AGENDA

Shoshana Zuboff: Keynote

The contents of your text messages, the destination of your next vacation, your favorite coffee shops along your commute … it’s all recorded, processed, bought, bundled and sold. That might sound like a dystopian nightmare, but it’s our reality. Shoshana Zuboff, the Charles Edward Wilson Professor Emerita at Harvard Business School and a former faculty associate at the Berman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, coined the term “surveillance capitalism.” Her masterwork “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” has been called the most important book to be published this century (The Guardian). She will talk about unveiling the fact that technology users are “no longer customers but the raw material for an entirely new economic order.” 

Rana el Kaliouby: Keynote

Scientist, innovator and leader of an artificial intelligence company, Rana el Kaliouby’s life work is about “humanizing technology before it dehumanizes us.” As the Chief Evangelist for the Emotion AI space, Rana is creating partnerships between humans and AI. Originally from Egypt and previously a Research Scientist at MIT Media Lab, Rana has been recognized on Fortune’s 40 under 40 and Forbes America’s Top 50 Women in tech, and she has raised over $50 million in capital for Affectiva from top-tier investors to understand all things human.

Attract & Retain Post-Millennial Consumers: How to Grab an Audience With an 8 Second Attention Span

Speakers: Ethan Decker, Jean Twenge
Gen Z will make up more than 25% of the global workforce by the end of 2020 and these future customers are expecting more from their network. Jean Twenge has done a lot of research on the up-and-coming generation. Ethan Decker will uncover tips on how to meet new demands and expectations.

Coffee and Interactive Break

The Evolution of Education: What’s New and Why Does it Matter?

Moderator: Larry Magid
Speakers: Mathew Portell, Ryan Holdaway, Ai Addyson-Zhang, Jill Banks
Bottom line, how we educate our kids and retrain adults needs to radically change given the massive potential of exponential tech. How do you teach children to solve problems for tomorrow that don’t yet exist today? What and how should we be teaching adults in the workforce to keep up with the pace of innovation and technology? It’s time to go beyond the usual trends and explore the ideas of futurists who are working at the forefront of education. Listen to perspectives from an elementary school principal, a student-outcomes advocate pioneering a new model of higher education, a Fortune 500 veteran transforming corporate education, and a DC-based professor turned entrepreneur building a global classroom without walls. Moderated by Larry Magid, on-air technology analyst for CBS News, author, and education PhD, this group will cover the vast education landscape and talk about real-world solutions for the future of how we learn. 

LIVE: Infusing Humanity Into Technology

Over the past 20 years, the people designing software and tech products have drifted further and further from the humanities. At the same time, the products that those technologists are designing have become ubiquitous. As a species, we’re constantly interacting with phones, computers, the Internet and software that ties our digital lives together. In many organizations, work is being done without giving proper consideration to its impact on either individual people or our society as a whole. In this session, we’ll illustrate why a humanist approach to product design is important by sharing a range of examples. Then we’ll break out into individual teams, and each team will perform a humanist design review of an upcoming fictional product. Finally, each team will present their products and their findings to the group.

LEARN: Disruption Hunting – Learn to See with New Eyes

Contrary to popular belief, disruption doesn’t appear out of the blue. Disruptive opportunities follow patterns that anyone can track if they understand the signs. In this session, participants will learn to examine an industry or market and spot telltale signs that a disruption opportunity awaits. Then, groups will work to examine a number of industries, using the frameworks, and develop a disruptive new business concept. 

WORK: Innovation Therapy – Breaking Through Organizational Barriers

Think your organization makes it tough to innovate? You’re not alone. In this highly interactive session, you’ll learn proven strategies for overcoming organizational barriers to innovating, and you’ll have the opportunity to share your own challenges and gain valuable perspectives on how to address those challenges from the moderator as well as your fellow innovators in the room. 

