Yes. The world is changing radically and technologies are defining the pace. No, it won’t all pass by. It will shift industries, it will alter business models, it has changed us as individuals and it will question the world’s power equilibrium. In times of change, fear is not wise advice. Look at the creativity ignited by emergent technologies. The potential it has to impact the future of business, of food, of health, of finance, of … you.
So sorry! This Innovation Tour is unfortunately over. Check our agenda for all our upcoming tours!
The times when nobody knew what blockchain meant and AI was just a fancy blockbuster selling argument, is over. We will show you cutting edge technology development and how it’s being applied today. We'll look into AI, internet of things, blockchain, augmented reality and quantum computing. How does it all interact? How does it impact our behaviour and our vision of the Day After Tomorrow?
We will look at the basic ingredients of these technologies and see which applications are being developed as we speak. How is it translated to our tomorrow, to future business? Once this has opened up your mind, expect to dive in the real Day After Tomorrow. What will this autonomous world mean? Which will be the leading platforms? How will society shift and to what extent will radical innovation be embraced?
The ecosystem of San Francisco, still the most legendary epicentre of technology and innovation in the world, remains a fascinating source of inspiration. This tour will make you grasp how they mix talent, money and attitude in a very fruitful way. It will show you how they make this community so unique. It will show you how entrepreneurs, corporates and governments collaborate for something radically different. But above all, for something better, bigger and bolder.
Because fear is not their ally, but adventure and impact is.
Arrival in San Francisco & introduction keynote.
Peter is a serial entrepreneur, Forbes contributor, LinkedIn Influencer, best-selling author and one of the most sought-after thought leaders on organizing for the Day After Tomorrow, radical innovation, leadership and the impact of all things digital on society and business.
More about PeterWith ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, Peter speaks about an exponentially changing world and its consequences for organizations of Today. He introduces those pioneers who managed to move (way) beyond Tomorrow-thinking in innovation and were able to change the course of entire industries. Above all, he writes about the business models, the organizational structures, the talent, the mindset, the technologies and the cultures needed to maximize our chances for survival in the Day After Tomorrow.
Most of us focus on Today: on the meetings we will be having, the e-mails we will respond to, the price offers we need to send out while deadlines are breathing down or neck. And we should. Today is what pays our bills. We also think a lot about Tomorrow, about our future value and how our company will survive disruption. Tomorrow is what keeps us awake at night. But let’s face it, most of us don’t think (much) beyond that.
The truly great ones, the giants, those that dictate the market are the ones who dare to envision The Day After Tomorrow. Because that is where enormous amounts of long term value lie. The radical ideas, concepts, notions or inspiration that focus on The Day After Tomorrow are the ones that change entire companies, industries and even the world.
In ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, Peter speaks about an exponentially changing world and its consequences for organizations of Today. He introduces those pioneers who managed to move (way) beyond Tomorrow-thinking in innovation and were able to change the course of entire industries. Above all, he speaks about the business models, the organizational structures, the talent, the mind-set, the technologies and the cultures needed to maximize our chances for survival in 'The Day After Tomorrow'.
Visit an expert & companies using Artificial Intelligence, today.
Pieter Abbeel received a BS/MS in Electrical Engineering from KU Leuven (Belgium) and received his Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Stanford University in 2008.
He joined the faculty at UC Berkeley in Fall 2008, with an appointment in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. He has won various awards, including best paper awards at ICML and ICRA, the Sloan Fellowship, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Young Investigator Program (AFOSR-YIP) award, the Okawa Foundation award, and the 2011's TR35.
More about PieterWe start off the day with a visit to BAIR (Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research) Lab where we'll get introduced into the workings of Artificial Intelligence by Pieter Abbeel.
Pieter is a friend of the house by now but his story evolves each time and remains extremely relevant. Expect to see some of the most recent breakthroughs in AI. This is a session you’ll someday tell your grandkids about!
