Dirk Ahlborn is an entrepreneur keynote speaker and the founder and CEO of JumpStarter Inc. JumpStarter is a web portal that creates smarter and more successful companies by using crowdsourcing to fund ideas from initial conception to final product. Dirk is also CEO and Co-Founder of Hyperloop Transportation Technologies. It is JumpStartFund’s well-known undertaking to make the Hyperloop become reality, by using its crowd collaboration concept.

Dirk started his career in 1993 as an investment specialist in Berlin, Germany. After moving to Italy in 1997, he founded several companies in the alternative energy and interior design space. In 2006, he successfully sold one of these companies to a global alternative energy conglomerate.

He is a serial entrepreneur with experience in almost every element of business. His careers have taken him through management, product design, development, manufacturing, production facility design and set up, production cost control, marketing, product distribution, customer service, and sales.

Before co-founding Jumpstarter, he was at the Girvan Institute of Technology, an incubator-accelerator for early-stage high-tech companies. At Girvan, beginning in 2009, he was instrumental in the development of several startup companies, most notably Advanced Turbine Designs, a developer of natural-gas-fueled gas turbine generators for combined heat and power. In the course of his multi-faceted activities at Girvan he also managed mobile and web application developments as well as search engine optimization and online marketing.

Prior to 2009, his activities were centered in Germany and Italy. Dirk is fluent in German and Italian and proficient in conversational Spanish. He holds the credential in banking and insurance from the Organization of German Industry and Commerce.

• Experiential, Interactive & Engaging Innovation Keynote Speaker

• Talks about exponential technologies, Fourth Industrial Revolution & success in a rapidly changing, digital world

• Tribeca Disruptor Foundation Fellow, a disruptive innovation awards program of Tribeca Film Festival, Singularity University/ Smart City Accelerator Mentor and Startup Board Member, Winner of the Cloud & DevOps World Award for Most Innovative Vendor

•  Past clients include: Amazon, American Express, Coca-Cola, Deloitte, Fiserv, IBM, the United Nations

Scott Amyx is the Chair & Managing Partner at Astor Perkins. Astor Perkins is a deep tech and sustainability VC that backs mavericks solving some of the hardest problems facing humanity on Earth and in space.

From climate change mitigation and adaptation, longevity, and human survival on Earth and in deep space, to the space economy itself, Astor Perkins is tackling some of the most difficult scientific, engineering, and technical problems that have global market potential.

Scott is also a Forbes New York Business Council Member, Singularity University/ Smart City Accelerator mentor and startup board member and SXSW Pitch (formerly SXSW Accelerator) judge. Scott is a Tribeca Disruptor Foundation Fellow, a disruptive innovation awards program of Tribeca Film Festival. Scott is a national Sloan Fellow/ Woodrow Wilson Fellow. He has spoken at TEDx on exponential technologies, Fourth Industrial Revolution & success. Scott is a global thought leader on breakthrough innovation, voted top global innovation keynote speaker, and author on smart cities, the Fourth Industrial Revolution and winner of the Cloud & DevOps World Award for Most Innovative and was voted Top Global Exponential Technologies Expert by Inc. Magazine, HP Enterprise, and Postscapes & Top 10 Global Innovation Keynote Speaker by Speaking.com. Scott has been nominated to the World Economic Forum as a committee member for the Future of the Internet. The Republic of Korea nominated Scott to present at the ITU Telecom World, United Nations. Sovereignties, governments, multinationals, and international consulting & research firms look to Scott for unrivaled insights and pulse on the changing landscape.

Scott was voted the Most Influential Leader in Smart Cities and awarded the 50 Most Impactful Smart Cities Leaders by Inc. Magazine, Internet of Things Institute, HP Enterprise, World CSR Congress, and numerous institutions. Scott is enabling the realization of a global network of smart, sustainable cities through his partnerships with the United Nations, United Smart Cities, United for Smart Sustainable Cities, Smart Cities Council, and ASEAN Smart Cities Network, family offices, and institutional investors.