PLAY: Games for Innovators – Using Play to Address Serious Business Challenges

Though most widely associated with comedic performance, classical improv techniques can be used to accelerate the quantity and quality of ideas generated in business meetings, improve the results of group work sessions and create better user experiences. In this on-your-feet working session, attendees will learn and apply basic and advanced improvisational performance concepts and learn some methods that they can take back and directly use with their teams. 

Biohacking: Upgrade your Brain, Body and Human Nature

Speakers: Mirela Alistar, David Ishee, Aubrey de Grey
How can we be healthier, happier, stronger and live longer? Biohacking is the science (and art) of upgrading ourselves by controlling the environment inside and around us so that we have full control over our own biology. Some biohackers are doctors, some are PhD’s, some are complete amateurs, and their ways of trying to hack our bodies and biology are as diverse as they are. Join Aubrey de Grey, English author and gerentologist, Dr. Mirela Alistar, Professor at CU Boulder and dog breeder David Ishee to explore the future of biohacking.

What and How Will We Eat?

Speakers: Alyssa Whitcraft
You’ve heard of genetically engineered foods, the impact of agriculture on climate change and the fact that food is scarce for our most vulnerable populations but abundant for the privileged. Those who feed us are already pondering the future of food, considering bold ideas–from trying new methods of growing food, adapting to new demands in consumer preferences and making food sources more sustainable–to better feed massive populations. Join this panel to hear how leaders in the industry are resolving some of the greatest challenges inherent in nourishing our communities. 

The Tipping Point: Quantum

Speakers: Shohini Ghose
If quantum isn’t part of your strategic plan in 2020, you’re already behind. Can quantum enable safe transfers of data, breakthroughs in cybersecurity, drug development and financial modeling? Moderated by Shohini Ghose, president of the Canadian Association of Physicists, co-editor in chief of the Canadian Journal of Physics, and the director of the Laurier Centre for Women in Science, this panel will discuss the latest benefits, threats and opportunities in quantum and how it will affect your business strategies.

Innovation Labs: The Bullet Trains of Disruption 

Human beings’ ability to innovate throughout history has dramatically improved our living conditions. In the past century, the pace of innovation has accelerated so much that we struggle to keep up with it. It has almost become a matter of faith that our ability to innovate will enable our continued existence. Many laboratories around the world are dedicated to the cause of innovation. This session will take a look at the role of innovation labs in our future, from the perspective of some of the best-known laboratories. How do they work? How do they succeed? Where do they fail? Why do they fail? How should we think about them in the context of the challenges we face as a species? 

Dr. Nathan Lang-Raad: Keynote

Schools are moving to a focus on creativity because they recognize the workplace of today and tomorrow is dependent on new skills, project-based work, inquiry, critical thinking, and problem solving. Students must be prepared for their future. Creativity is not only essential in education, but essential in life. Creativity is the ability to connect previously disconnected thoughts and ideas together in new more powerful ways. It allows us to fully express the joy, awe, and wonder in the world around us. There are good natured attempts to integrate creativity in the classroom through edtech tools and technology, but many times the outcomes are disjointed and disconnected from learning. In this keynote, Dr. Nathan Lang-Raad will share powerful stories of how educators have transformed the classroom, and explain what educators need most from technology providers. 

Fireside Chat: Heck Yes Accessibility, Let’s Make the Future Awesome!

Speakers: Mike Hess
Designing products, services and workplaces for people who have accessibility needs can be daunting, and discrimination remains an uncomfortable truth. We all want better products, more accessible and ubiquitous technology. So what if we changed our perspective, focusing instead on how much better accessible design is for the world? Designs created to benefit people with disabilities often end up benefiting a much larger user group. In this fireside chat, Mike Hess, founder of the Blind Institute of Technology, engineer, and Martin Luther King Business Award winner, will speak with two-time Paralympic silver medalist John Register, who helped build the USOC Paralympic Military Program, which uses sports to assist in the recovery of wounded, ill or injured service members. You can listen to John’s podcast “Life’s New Normal.”