublin. Aside from her work at RTL, Vanessa also works for a publisher of Irish language children’s books. She is a lover of all kinds of fiction, whether mystery, romance, historical or just stories about people with messages and themes we can all relate to. She also loves to travel and so enjoys reading about far-flung and exotic places.



Originally from Hawaii, Sarah studied Zen poetry in college and spent almost 15 years in Japan before relocating to Luxembourg in 2016. When she’s not hosting The Hangover on Today Radio, Sarah is an avid reader who loves literary fiction, poetry, classics and memoir. Her unchecked obsession with One Direction fanfiction and inability to pronounce words correctly when reading aloud keep her from being an insufferable snob.





Subscribe to the Podcast and get in touch!



Please do subscribe to the podcast on Apple and / or Spotify. It would be great if you could rate and review too - helps others find us.



Tune in on Today Radio Saturdays at 11am, Sundays at noon and Tuesdays at 10am.



Vote on our next book



We would really love you to vote on our next book!



Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner



Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt



Milkman by Anna Burns



Books mentioned on today’s show



We spoke about so many books on this show. Let us know what you think of them!



This Is What It Sounds Like: What the Music You Love Says About You by Susan Rogers and Ogi Ogas



My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry and other books by Fredrik Backman



The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman



Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt



Olive Kitteridge and other books by Elizabeth Strout



A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara



The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk



Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason



Fanfiction (we recommend Archive of Our Own (AO3))



Yellowface by R.F. Kuang



The Wife's Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam



Oh My God, What a Complete Aisling by Emer McLysaght & Sarah Breen



The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese



Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts



No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison by Behrouz Boochani



Chocolat and Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris



Beach Read by Emily Henry (Sarah said “Book Lovers” but this is the one she meant!)



The Book of Longings by Sue Monk Kidd



Hamnet and other books b

Melody Funck, Zenia Dutta Roy and Elena Gromova brighten Lisa's studio with their artistic fashion stories.



Melody Funck rose to fame in Luxembourg as 'la fille aux robes' with her social media sites, Instagram, TicTok and YouTube, during covid times. Since then, she has garnered more attention as one of the hosts of the Eurovision Luxembourg Final earlier this year.



Melody's passion for stunning dresses is borne out each day as she frequently turns up to work in such attire. One might question how she can manage another job with the machine that is social media, and indeed Melody confesses it is hard. Social media requires hours of non-stop work daily. That has an effect on health and relationships, but Melody is blessed with continual support from family and friends.



Zenia Dutta Roy clearly has an eye for an impressive lady as she worked with Melody 'before' her fame rose. Zenia is the founder of Les Sûtras, a brand which embodies art, home-made fabrics of India, textures and weaves in clothing and homeware.



Zenia has talked openly about her own dark time in life, when trying to conceive a child, on this show, and she credits the work with the Indian artisans in helping her to refind herself.



Les Sûtras is a place where models of all ages, sizes and ethnicities come together to let the fabrics shine. Zenia has created a community in Luxembourg with these beautiful garments, whilst always giving back to the Indian ladies who create them.



Elena Gromova credits doing a stage of the Tour de France with her inspiration to know she could do hard things. Over the course of a couple of years, Elena gave up her finance work to create a couple of fashion brands, and Fashion Business Lab.



Elena's work first came to my attention with No. Rainer during Luxembourg Fashion Week. These colourful patterns of rainwear with the double impact of having mini-matching versions of children made everyone smile as they sashayed down the runway. Through her work at Fashion Business Lab, Elena helps anyone achieve their fashion goals globally.



Of all the days for there to be a studio malfunction this was the day and so there is no video this week - I'll just have to have them back!

Bias in LLMs, why the US is still great for start-ups, supercomputers, brain signals to combat cyber attacks, digital twins of ourselves, and the philosophy behind all of it.





