Technology Revolution: The Future of Now

The buzz: The Electric Slide. News flash for Utilities: You can no longer be profitable on a one-sided business model providing power to customers. Enter the prosumer. While the consumer is utility-dependent and generates revenues, the prosumer and utility are interdependent. The utility needs the prosumer's commitment to reduce electricity use or supply it to the grid at specified times, and the prosumer needs the utility's kilowatts and gets a new omni-channel experience. The experts speak. Robert Thiele, OpenText: 'We used to live in a world where there are people, private citizens, a world where there are businesses, and now…people can become businesses in 60 seconds' -Brian Chesky, Airbnb. Jacqueline Robinson, DTE Energy: 'Restlessness and discontent are the first necessities of progress' -Thomas Edison. James McClelland, SAP: 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake' -Napoleon Bonaparte. Join us for New Energy Era Prosumers: Utility-Customer Partnership.

The buzz: "Change is the law of life…those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future" -JFKennedy. The term "digital transformation" is ubiquitous, but what does it really mean? Easy answer: software and technology adoption. Not! Digital transformation is about changing everything else – business activities, models, activities, processes, competencies, organizations, operations. It requires deeper thought about strategic topics, plus even deeper commitment to adopt, innovate and achieve continuing success. Is your company on the right path? The experts speak. Jeremy C. Thomas, Carom: "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original" -Sir Ken Robinson. Jennifer Ford, SAP: "Don't loaf and invite inspiration: light out after it with a club" -Jack London. Charlotte Bui, SAP: "Success is most often achieved by those who don't know that failure is inevitable" -Coco Chanel. Join us for The Future of Designing Innovation: Part 2.

The buzz: 'The unicorn is noble' -German folk song. Wow! Companies led by EY Entrepreneur Of The Year winners are among the most successful in the world, generating 3T dollars in revenue, creating 13M jobs, outperforming the US market in stock returns and longevity. The majority go public at 300 percent the rate of US private companies. How did EY identify these 'unicorns'? What entrepreneurial lessons can your company learn from them about managing risk, finding talent, balancing growth with social purpose? The experts speak. Herb Engert, EY: "The greatest leader…is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things" -R. Reagan. Steve Strauss, USA Today: "Thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary…there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab…call me 'Trimtab'" -R. B. Fuller. Steve Peck, SAP: "And, in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" -The Beatles. Join us for Learning from The Unicorns: EY Entrepreneur Of The Year.

The buzz: 'I'm gonna tell Mom on you.' Women remain under-represented in government, boards, C-suite and influential business roles, often due to unconscious bias. A man named John or David is more likely than a woman to be on a board. But the unintentional blame-and-shame messages in workplace diversity and inclusion programs often leave many men feeling excluded and alienated. How can we get past the gender-divide to value the entire workforce? The experts speak. Tinna C. Nielsen, Move The Elephant: "I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear: knowing what must be done does away with fear" -R. Parks. Nicole McCabe, SAP: "One of the greatest needs of mankind is to be lifted above the morass of false propaganda" -M.L. King, Jr. Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP SuccessFactors: "Part of being optimistic is keeping one's head pointed toward the sun, one's feet moving forward" -N. Mandela. Join us for Diversity and Inclusion Minus the Blame and Shame.

The buzz: Mom, are we there yet? We're seeing a ground-swell of policy and practice discussions and activities about the under-representation of women in the boardroom, C-suite and high-growth entrepreneurship. The Lean-In Revolution has brought men into the conversation and spurred women's power networks. More venture capital firms, angel investment groups, and accelerator programs are aimed at female-founded high-growth startups. Have women in business arrived? The experts speak. Nicole Sahin, Globalization Partners: "I just love bossy women…To me, bossy is not a pejorative term at all. It means somebody's passionate and engaged and ambitious and doesn't mind leading" -Amy Poehler. Tanya M. Odom, Global Consultant: "In a gentle way, you can shake the world" -Gandhi. Dr. Patti Fletcher, SAP SuccessFactors: "The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing" -Amy Poehler. Join us for Gender Equity in Business: Is It the Age of the Woman Yet?