Scott has been featured on New York Times, TIME, Forbes, The Washington Post, WIRED, TechCrunch, Inc., Pew Research, Chicago Tribune, InformationWeek, Forrester, Gigaom, ReadWrite, Shots Magazine, Business News Daily, IBM Big Data & Analytics, Intel, Geektime, Examiner, TechBeacon, EE Times, IEEE, El País, Costco Magazine, and television and radio programs. He has spoken at TEDx, European Commission, World Economic Forum, ITU Telecom World (United Nations), International CES, SXSW, IBM Insight, IBM Amplify, IBM Watson IoT, IBM InterConnect, PTC LiveWorx, AMEX, SAP, CRM Evolution, THINK!, NED, Cloud Expo Europe, Cloud & DevOps World, KAIST, Samsung SDS, ArabNet Dubai & Riyadh, Internet Summit, JCK Las Vegas, Customer Service Experience, Razorfish Tech Summit, Location & Context World, Internet of Things World, K-Global Startup, and more. Scott is the co-author of Internet of Things and Data Analytics Handbook, an academic publication by John Wiley and Sons and The Advances in Information Security, Privacy, & Ethics (AISPE) Book Series: Managing Security Issues and the Hidden Dangers of Wearable Technologies, an academic publication by IGI Global.

Scott is the author of Strive: How Doing the Things Most Uncomfortable Leads to Success, about unlikely individuals who persevered through change to become outrageously successful. His second book, The Human Race: How Humans Can Survive in the Robotic Age, is scheduled for release next year and will cover how artificial intelligence, robotics, and the Fourth Industrial Revolution will lead to a net job loss that will increase income inequality and stoke further populism and nationalism that are already sweeping across the globe.

Scott has a master’s degree in applied microeconomics and public policy from the University of Chicago. Scott was a national Sloan Fellow at Carnegie Mellon University.

• Scott Anthony talks about companies can outperform the competition by focusing on innovation.

• Audiences leave with a new appreciation for how innovation can shape their ability to grow their business and build their future.

• Scott Anthony a senior partner at Innosight, a contributor to Harvard Business Review, author and distinguished keynote speaker.

• Past clients include: Proctor & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Singtel, Kraft, General Electric, LG and Cisco Systems.

Scott Anthony is a senior partner at Innosight, a strategy and consulting firm. He has led Innosight's expansion into the Asia-Pacific region as well as its venture capital activities (Innosight Ventures). In his more than a decade with Innosight, Scott has advised senior leaders in companies such as Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, Singtel, Kraft, General Electric, LG, the Ayala Group, and Cisco Systems on topics of growth and innovation. He has extensive experience in emerging markets, particularly in India, China, and the Philippines. In 2017, Scott was awarded the Thinkers50 Innovation Award, which recognizes the world’s leading thinker on innovation.

Scott is one of Harvard Business Review’s most prolific contributors and is the coauthor of the new book Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today’s Business While Creating the Future, a blueprint for how successful companies can leverage disruptive change to fortify today’s business and create tomorrow’s growth engine. He was the co-author of the HBR article “Build an Innovation Engine in 90 Days” as well as dozens of digital articles for the magazine.

Scott’s previous books are The First Mile: A Launch Manual for Getting Great Ideas Into the Market. Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change (with Innosight co-founder and Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen); The Innovator’s Guide to Growth: Putting Disruptive Innovation to Work; The Silver Lining: An Innovation Playbook for Uncertain Times; The Little Black Book of Innovation: How It Works, How to Do It; and Building a Growth Factory. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles on innovation and strategy for a variety of publications.

Scott is a featured speaker on topics of innovation and growth. He has delivered keynote addresses on five continents, and has appeared on Good Morning America, Channel News Asia, CNBC, and FOX Business.

Scott received a BA in economics summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar.

Spend time with inventor Chris Barton and you’ll be inspired to believe anything is possible. His positive energy to make seemingly impossible ideas come to life is absolutely contagious. Chris’s latest venture, Guard, uses AI to detect drowning in swimming pools – a never-before accomplished effort. Chris’s best-known creation is Shazam, the app that changed the way the world discovers music and laid the groundwork for the consumer AI industry we know today. With over 2 billion downloads, Shazam is a global phenomenon and Apple's sixth-largest acquisition. The app lets people identify songs out of thin air from anywhere they are, making it nothing short of pure magic. Chris holds 12 patents and played key roles in the early days of Google and Dropbox. He believes his dyslexia helps him uncover novel solutions to obstacles and to achieving audacious goals. In his speeches, Chris shares his Start From Zero thinking method of questioning assumptions and challenging conventional wisdom. His amazing story and storytelling completely captivate audiences and inspires them to make big things happen in their organizations – to create magic in defiance of the obstacles.