Walter De Brouwer is cofounder and CEO of the Palo-Alto based computational linguistics company doc.ai. Doc.ai is building a robo-doctor, via medical dialog systems for personalized healthcare, a conversational AI that follows biological blood markers across the phenome and the genome.
More about WalterSam is cofounder and Chief Operating Officer at doc.ai , a computational linguistics company focused on building medical dialogue systems and intelligent conversational agents for the next-generation personalized healthcare. Before that she cofounded Scanadu Inc. in 2011 and served as its VP of communications until April 2016. Scanadu is a venture backed company developing consumer facing mobile medical devices.
Sam started her entrepreneurial career in 1996 with the Starlab research lab where she ran the business development department. It was her first experience with the MIT MediaLab, which specialized in blue sky research deep future research, and BANG (Bits, Atoms, Neurons and Genes) research. Starlab produced generic patents that were later sold to Philips.
In 1999, Sam started one of the first employment websites for Benelux, called Jobscape, which merged with eight similar sites to make up Stepstone, and went public on the London Stock Exchange.
From 2001 until 2004, Sam founded the National Institute for Telework in Europe, which designed pilot micro-entrepreneurship workshops, together with the University of Antwerp and the European Social Fund. In 2008, Sam served as advocacy director of NGO One Laptop Per Child, the European/African branch of One Laptop per Child foundation which was located at the global headquarters of The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) near Brussels. With the European team they secured funding for the deployment of laptops and training for more than 50.000 kids in more than 10 countries (Rwanda, Paraguay, Peru, Nepal, Madagascar, Tanzania...)
Walter De Brouwer will tell you about his recent start-up and how they are using AI to replace your doctor in the future.
Walter & his wife Sam are serial entrepreneurs in the Valley, and bring a very honest story of what it’s like to win, fail and get moving again.
They are set to launch their Blockchain-Enabled Natural Language Processing Platform For Quantified Biology end of September! An amazing combination of different technologies.
Mr. Marc Vanlerberghe has been Chief Marketing Officer at Medallia, Inc. since October 27, 2016. Mr. Vanlerberghe co-founded eWingz Systems, Inc. (also known as Quios, Inc.) in 2001 and also served as Chief Executive Officer from March 2001 to October 2007. Prior to joining Medallia, he served as Vice President of Marketing for Access and Energy at Google and served as an Advisor to Google Capital. He also led marketing for Android, Google Play and Google's hardware and retail organizations. He has been an active player in the mobile industry for over 20 years. He has developed some of the most widely recognized brands in the world, turning Android from a novelty into the world's most popular mobile operating system. He made his name at Google launching and building the Android brand and has over 17 years of executive marketing experience. Prior to founding Quios, he was Director of Business Development at Proximus, a joint venture between Airtouch & Belgacom, where he was responsible for their Internet and Roaming business units. As a Consultant for McKinsey, he worked on operational excellence projects in the telecom industry. From 1988 to 1995 he held several technical, sales, marketing and management positions at IBM. Mr. Vanlerberghe received his M.B.A from Stanford University and an M.S. degree in engineering from the University of Ghent, Belgium.
More about MarcMarc Vanlerberghe, former VP at Google, will tell you about life before, during and after Google. Why he left this tech giant for Medallia.
Expect tons of experience and the discovery of the rather unknown jewel that Medallia is.
Jarad is the Senior Project Engineer at Gigster, which connects you with Silicon Valley based product managers and top 1% software developers from our vetted talent pool. It empower teams with their smart work platform, which uses artificial intelligence to help them work faster and deliver high quality work reliably and efficiently.
More about JaradBenny Du is Partnership Coordinator at Gigster, which is the easiest way to build custom software, combining the world’s best developers, product visionaries, and industry-leading tools into a single, powerful platform.
Gigster is an AI-enabled, on-demand software development platform powered by a fast growing network of 1000+ top quality freelance developers, engineers, designers and product managers.
Anyone can hire a full development team in minutes, and work with the top 1% of talent from Silicon Valley, with a fixed price and guaranteed quality.