The buzz: 'Welcome to the future' -B. Paisley. Move over, 4th Industrial Revolution! Welcome to the 5th Industrial Revolution with intelligent robots, 3D-printed human organs, drones fetching warehouse orders, and driverless cars. Bhaskar Chakravorti describes it as 'the fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.' The experts speak. Jason Coffman, Deloitte Consulting: 'If my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour... you're gonna see some serious s--t' -'Doc', Back to the Future, 1985. Sean Molloy, itelligence, Inc: 'I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance' -J.D. Rockefeller. David Parrish, SAP: 'The last time the Cubs won the World Series was 1908. The last time they were in one was 1945. Hey, any team can have a bad century' -T. Trebelhorn. Join us for Digital Manufacturing Part 3: Powering the 5th Industrial Revolution.

The buzz: "I fell off my pink cloud with a thud." -Elizabeth Taylor. By 2019, cloud software delivery will grow to 112 Billion dolars –five times faster than traditional software– leveling the IT playing field. With uneasiness, skepticism and "technical acrophobia" about the cloud mostly a thing of the past, cloud adoption could grow from 22 percent today to 32 percent in the next 24 months. The main beneficiaries? Small and mid-sized businesses -SMBs. But should they still worry about reliability, availability, data security, and pricing complexity? The experts speak. Tim Fuller, EY: "Sooner or later, everything old is new again" -Stephen King. Eric Gunther, SAP: "My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that" -Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. Steve Day, SAP: "I shall either find a way or make one" -Aut viam inveniam aut faciam, Hercules, Oedipus, Hannibal. Join us for Cloud Computing: Growth, Adoption and SMBs.

The buzz: It's NOT like "déjà vu all over again"! -Yogi Berra. Wake up call for the Chemical industry: Digital Transformation is real and more relevant than ever for your businesses. Reality check: Many of them still think of "digital" only as a way to improve manufacturing and supply chain. But today's digital is a path to becoming more agile and productive, growing profitability and achieving sustainable competitiveness. The time has come for the industry to refocus your digital lens on the future – and that starts now. The experts speak. Greg Gorbach, ARC Advisory Group: "If we have data, let's look at data. If all we have are opinions, let's go with mine" -Jim Barksdale. Charles Wallace, Solenis: "Some people don't like change, but you need to embrace change if the alternative is disaster" -Elon Musk. Rich Seltz, SAP: "If you have always done it that way, it is probably wrong" -Charles Kettering. Join us for Chemical Industry: Digital Transformation as a Success Model.

The buzz: Knock Knock! Futurist Edie Weiner coined the term 'templosion' to describe rapid and massive changes in increasingly shorter timeframes. As the templosive acceleration of digital transformation – Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Smart Machines – disrupts tech-laggard Finance, do they need a new business model to adopt and adapt? The experts speak. Sam Parikh, Deloitte: 'Computers themselves, and software yet to be developed, will revolutionize the way we learn' -S. Jobs. Jon Essig, SimpleFi: 'There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home' -K. Olson. Srikanth Tamma, Deloitte: 'Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius…to move in the opposite direction' -E.F. Schumacher. Karuna Mukherjea, SAP: 'Insight is not a light bulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out' -M. Gladwell. Join us for Templosion, Technology and Future of Finance Part 3.

The buzz: Living for the City -Stevie Wonder, 1974-. Violent attacks in Florida, France, Texas and Turkey make public safety a top global concern. Can governments protect us in our homes, in public, at work and play? Tech advances in facial recognition, geo-fencing, streaming multi-source data analytics offer law enforcement and security organizations better awareness, sensing, detection and prediction across the public safety value chain. But must we choose between personal safety and data privacy? The experts speak. Sara Gardner, Hitachi Insight Group: 'Prediction is very difficult, especially if it's about the future' Niels Bohr. Ruthbea Yesner Clarke, IDC: 'The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get olds ones out' Dee Hock. Marlyn Zelkowitz, SAP: 'Our technological powers increase, but the side effects and potential hazards also escalate' Alvin Toffler. Join us for Making Cities Safer and Smarter: The Internet of Things – Part 2.