Chris grew up with a French mother and British father – both of whom were university professors. However, academics were a struggle for Chris. Chris would come to learn he had undiagnosed dyslexia. Over the years, Chris learned to embrace what he now calls his superpower. Chris believes that dyslexia has allowed him to overcome barriers to achieve his many accomplishments.

Shazam is a great example. Though Chris does not position himself as an expert on the broader future of A.I., his journey as a true A.I. pioneer started when Chris had the idea to identify music using a mobile phone, as no technology existed to achieve his goal. In addition, he was told by Professors at MIT and Stanford that this application of pattern recognition was impossible.

Besides inventing a new technology that didn’t yet exist, he had to build a search engine supercomputer from scratch, create the world’s largest music database, and create a user experience on very basic mobile phones. Did Chris ever think maybe the experts were right? “No,” he says.

When Shazam was founded in 2000, it was far ahead of its time. It was three years before iTunes, seven years before the iPhone, and eight years before the App Store. The nascent Shazam struggled in the early days, teetering near bankruptcy for six years waiting for key digital advancements to arrive, allowing Shazam to unleash its full potential on the world.

In 2018, Shazam, and its 200 employees, was acquired by Apple in Apple’s 6th largest acquisition of all-time. Today, Shazam has been downloaded over two billion times and is considered one of the world's most popular apps. It has become an integral part of our everyday lives, with its ability to instantly identify songs and provide information about the music such as lyrics.

Shazam has even become a verb, as in "Can you Shazam this song for me?" In addition to its widespread usage, Shazam has also been the inspiration for a popular game show hosted by Jamie Foxx called "Beat Shazam," which has aired for four seasons on the Fox Network challenging contestants to recognize songs faster than the Shazam app.

Chris has also played a key role in tech history as a founding member of Google’s Android Partnerships team where he created Android's mobile operator partnership framework. He also spent four years at Dropbox where he led carrier partnerships and was one of the first 100 people at the company.

Holding 12 patents, including one found within the Google search algorithm that billions of people use, Chris has made significant contributions to the tech industry. He also invests in a wide range of start-ups, including artificial intelligence for heart health and inflammatory disease therapeutics.

Today, Chris spends much of his time building his third startup company, Guard, a system that detects drowning in swimming pools using artificial intelligence.

When he has the time, Chris enjoys speaking at events and sharing lessons learned from his experiences achieving the impossible. He inspires people with stories of the unexpected mindsets that are necessary to overcome challenges and achieve success. Chris gives audiences a new framework for thinking about the obstacles they face and motivates them to take action.

Prior to his audacious technology career, Chris was a strategy consultant and earned two master’s degrees from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University.

When he isn’t working or speaking, you can find Chris enjoying the outdoors and spending time with his son, Jude.

Educated at the University of Toronto (BA), the University of Western Ontario (LLB), and the London School of Economics (LLM), David Ben retired from practicing tax law to pursue his passion for creativity, performing and community. As a magician, David was the sole protégé of Ross Bertram - one of the great sleight-of-hand artists of the twentieth century. David is a member of London's prestigious Magic Circle and has performed throughout the United States, Canada, England and Japan. In addition to performing magic, David acts as a keynote speaker on creativity, innovation and problem solving. A feature presenter at The Walrus Talks (Performance), IdeaCity, and a two-time presenter at the Smithsonian, David has addressed a broad range of associations and corporate clients in the United States and Canada.

David was the co-writer (along with Canadian broadcast icon Patrick Watson), performer and producer of The Conjuror (Shaw Festival, Theatre ROM, Isabel Bader Theatre) and The Conjuror's Suite (Salon ROM, Charlottetown Festival), Tricks (Artword Theatre) and Natural Magick (Luminato Festival). David has made numerous television appearances and was also the subject of an award-winning documentary film A Conjuror in the Making that aired on Breakfast with the Arts on the A&E Network and on Adrienne Clarkson Presents on the CBC.