My guests this week range from a research institution, a super-computer provider, two start-ups and a philosopher. This lateral discussion echoes the need for interconnected conversation to develop AI and its end-use.



Francesco Ferrero, Director of the IT for Innovative Services department at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), discusses the newly launched LIST AI Sandbox. This looks at 16 LLMs (large language models) and ranks them on their social or ethical biases including ageism, LGBTIQ+phobia, political bias, racism, religious bias, sexism and xenophobia. You can use this open source sandbox here:

https://ai-sandbox.list.lu/



Arnaud Lambert is the CEO of LuxProvide which works on digital intelligence using Luxembourg’s supercomputer MeluXina. LuxProvide is part of a broader European Supercomputing initiative.



LuxProvide, the University of Luxembourg and LuxInnovation jointly managing the Luxembourg National Competence Centre in High-Performance Computing (HPC). Their customer base is broad, as they encourage the use of HPC in data analytics and AI across industry, academia and public administrations.



Emil Jimenez is Founder and CEO of MindBank AI. The idea was sparked by his daughter having a conversation with Siri. Emil decided to build a digital twin of himself so that he can live forever. Since then, it has grown to become a generative AI Personal Digital Twin, learning algorithms to duplicate your mind, optimise your mental health, personal development, and ultimately achieve immortality.



Emil promotes the use of ‘Augmented’ rather than ‘Artificial’ Intelligence, to enhance our life from birth to death, and beyond.



Nathaniel Rose is a neuro-technology researcher and the Co-Founder of Lymbic AI. This uses biometric brain signals to build authentication, to combat cyber attacks. We are likely to see more of these brain-computer interfaces as authentication exploits keep pace with technology. Nathaniel talks about the state of neurotech, and its potential in combating synthetic fraud and deep fakes.



Both Emil and Nathaniel explain honestly why the US market is still great for start-ups.



Rick Serrano is, amongst other things, a philosopher. He co-authored "Artificial Intelligence: the need for a human-centric approach". Rick talks about the framework we need to keep ethics at the centre of the AI momentum: consciousness, transparency, traceability, responsibility, training, IP and regulation.



Subscribe to the Podcast and get in touch!



Please do subscribe to the podcast on Apple and / or Spotify. It would be great if you could rate and review too - helps others find us.



Tune in on Today Radio Saturdays at 11am, Sundays at noon and Tuesdays at 10am.

Prof. Subi Rangan from INSEAD business school talks about the evolution of capitalism from an output to outcome economy.





Prof Subi Rangan was invited to Luxembourg to make the keynote address to celebrate INSEAD Luxembourg Alumni’s 50th anniversary on Thursday 21 March, entitled “Expansion - Evolution - Engagement”.



Philippe Osch, President of INSEAD Alumni Association in Luxembourg, hosted Subi ahead of their anniversary evening celebrations.



Subi Rangan is Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD Business School in Fontainebleau Paris, and the Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Court Endowed Chair in Societal Progress. His educational background includes an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and a PhD in political economy from Harvard.



Subi’s research focusses on the evolution of capitalism; how all economic actors and enterprises can integrate for better performance and progress; and he is developing a curriculum to deepen competence and character of business students and executives.



In 2013 Prof. Rangan initiated the Society for Progress, a fellowship of eminent philosophers, social scientists and business leaders ( www.societyforprogress.org) He also directs INSEAD’s top executive seminar AVIRA: Awareness, Vision, Imagination, Role and Action.



In this conversation, we begin with a short history of capitalism. Below are some of the thoughts of Prof. Rangan discussed in this conversation.



Subi speaks about the ‘iterations of capitalism’: to maximise wealth for oneself, for a company and for all. From subsistence economy to bartering; how the Protestant reformation allowed the pursuit of wealth; to the work of philosopher Adam Smith to enhance welfare for all, resulting in a better standard of living for all. This paradigm required a division of labour to increase productivity and drive specialisation. We were no longer self-sufficient. Institutional theory then grew with the notion of private property rights to incentivise people to create value and the patent industry. Communism did not have this incentive alignment - and therefore failed.



