It is growing increasingly clear that the nascent technologies of web3 and the metaverse are poised to unleash the next wave of digital disruption.
The past year has seen leading tech companies, such as Meta (formerly Facebook), Apple, Nvidia, and Microsoft pivot towards the metaverse. It has also seen venture capital invest heavily in the space, with funds such as Andreessen Horowitz releasing $600 million to invest in metaverse infrastructure.
Our speakers empower audiences to make sense of this trend. They illuminate exactly what the metaverse is, why it is garnering such excitement, and what both the risks and opportunities are. These experts communicate this in a way that is accessible, informative and interactive.
Charlie Fink writes the weekly Forbes column, This Week in XR, while hosting its companion podcast. He is the author of the critically acclaimed AR-enabled books; Charlie Fink's Metaverse, Convergence, How The World Will Be Painted With Data, as well as Remote Collaboration and Virtual Conferences and the Future of Work. His latest work, The New Metaverse Book, is set to release soon.
Charlie's VR involvement stretches all the way back to 1992 when he joined Disney's Virtual World Entertainment as COO. He has also been Studios' Senior Vice President and the Chief Creative Officer at AOL. Furthermore, the President of American Greetings Interactive and Blue Mountain. He currently teaches Extended Reality at Chapman University Film School in Orange, CA.
Winston MA is an investor, attorney, author, and adjunct professor, focused on the global digital economy. He is the Co-Founder of CloudTree Ventures, a venture capital firm that empowers interactive entertainment companies. As one of the few financial tech experts with experience in both top Chinese and American corporations, he provides unique insights on how the metaverse and its incumbent web3 technologies are unfolding differently in the East and West.
He has authored several books on pioneering technologies including; China's Mobile Economy, Digital Economy 2.0, The Digital Silk Road, China's AI Big Bang, The Hunt for Unicorns: How Sovereign Funds Are Reshaping Investment in the Digital Economy, and The Digital War – How China's Tech Power Shapes the Future of AI, Blockchain, and Cyberspace.
Greg Lindsay is an urbanist who analyses the future of our cities. He is the Director of Applied Research at NewCities, where he explores the future of connected mobility and mixed-use development. He is a non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Foresight, Strategy, and Risks Initiative, where he studies the intersection of cities, technology, climate change, and national security. He is the Urbanist-in-Residence at BMW MINI's URBAN-X, a startup accelerator which uses entrepreneurship to solve some of the toughest urban challenges.
He speaks on how VR will shape the physical world, exploring the overlap between the metaverse and reality. Lindsay asks how we can deliver value to the public realm while protecting it from the metaverse's potentially detrimental features.
Known as The Digital Speaker, Mark is a future tech strategist who sheds light on how new technologies will revolutionise organisations and society at large, including the metaverse.
He is the author of three best-selling management books on big data, blockchain and AI. His fourth book Step into the Metaverse: How the Immersive Internet Will Rewrite How the World Operates, is soon to be released, outlining the opportunities and risks for businesses may face when positioning themselves within the metaverse.
He is the founder of Datafloq.com, a leading content platform on emerging technologies; the host of Between Two Bots podcast, which covers the ethics of AI; and the publisher of the future of work newsletter 'the 'f(x) = ex.'
Eline Hauge is a business advisor with over 20 years experience building bridges between business and data-driven technologies. Since 2016, her main focus has been AI, a technology which is rapidly shaping the metaverse.
Elin provides forward-looking perspectives on the application of AI and the metaverse within business and society. Her realistic approach towards technology, containing both scepticism and optimism, captivates audiences while simplifying this space.
As senior innovation editor of at Wired - the influential technology and trends magazine - Jeremy has expansive knowledge of the ground-breaking developments and businesses that characterise the future.
His work at Wired centres revolves around evaluating products and technology at the cutting edge of innovation. As a result, he has provided consultancy services for many of the world's largest consumer brands. He routinely appears on the BBC and Sky News. Prior to his time at Wired, Jeremy was a digital editor at the Financial Times.
As CEO of Next Step and founder of Executive Growth Alliance (EGA), an innovation eco-system of F100 companies, Jennifer Vessels is at the centre of technological change, the future of work, innovation ecosystems, the Metaverse and Web 3.0.
She has led global transformation for Adobe, Cisco, Google, Genentech and hundreds of the world's largest organizations.
Jennifer advises executives on leveraging the latest digital and societal trends, informing future-ready strategies. Through her work at EGA, she has helped companies including Ashland, BCW, GE, Norwegian Air, Novartis, RaboBank, Schneider Electric, and Yara to use cutting-edge technology to increase their growth value by 25%+.
Sophie Hackford is a futurist who synthesizes interconnected technological and scientific breakthroughs from around the world.
She is the co-founder of 1715 Labs, a world-leading data labelling platform that augments human and machine intelligence, born out of Oxford University's Astrophysics Department. She is also an adviser to New Lab in Brooklyn, as well as to John Deere & Co where she counsels on the future of food, climate, and agriculture.
Previously, she worked at WIRED Magazine, at Singularity University on the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, and the Oxford Martin School at Oxford University. She has given over 200 provocative talks to boards and executive teams on novel science and tech.
Matthew Griffin is a world-class futurist and strategic advisor, who focuses on reducing global inequality and ensuring the benefits of the future can be accessed by everyone regardless of their abilities or background.
He is the founder of the deep futures consultancy 311 Institute, and two philanthropic organisations, World Futures Forum and XPotential University. He is the author of the Codex of the Future series; How to Build Exponential Enterprises. He worked as IBM, ATOS, and Dell.
His advisory clients include Accenture, Aon, Arm, BCG, Centrica, Credit Suisse, Decathlon, Dentons, Deloitte, GEMS, Huawei, Lego, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Qualcomm, RWE, SAP, Samsung, T-Mobile as well as several world leaders, and G7 and G20 governments.
Kate is the founder and CEO of KO Insights, a strategic advisory firm committed to illuminating the impact of digital transformation on human wellbeing and helping companies take a human-centric approach in a tech-driven world.
Kate is known as the “Tech Humanist”, due to her optimistic, yet realistic approach towards technology and the many opportunities it yields.
Amongst Kate's accomplishments are: creating the first content management role at Netflix; developing Toshiba America's first intranet; leading cutting-edge online optimization work at Magazines.com; and building the first departmental website at the University of Illinois.
She is the author of four books including; How Business Can Succeed By Making Technology Better for Humanity, The Design of Meaning for the Future of Humanity, A Tech Humanist Look at the Future of Work, and Human-Centric Digital Transformation: Purpose, Alignment, Meaningful Experiences.