David is the author of four books. His first, Advantage Play: A Manager's Guide to Creative Problem Solving, examines magicians, card cheats and psychics as models of creativity and pragmatic problem solving and was published by Key Porter Books. His second, Tricks, was a how-to book for magicians published by Squash Publications. His third book was Dai Vernon: A Biography, the first volume of a long-awaited portrait of the life and times of the most influential magician of the twentieth century. The fourth, a landmark book, Zarrow: A Lifetime of Magic, a portrait and technical retrospective of one of magic's most revered arrangers, Herb Zarrow. David will soon complete the business biography of Allan Slaight scheduled to be published in 2013. David is also the author of several articles and essays published in several journals including the Canadian Literary Review, Genii, A Conjuror's Magazine and Magicol: A journal of magic history and collectibles.

David is also a consultant for a variety of film, television, print and theatre projects including The Shaw Festival's production of Ragtime, Soulpepper Theatre's production of Tom Stoppard's Travesties and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Brian Johnson's short film based on Denis Lee's book of poetry Yes/No, and Michael Ondaajte's award winning novel, Divisadero.

David is the co-founder and Artistic Director of Magicana a performing arts organization and registered charity dedicated to studying and promoting magic as a performing art. He spearheaded My Magic Hands, a program designed to use the process of learning, practicing and performing magic as an introduction to creativity and the arts for underprivileged and disadvantaged children; and Senior Sorcery an intergenerational initiative to bring live theatre to isolated seniors in their homes and community.

Few journalists have had the impact on history and their craft as Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Carl Bernstein. From uncovering the Watergate scandal with Bob Woodward to writing about national and international affairs for half a century, Bernstein’s books, reporting and commentary have revealed the hidden workings of government and politics around the world.

Bernstein’s important on-air reporting and commentary on Donald Trump for CNN has been widely recognized for continuing the kind of work he and Bob Woodward pioneered during the Nixon presidency.

In 1973, Woodward and Bernstein were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for their Watergate coverage at The Washington Post, leading to the resignation of President Richard Nixon and setting new standards for investigative journalism. The pair went on to write two classic best-sellers: All the President’s Men (also a movie starring Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman); and The Final Days, chronicling the end of the Nixon presidency.

Bernstein’s recently released book, Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom, became an instant New York Times bestseller, receiving extraordinary attention and praise in reviews throughout the United States and Europe. In it, Bernstein recounts his earliest days in journalism at the Washington Evening Star newspaper, where he began his career during the Kennedy era as a 16-year-old copyboy. The roots of his Watergate reporting can be seen in this remarkable apprenticeship as a teenage reporter in the nation’s capital.

Bernstein’s other best-selling books demonstrate his unique range as a journalist:  Loyalties: A Son’s Memoir, about his family’s experiences in the McCarthy era; His Holiness: Pope John Paul II and The History of Our Time – a biography of Pope John Paul II – that revealed the Pope’s pivotal role in the fall of communism; and A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton, acclaimed as the definitive biography on the subject.

His magazine articles have appeared in Time, USA Today, Rolling Stone and The New Republic. From 1999-2001, Bernstein served as editor and executive vice president of Voter.com, a pioneering website that Forbes named the best political site on the internet. He has worked as Washington bureau chief and correspondent for ABC News; and, while at the Washington Post, was also a part-time rock critic.

Bernstein lives in New York with his wife and is the father of two sons, Jacob Bernstein, a reporter for the New York Times; and Max Bernstein, who plays guitar for Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus.

• Jason talks about how our brains get creative and explains how we can rocketfuel our own ability to get out of the world of the plain and ordinary to create bold new ideas that have the real potential to change and transform.

• Audiences leave with ten simple practical tips to help identify your own creative triggers and maximise creativity and ideation: both personally and within your organization.

• Jason Bevan was responsible for the innovation and creativity process at Warner Bros. Studios, marketing some of the world’s best loved films in EMEA and creating new ideas that were often used globally. Jason is also a TED circuit speaker and as an expert speaker for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

• Past clients include: KFC, BT, Netflix.

