Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, co-founders of PayPal, have recently argued that the pace of innovation within Silicon Valley is “between dire straits and dead.” They argue that current forms of digital innovation are only solving small problems, instead of setting their sights on larger transformational issues impacting humanity. However, with 44 technology IPOs in 2011 and 30 to date in 2012, investors have shown a belief that innovation is, in fact, not dead. If innovation is indeed alive, and there is sufficient capital able to facilitate the development of new projects, proposals and companies, what else then must be done to enable transformational breakthroughs? What innovations are coming from our greater understanding of social networks, hard science developments, or new communication platforms? Importantly, how can corporations and organizations change their culture in order to become more innovative and respond to a rapidly changing social, technological and economic landscape?
Bio
Solomon Assefa
Solomon Assefa is a Research Staff Member at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. His research interests include CMOS-integrated silicon nanophotonics for optical interconnect, ultra-fast photodetectors, and nano-structured silicon-platform for novel applications including quantum communication and bio-sensing.
Dr. Assefa is a member of IEEE,OSA, and APS. He has received a Technical Accomplishment Award, Corporate Award, and several Invention Achievement Awards from IBM. He was also recognized by MIT Technology Review's TR35, a list of the World's Top Young Innovators for 2011.
Solomon received B.S. in physics, B.S. in EECS, and M.S. in EECS in 2001 from MIT. He joined IBM in 2004 after receiving a Ph.D. from MIT.
John Henry Clippinger
John Henry Clippinger is Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab Human Dynamics Group where he is conducting research on trust frameworks for protecting and sharing personal information. With Professor Alex Pentland of MIT, he is founder and Executive Director of the newly formed ID3 (Institute for Institutional Innovation & Data Driven Design) which is developing an open governance platform to support an ecosystem for data-driven services, infrastructures, and enterprises.
Previously, he was founder and Co-Director of The Law Lab (www.lawlab.org) at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, a multi-disciplinary center founded to research the role of social, neurological, and economic mechanisms on the role of law in facilitating cooperation and entrepreneurial innovation. Dr. Clippinger was also a Senior Fellow at the Berkman Center where he co-founded and supported the development of an open source, interoperable identity framework called Project Higgins (www.eclipse.org/higgins) to give users control over their personal information.
He is the author of A Crowd of One: The Future of Individual Identity (Perseus, Public Affairs, 2007, and The Biology of Business, Natural Laws of Enterprise, (Josey Bass, 1998). Previously, he was Director of Intellectual Capital, Coopers & Lybrand and the founder and CEO of four software companies. He also holds software patents, and consults with companies, foundations, and government agencies on technology, policy and business strategy. He is Co-Chair of Open Identity Exchange Advisory Board and has lectured at Stanford, Brandeis, MIT, Yale, Boston University, Chinese Academy of Science, Harvard, Brown, Dartmouth, UPenn, among others.
Dr. Clippinger is a graduate of Yale University and holds a M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the eG8 Forum, and the Global Leadership Telco Council and the Risk Analysis Networks for the World Economic Forum, an Aspen Institute Research Fellow, frequent participant at The DoD sponsored Highlands Forum, The Aspen Institute, the CEO Leadership Institute of Yale School of Management, Creative Leadership Summit, Aspen Institute Italy, Telco 2.0, Fortune Brainstorm, Arab Thought Leadership Conference, Kauffman Summer Institute, Monaco Media Forum, Ashoka, and The Santa Fe Institute Business Network.
Carlos Dominguez
Carlos Dominguez is a Senior Vice President at Cisco and a technology evangelist, speaking to and motivating audiences worldwide about how technology is changing how we communicate, collaborate, and especially how we work.
Dominguez gives humorous, highly animated presentations full of deep insight into how technology, and the right culture, can create winning companies. Drawing from his 20 years at Cisco, he talks about how technology is changing the rules of business and how to not get left behind. He also addresses many questions about collaboration, including what motivates people to collaborate, how to establish rewards for collaborating, how to find the right experts both inside and outside your company, and how to keep people coming together both online and in person.