Gigster is a smart software development service, combining top developers and designers with artificial intelligence.
Their mission is to become the world’s engineering department, building custom project teams with top talent from the biggest tech companies.
Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, one of the biggest VC's founded by Marc Andreessen, they are on a road to conquer the world.
Roka Akor is an award-winning Japanese sushi, seafood and steakhouse in Chicago, Scottsdale and San Francisco.
Visit an expert & companies using Augmented and Virtual Reality technology, today.
Robert Scoble is an American blogger, technical evangelist, and author. He is best known for his popular blog, Scobleizer, which came to prominence during his tenure as a technical evangelist at Microsoft.
Scoble joined Microsoft in 2003, and although he often promoted Microsoft products like Tablet PCs and Windows Vista, he also frequently criticized his own employer and praised its competitors like Apple and Google.
Scoble is the author of Naked Conversations, a book on how blogs are changing the way companies interact with customers, and is currently working on his new project building43 as an employee of Rackspace Hosting.
Shel writes and speaks about technology’s impact on business and life. He has been a keynote speaker on all continents not covered by ice.
Currently, He is co-authoring a book: Beyond Mobile: Life After Smartphones, with Robert Scoble about AR/VR, Digital Genies, Autonomous Cars and Robots. Two of their previous books, Naked Conversations and Age of Context, written with Robert Scoble, were critically acclaimed best selling business-technology books.
He has contributed to many publications including Forbes, FastCompany, BusinessWeek, BusinessInsider, Dow Jones & Conferenza Premium Reports.
Robert Scoble & Shel Israel are an authority on what's next, particularly when it comes to Mixed Reality (AR), Virtual Reality (VR), and AI. Robert has worked at Microsoft, Fast Company and Rackspace as a tech evangelist.
Their company Transformation Group, is dedicated to helping big brands develop and implement Mixed Reality (MR) strategies, a trend about to explode when Apple releases its new iPhones and iOS 11 in September.
Experience the Keynote together with experts Robert Scoble & Shel Israel. They will share their learnings and key insights with you.
During the keynote it will also be possible to try out multiple Virtual Reality demos, facilitated by Upload Collective.
Alexander has been called a renaissance man. He has to admit that he loves that title. Alexander is a renaissance man in the eyes of most, perhaps since he seems unsettled: He has studied philosophy, law, business and even know how to code a bit. When he was 15 his dad suggested he should work at a fast food restaurant to "learn life skills". At the time, cooking chicken and manning the cash register seemed trivial but they were the building blocks to his core: he loves business. Not in the Wall Street power-suit sense. Rather, he loves innovation and self-actualization. Alexander is fortunate enough to be a part of a generation of people who believe that we can change how things are done and question everything at every step.
More about AlexanderRetinad has been experimenting in the Virtual Reality analytics, an emerging field as VR and 360 video. They are working to understand how people interact in VR and how this is linked to emotions.
These insights sparked new ideas for products that they are building right now. Alexander Haque will tell you their story.
Providing the technology and the platform for holographic communication. Davy captures real people in 3D using depth sensors and stream them in low-latency for tele-presence applications.
More about DavyA “holographic” pitch of Mimesys by co-founder Davy Loots. He'll show you what the future of meetings (in Virtual Reality) could be like.
Upload Collective started to enable UploadVR’s mission, to help bring VR to the masses. They believe virtual reality is transforming the way we learn, interact, and understand the world around us.
Everything they do at Upload is built on three pillars: Connection, Experience and Inspiration. They exist to accelerate the success of the consumer virtual reality industry.
Stephen got his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley, then started his PhD at Stanford, and is currently on extended leave from the PhD program to co-found Fyusion. Based in San Francisco, Fyusion is on a mission to fundamentally change the definition of photography. The company's breakthrough technology generates deeply immersive "surround view" images that fuse the capabilities of a traditional photo, a panorama, motion capture and 3D to create a more complete, captivating photography experience. Fyusion was co-founded by a team of leading PhD experts in computer vision, robotics and machine learning. Fyusion has released its first commercial application, Fyuse, on iOS and Android.
