Cyberpandemic - Preparing For A World Without Tech

-- Hajj on Horseback in partnership with MTF --In 2020, the World Economic Forum quietly ran simulations of a coordinated worldwide digital collapse, a "cyberpandemic" they said would make COVID look like a small disturbance in comparison. Since then, the warnings have only multiplied.

A year later, a ransomware attack shut down the Colonial Pipeline in the United States for six days, triggering fuel shortages and emergency declarations across seventeen states. That September, panic buying drained UK forecourts within days, and the army was deployed to deliver fuel to petrol stations.

And now, just a few weeks ago, jet fuel prices have doubled because of the Iran war, forcing European airlines to cancel tens of thousands of flights, while the UK has been warned to prepare for fuel rationing for the first time in decades.

A pattern is becoming hard to ignore. Our entire infrastructure balances on a couple of single points of failure. And if one of those failures becomes catastrophic and countries find themselves out of energy, most people will discover they do not know how to feed themselves, warm themselves, or find their way home without a screen telling them how.

This event brings together two speakers who have lived with minimal modern infrastructure, and will be sharing what that taught them.

Abdelkader Harkassi spent 8 months on horseback, riding 7,500km from Andalusia to Makkah with two other Spanish Muslims, the first to make that journey in over 500 years. Twelve countries crossed at the speed of a horse, sleeping where the road allowed, eating what was offered, navigating by sun and instinct when phones lost signal. Their story has been told in the New York Times, BBC, Al Jazeera, El País, and Anadolu Agency.

Mohsin Ali has spent his career working at the edges of where information stops flowing. He pioneered storytelling from conflict zones while at Al Jazeera, and served as Communications Director at Celestic, a startup born from a brutal observation: journalists in Gaza were being killed the moment they stepped outside to find signal. The company built decentralised networks to connect NGOs, journalists and humanitarian responders.

📅 Sunday 7th June 2026 📍 London (exact address confirmed upon registration)

Format of the event:

14:00 Arrival & Welcome 14:30 Fireside chat with Abdelkader and Mohsin 15:30 Audience Q&A16:00 Close

This event is free, but registration is required. Capacity is limited.