Dominguez is a member of the prestigious CDC Foundation, which connects the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to innovative ideas and expertise from outside partners. He is also a board member at the Institute of Large Scale Innovation (ILSI), a group of international leaders who use innovation to help solve complex global challenges.
Before his current role at Cisco, Dominguez ran Worldwide Service Provider Operations for three years, and previously was Vice President for U.S. Service Provider Sales. Under his leadership, Service Provider grew in revenue from $500 million to $2.5 billion. Prior to that, he led Cisco’s enterprise line of business in the northeastern United States, where he established Cisco in strategic markets such as financial services, media, government, and pharmaceuticals.
Prior to Cisco, he held management positions at Timeplex, Inc. in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, and at New Jersey Bell/Bell Atlanticom.
Michael Fertik
Michael Fertik founded Reputation.com with the belief that businesses and individuals have the right to control and protect their online reputation and privacy. Credited with pioneering the field of online reputation management (ORM), Fertik is lauded as the world's leading cyber thinker in digital privacy and reputation.
He is a member of the World Economic Forum Agenda Council on the Future of the Internet and recipient of the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer 2011 Award. Fertik is a member of the Aspen Institute CEO Roundtable. He is also a Privacy by Design Ambassador, an appointment designated by the Information & Privacy Commissioner of Canada. Fertik's industry commentary can be found in his frequent guest columns including, Harvard Business Review (HBR), The Huffington Post, Reuters and Newsweek. He is also author of the bestselling book, "Wild West 2.0" (2010) and "The Reputation Economy" (Crown, Forthcoming 2013). Fertik founded his first Internet company while at Harvard College. He also received his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
David Kirkpatrick
David Kirkpatrick is an author, journalist, and media entrepreneur. He wrote the definitive history and explanation of Facebook, The Facebook Effect: The Inside Story of the Company that is Connecting the World. Kirkpatrick is also founder and CEO of Techonomy Media, which hosts the annual Techonomy conference, focusing on the centrality of technology and innovation for business and social progress. The third annual Techonomy takes place Nov. 11-13 in Tucson. In addition, Techonomy Detroit, a one-day conference focusing on US competitiveness, jobs, and urban revival, is September 12 in, of course, downtown Detroit.
Participants the past two years have included Marc Benioff, Jim Breyer, Scott Cook, Tyler Cowen, Jack Dorsey, Bill Gates, Dan Hesse, Reid Hoffman, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Neelie Kroes, Sean Parker, Eric Schmidt, Hamadoun Toure, and Padmasree Warrior. Techonomy also produces video and textual editorial content focused on technology's integral role in, increasingly, everything.
Kirkpatrick's bestselling book on Facebook has been published in 31 countries and was a finalist for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year as well as the Gerald Loeb Award. He was for many years senior editor for Internet and technology at Fortune Magazine where he wrote numerous cover stories and created and hosted Fortune's Brainstorm conference series. Kirkpatrick writes regularly for Vanity Fair and Forbes. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and appears frequently on television, radio, and various Internet media.
Dr. Thomas Malone
Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence. He was also the founder and director of the MIT Center for Coordination Science and one of the two founding co-directors of the MIT Initiative on "Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century." Professor Malone teaches classes on leadership and information technology, and his research focuses on how new organizations can be designed to take advantage of the possibilities provided by information technology.
The past two decades of his research are summarized in his critically acclaimed book, “The Future of Work: How the New Order of Business Will Shape Your Organization, Your Management Style, and Your Life” (2004). Professor Malone has also published over 75 articles, research papers, and book chapters and is the co-editor of three books: “Coordination Theory and Collaboration Technology” (2001), “Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century” (2003), and “Organizing Business Knowledge: The MIT Process Handbook” (2003).
Professor Malone has been a cofounder of three software companies and has consulted and served as a board member for a number of other organizations. Additionally, he is an inventor with 11 patents. His background includes work as a research scientist at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), a Ph.D. from Stanford University, and degrees in applied mathematics, engineering, and psychology.