More about StephenFyusion is on a mission to fundamentally change the definition of photography. The company's breakthrough technology generates deeply immersive "surround view" images that fuse the capabilities of a traditional photo, a panorama, motion capture and 3D to create a more complete, captivating photography experience.
Stephen Miller, VP of Engineering will introduce us into his and Fyusion's story. He got his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley (did some amazing research in Pieter Abbeel's lab at the time on surgical robotics and robotic laundry folding), then started his PhD at Stanford.
Dave Jackson is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Avametric where he oversees the engineering and science teams. Dave was inspired to create Avametric when he was unable to find correctly sized clothes. Discussing this problem with friends, it became clear that many types of garments had no consistent sizing between brands or styles - it was impossible to know how anything would fit. Tthis problem affects everyone when shopping online.
At that time, he was a PhD Student in Stanford’s Computer Science department, working on self driving cars and computer vision. He recognized how the same algorithms that allow a robotic car to understand it’s 3D environment can be used understand the shape of a human being, which serves as a starting point to accurately simulating how a garment will fit. After being interested in this problem for several years, he took leave from Stanford and founded Avametric in 2012. Dave has a physics degree from Brown and is an experienced sailor.
Dave Jackson is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Avametric where he oversees the engineering and science teams. Dave was inspired to create Avametric when he was unable to find correctly sized clothes. Discussing this problem with friends, it became clear that many types of garments had no consistent sizing between brands or styles - it was impossible to know how anything would fit.
This problem affects everyone when shopping online. Avametric technology enables brands to deliver accurate 3D renderings of their apparel & accessories. The texture, shape and form of the clothes map to customizable digital body models and can be experienced in content for web, mobile and AR/VR.
Reason Future Tech Escape Room gamifies technology exploration and enhances teamwork through a carefully crafted Sci-Fi experience. Players are locked in a room, and they have to solve a series of puzzles to escape within a set time limit.
TRACE is committed to creating an enriching and thoughtful culinary experience by fusing the vibrant, local personality of the Bay Area with our dedication to socially responsible food.
Their high-quality cuisine is prepared from locally sourced and sustainable ingredients - or obtained through national partners with well-known sustainable practices.
Visit an expert & companies using Blockchain, today.
Peter is a serial entrepreneur, Forbes contributor, LinkedIn Influencer, best-selling author and one of the most sought-after thought leaders on organizing for the Day After Tomorrow, radical innovation, leadership and the impact of all things digital on society and business. He has given numerous keynote speeches around the world, among which those for Google Think Performance, Nimbus Ninety, Gartner, NEXT Berlin, Tedx, PayPal, MasterCard, Microsoft, CIO City, SAS, Accenture and Apple. He lectures at renowned business schools like the London Business School, the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Paul Merage School of Business at UC Irvine.
More about PeterChristopher Allen works at Blockstream and is an entrepreneur, technologist, and educator who specializes in collaboration, security, and trust. As a pioneer in internet cryptography, he’s initiated cross-industry collaborations and created industry standards that influence the entire internet. Though he’s worked within numerous privacy and security sectors, Christopher’s recent emphasis has been on engines of trust such as blockchain, smart contracts, and smart signatures, in particular decentralized self-sovereign identity.
More about ChristopherBlockstream is the leading provider of blockchain technologies, on the forefront of work in cryptography and distributed systems. From fraud to counterfeiting, from security to confidentiality, from accountability to transparency, their mission is to solve problems that undermine trust in today's financial systems.
Blockstream provides a range of software and hardware solutions and expert professional services to companies deploying new blockchain-based networks. Elements, our core software platform, was released as part of the open source Elements Project; it's currently one of the most mature protocols for blockchain developers.
Together with PwC and a growing network of partners, they combine their technical depth with world-class domain expertise to deliver solutions that cross industries and use cases.