This burgeoning innovation and the dedication of people meant that money was made through the sale of the surplus - profits. At the end of the 19th century we have, for the first time, formal economics with people like Pareto. Who should allocate resources? Then we move to Kenneth Arrow, the mind behind modern economics, on a spontaneous, decentralised system, which can work to produce more welfare more than command and control methods. This was so far an Anglo-Saxon idea. But in the 70s and 80s we had the Asian tigers - government having a less marked hand allowing the market to flourish. This gave rise, in the 1980s, to deregulation and liberalisation.



The modern economy is self regulating, self-correcting and decentralised. If this doesn’t work by the invisible hand of markets, then the visible hard of regulation or government comes in. It has worked on a global scale, if the goal of the economy was to produce wealth. Absolute poverty has been reduced. However, what are the goals of the economy today?



What is there beyond wealth?



“More than income we are now looking at impact; more than performance we look for progress. There are new dreams for humanity. This is goal innovation.”



Prof Rangan talks about the ‘Chronic dilemma of interdependence’ in our interconnected world.



Jürgen Habermas, a 20th century German Philosopher talks about communicative rationality. In deciding what is good, we need to talk with one another. If we are born equal then we must practice communicative rationality. Subi calls it ‘consultative morality’. Language is the way in which we can regulate interdependence, and we certainly need it to be non-violent. Adam Smith had the same idea in the theory of moral dependence.



Output to outcome economy



We are moving from an output centred economy to an outcome centred economy. A

President of CNAP, Alain Reuter, talks to us about how to obtain a pension in Luxembourg. Sasha discusses the week's news, and I wish you all a Happy St. Patrick's Day!



Pensions are one of those parts of life-long planning which, due to the nature of our busy days, we don't always have time to think about or organise. Now if you happen to spend your entire working life in Luxembourg, and you're an employee (rather than an independent worker), again you have to think a little less about such issues.



However, a lot of my audience is international with some time spent in Luxembourg, some coming, going and even returning. Again, a lot of these people will come with a partner who may not be working. And so the questions begin. What does one need to do to contribute to a 'pot' where, one day, they may be entitled to a Luxembourg pension? How do you add educational years (yes, that's a thing here)? How do you add child-rearing years?



Alain Reuter and his team get such questions every day. Alain is President of the National Pension Insurance Office (Caisse nationale d'assurance pension - CNAP) and the Compensation Fund of the General Pension Scheme (Fonds de compensation commun au régime général de pension - FDC) since December 2020.



At the moment, about 215,000 are retired (and receiving a pension) in Luxembourg, out of a population of about 650,000. This number has risen by 15% in the last five years. The total amount paid out is about 5.7 billion euros. Of this amount, about 4 billion euros is to people in Luxembourg and 1.7 billion to those now living abroad (in 111 different countries to be precise). The average age of retirement, currently, is 60.1.



Pensions have been in the news for various reasons over the last few months. The most pertinent and, in my opinion, important reason is that there is not going to be enough money in the system to pay for future pensions. In fact, by 2042, the pension fund's reserves will be insufficient to cover expenditure.



Ivaylo Markov, Managing Partner of Thales Capital puts it like this:



"From 2027 we will be spending more than we earn, which will reduce the reserves, which will be depleted in barely 15 years... The current decade will see the number of beneficiaries grow by around 4% each year. This increase is explained by the IGSS as being due to a 'wave of new pensioners, mainly made up of immigrant and cross-border workers recruited from the 1990s onwards"



This is a topic that needs further investigation and I will try to do a follow-up show with your questions. Please send any thoughts to contenttoday@rtl.lu with the title 'Pensions - questions for Lisa Burke'



Enjoy the show and have a wonderful St. Patrick's Day celebratory weekend!