Conference Details - Agenda

Data-driven digital innovation continues to redefine how organizations create and manage value inside the enterprise and out. ‘Network effects’ are now as important as networks for business success. Training algorithms has become as important as training people. The global economics of innovation have profoundly changed, so innovators and fast-followers alike increasingly look to platform architectures, business models, and investments to take advantage of this growing wealth of digital opportunities. This talk explores, explains, and argues that the key to digital transformation is investing the human capital, creativity, competences, and capital of one’s customers and clients. This insight is poorly understood yet key to the global success of companies ranging from Alibaba to Amazon to Tencent to Google to Netflix. Drawing from MIT Sloan School Initiative on the Digital Economy research, this talk presents an actionable framework for translating this concept into action.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are disrupting industries across the globe, from self-driving cars to smart home assistants to automated call centers. There are many potential benefits including improved safety and productivity and reduced environmental footprint, however, there are technological limits, and not every sector of the economy is reaping the same level of benefits. State of the art AI and robotics will be discussed, along with how these technologies are impacting a range of business sectors, such as transportation, telecommunications, construction, and media. Emerging technologies in both academic and industrial research and development labs will be highlighted, alongside a summary of current hard problems and how these technologies are likely to evolve over time.

The Internet has made communication, collaboration, and innovation easier than ever before. However, simultaneously, fake news and alternative realities run rampant among the fringe. This talk highlights how to positively leverage AI-supported collaboration by building creative swarms as Collaborative Innovation Networks (COINs), intrinsically motivated groups of people who work together over the Web, supported by computer technology and AI to create something radically new. Companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook succeed in creating global organizations with collective awareness, uniting members with the same goals and culture to work together towards a shared vision. Their customers form digital tribes that are passionate about their products. Based on more than fifteen years of research at MIT, this talk illustrates how the creation of these swarms and digital tribes can be supported by augmenting human intelligence in social networks. In collaboration with global fortune 500 firms, our team has identified digital tribes and their preferences on Twitter, predicted the likelihood of senior managers to leave their firm based on their e-mail communication, and measured stress and happiness of individuals in small teams using a smartwatch-based “Happimeter."

Moderator: Adrien Chaussinand
Panelists: Michael Schrage, Nicholas Roy, Peter Gloor, Vincent Maret