Tuesday, April 8, 2014

The Inspiration and Sometimes Frightening Power of Innovation

I vividly remember my fifth grade trip to COSI (Center of Science and Industry in Columbus Ohio) as opening my eyes to the power of science and technology. After that weekend the world looked different to me and it created a curiosity that I'd never lose. This past weekend, I felt a similar spark attending IPP, a joint venture between Singularity University and xPrize.

A smorgasbord of innovation across artificial intelligence, biotech, medicine, wearables, cyber security, 3D printing, crowdsourcing, quantum computing and beyond -- yet the power of the event was much more than these individual game changers, but in looking at their combination. It brought together large global organizations with startups and early leaders in these spaces. [topcoder] came to present about how crowdsourcing and open innovation can lead to revolutionary results, but like everyone else attending, left with in awe of the sheer number of revolutionary advancements occurring in our time.

I evangelize to business leaders every day about the increasing rate of change and how critical it is to their business strategy -- yet even I was stunned by how fast and dramatic and broad that change actually is. Exponential leaps were the focus and in a very literal sense.

Will 3D printing render manufacturing in your industry obsolete as consumers do it themselves? Will it be a new field of medicine to use 3D printed components for our body? What does medical care look like when patients can walk in to their doctors office with their whole genome mapped? How can quantum computing provide new insights into genomics or instant analysis of all the data coming from wearables everywhere? What happens when millions of people can help you design, create and advance your products or your competitors? Could we personalize my food, medicine, and products based on millions of other people and/or advanced genomic analysis? How will our security keep pace with this advancement when criminals can operate without regulation?

These are just a small fraction of the kinds of questions that you can see are very real for all of us right now. It represents great risk and opportunity for companies big and small. Here are a few of my favorite quotes, facts, insights and inspirations from the weekend. The future is coming -- whether we are ready for it or not.















































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