Sam Rosenblum is Director of Business Development at Coinbase, which was founded in 2012. Coinbase is a platform where merchants, consumers and traders can transact with digital currency. In January 2015, Coinbase completed Series C to a total of 106M.enblum is Director of Business Development at Coinbase, which was founded in 2012. Coinbase is a platform where merchants, consumers and traders can transact with digital currency. In January 2015, Coinbase completed Series C to a total of 106M.
More about SamCoinbase was founded in June 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. It enrolled in the Summer 2012 Y Combinator startup incubator program. In October 2012, the company launched the services to buy and sell bitcoin through bank transfers. The company received multiple big investment rounds by VC's such as Union Square Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz & Ribbit Capital.
In 2014, the company grew to one million users. Throughout 2014, the company also formed partnerships with Overstock, Dell, Expedia, Dish Network, Time Inc., and Wikipedia to power accepting bitcoin payments.
The company also added bitcoin payment processing capabilities to the traditional payment companies Stripe, Braintree, and PayPal. One of the most important digital currency wallets and platform where merchants and consumers can transact with new digital currencies like bitcoin and ethereum.
Alessandro Voto is a West Coast Regional Director for Consensys, a Brooklyn-based blockchain technology venture studio.
Alessandro connects organizations and social entrepreneurs with the San Francisco Bay Area blockchain community to build decentralized applications and services.
His focus lies at the intersection of economic design, peer-to-peer technology, and social change.
ConsenSys aims to improve current services and concepts as well as building new ways in which we engage with technology and others. Blockchain technology and dApps have the ability to decentralize power from existing authorities through the use of smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and asset ownership.
This shift will change current businesses and economic and social paradigms. Transaction costs and barriers to entry will be reduced in various industries. The result will likely lead to an increase in economic exchange and prosperity. Alessandro Voto will tell us their story.
At Verity, we're creating a whole new way for websites to identify, reward, and motivate their best users. I steer the ship and help us find customers.
More about MatthewAt Verity, they are creating a whole new way for websites to identify, reward, and motivate their best users.
Caterina Rindi comes from a background in education and non-profits; through her efforts developing more scalable opportunities and tapping existing resources via peer-to-peer technologies, she became involved in the bitcoin and blockchain ecosystem in 2013.
More about CaterinaCaterina Rindi comes from a background in education and non-profits; through her efforts developing more scalable opportunities and tapping existing resources via peer-to-peer technologies, she became involved in the bitcoin and blockchain ecosystem in 2013.
We invite speakers you met on the tour to join us for dinner so you can continue the conversation.
We use Feastly for this private event and always select a top chef, this time we chose Geoffrey Reed. A chef who catches what he cooks.
Piet Goddaer is a Belgian musician, better known by his stage name Ozark Henry. One of the first artists using 3D audio-technology.
More about PietDuring the networking dinner, Ozark Henry will give a small private concert.
Visit an expert & companies using Internet of Things, today.
Mickey McManus is a pioneer in the field of collaborative innovation, pervasive computing, human-centered design and education. He holds ten patents in the areas of connected products, vehicles, and services.
Mickey co-authored Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology (Wiley 2012). The book is a field guide to the future, where computing will cease to be confined to any particular "box," but instead be freely accessible in the ambient environment. John C. Abell, former New York Bureau Chief of Wired and founding editor of Reuter.com noted that, “With Trillions authors Lucas, Ballay and McManus belly up to the bar alongside futurists Alvin Toffler, Kevin Kelly and Arthur C. Clark, offering a vision so compellingly argued you’ll only be surprised if it doesn’t happen.” David Brin, physicist, futurist, and author of Earth, The Postman, and The Transparent Society said, “Trillions is bold, unabashed, ingenious, and absolutely fizzing with insights about the new-modern process of blending design, high-tech, and commerce.”
Trillions was awarded the Axiom Gold Award in 2013 for best business book about technology and the 2013 Carnegie Science Award in the Science Communicator category.
During Mickey’s tenure as CEO at MAYA the company won numerous Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) awards for product innovation, was selected multiple times as a top 20 “best small company to work for” in America by Fortune, Inc, and Entrepreneur magazines and spun-out, launched, or incubated five new MAYA organizations.
Mickey McManus is a pioneer in the field of collaborative innovation, pervasive computing, human-centered design and education.
Mickey co-authored Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology (Wiley 2012). The book is a field guide to the future, where computing will cease to be confined to any particular “box,” but instead be freely accessible in the ambient environment.
John C. Abell, former New York Bureau Chief of Wired and founding editor of Reuters.com noted that, “With Trillions authors Lucas, Ballay and McManus belly up to the bar alongside futurists Alvin Toffler, Kevin Kelly and Arthur C. Clark, offering a vision so compellingly argued you’ll only be surprised if it doesn’t happen.” David Brin, physicist, futurist, and author of Earth, The Postman, and The Transparent Society said, “Trillions is bold, unabashed, ingenious, and absolutely fizzing with insights about the new-modern process of blending design, high-tech, and commerce.”
Nick got his PHD in Machine Learning & Signal Processing at the University of Oxford in the UK. He moved to San Francisco for a position as a Postdoctoral Scholar. Advised by Timothy Chou, lecturer at Stanford he founded Lecida.
More about NickIndustrial IoT is the next great opportunity for machine learning and AI. At Lecida they are building a world-class team of ML engineers, data / cloud engineers, and forward deployed engineers to bring cutting-edge AI to the enterprise.
As Nick says, they are building "the brain of the internet of things".
Hans Danneels founded Byteflies, which helps you reshape healthcare and improve patient outcomes. They are making the development of health wearables quick and painless by introducing a complete platform for medical research and pharmaceutical applications. Their combination of medical expertise, in-house wearable technologies, and cloud infrastructure will allow you to rapidly explore, validate, and scale a solution tailored to your unique application. From raw signals to meaningful insights, Byteflies is with you every step of the way.
More about HansByteflies is a Belgian-American wearable health company. They have a team of medical experts, engineers, and data scientists passionate about revolutionizing today's healthcare, one vital sign at a time.
Jake is working on the intersection of robotics, artificial intelligence, and food. Advised by Professor Sebastian Thrun.
More about JakeJake has been working on IoT projects under mentorship of professor Sebastian Thrun. He will explain how his professional journey has coincided with a shift from tech-centered to human-centered design.
Visit an expert & companies using Quantum Computing, today.
As coach, educator, & entrepreneur Yeshua empowers leaders evolve their life & business.
He uses his eclectic experience developing thriving organizations to enable others do the same. Projects he has built positively touch Millions globally within business, non-profit, and government in the arts, media, education, health, environment, food, water, mobility, energy, governance, and peace. He has an interdisciplinary background; as a U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant, U.S. Department of State diplomat, touring musician, urban monk, movement builder, community organizer, conference host, technologist, and founder of social ventures and non-profits. Yeshua is pioneering a new field at the leading edge of social innovation integrating biomimicry, regenerative development, and mindfulness.
Yeshua Adonai founded Systemic Innovation where he has been designing innovation programmes for the likes of Google and Facebook. He will help us to reflect on our next challenges.
Umesh Virkumar Vazirani is the Roger A. Strauch Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the director of the Berkeley Quantum Computation Center. His research interests lie primarily in quantum computing. He is also the author of a textbook on algorithms.
More about UmeshUmesh Vazirani is the Strauch Distinguished Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at University of California, Berkeley, and is the director of the Berkeley Quantum Information and Computation Center.
Professor Vazirani has done foundational work on the computational foundations of randomness, algorithms and novel models of computation. His 1993 paper with Ethan Bernstein helped launch the field of quantum complexity theory.
In 2007-08, he was appointed Keenan Visiting Professor for distinguished teaching at Princeton University.
He is the author of two books An Introduction to Computational Learning Theory with Michael Kearns (MIT Press) and Algorithms with Sanjoy Dasgupta and Christos Papadimitriou (McGraw Hill).