Jason Bevan was responsible for the innovation and creativity process at Warner Bros. Studios, marketing some of the world’s best loved films in EMEA and creating new ideas that were often used globally. Jason worked with legendary film-makers and actors on massive movies for 16 years and reveals how a number of iconic film ideas came to be and how we can all powerfully employ the same techniques used to create them.

Jason’s Innervation keynote talks and masterclasses show why creativity has become one of our most valuable skills in the post-pandemic world and demystifies how we generate ideas with simple logic. Clear, easy to follow steps and tasks show how we can take inspiration from iconic movies and their makers to tap into the creativity we already have, but often don’t use…including people that don’t think they are innovative! It’s fun, uplifting and inspiring.

Jason offers a peek behind the curtain of the world of film, explaining how Warner Bros. pushed the limits of creativity with brave, ambitious ideas with principles we can use in our own work. How the Dark Knight batmobile led to supercars all over the world becoming matt black. How they made creative magic on the Harry Potter film sets by making them the friendliest places in film. How Jason got teams from 37 markets to energise from these films that pervaded global culture to create incredible ideas and seismic events that were seen all over the world. Jason’s talk was developed with a clinical psychologist for scientific accuracy.

Jason was known for pushing creative boundaries on campaigns for the Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts films, DC movies like Joker, The Dark Knight and Aquaman films, the Lego movies, the Conjuring and IT horrorverse and the Christopher Nolan movies. Previously Jason worked for Disney in London and Paris and continues to work with top film and entertainment companies, as co-founder of Content Creator Studios.

In addition to speaking on the TED circuit and as an expert speaker for the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Jason has been on the judging panel for various highly regarded awards in the creative industry and speaks for major brands and at a number of renown trade & industry events worldwide.

About Rohit Bhargava - Keynote Speaker on Trends, Innovation, Marketing, Storytelling and Diversity:

Rohit Bhargava is an innovation and marketing expert, skilled facilitator, and keynote speaker. After a successful 15-year career as a brand and marketing strategist at two of the largest agencies in the world (Ogilvy and Leo Burnett) - Rohit became an entrepreneur and has since started three companies. He is the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of nine books on topics as wide-ranging as the future of business, building a brand with personality, and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world and has delivered sold out keynote presentations and workshops to business leaders in 32 countries.

As a keynote speaker, Rohit has been invited to share his insights at some of the most forward-looking organizations and stages in the world including Intel, NASA, Disney, JP Morgan Chase, LinkedIn, Microsoft, American Express, CES, SXSW, the World Bank, Coca-Cola and hundreds of others. At SXSW in particular, the long lines outside his popular Featured Session talks have wrapped around the entire Austin Convention Center and down the stairs to the lower level. After his packed session one year, an attendee tweeted after his talk that "he's no Beyonce, but definitely worth standing in line for." It's one of Rohit's favorite after-talk endorsements. He is indeed no Beyonce, but his sessions are still pretty darn entertaining.

The Non-Obvious Trends series that he first started as an online trend report and then turned into a book in 2015 became his signature publication, with annual editions for the next five years, and culminating in the international bestseller Non-Obvious Megatrends, which hit #1 on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list and also the USA Today bestseller list. To date, the series has been read or shared by more than 1 million readers and won more than twenty international book awards including recognition by the Leonard L. Berry Marketing Book Award, the Eric Hoffer Business Book of the Year and a Gold Medal in the Axiom Awards. His latest book, The Future Normal, co-authored with Henry Coutinho-Mason was released in March, 2023.

Outside of his consulting work, Rohit also teaches his popular signature course on storytelling and marketing at Georgetown University in Washington DC and has been invited to deliver guest lectures at many other prestigious schools including Stanford and Wharton. For the past 17 years, Rohit has also been writing his personal “Influential Marketing Blog” which has been featured in global media and named one of the top 25 marketing blogs in the world by AdAge magazine. He is regularly interviewed and featured as an expert commentator in global media including Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, and NPR. Rohit also writes a monthly column for GQ magazine in Brazil on technology and trends.

Thanks to his many years of sharing insights, Rohit has been recognized alongside visionary business leaders like Sir Richard Branson and Tom Peters as a “Top 100 Thought Leader in Trustworthy Business Behavior” and was named by global recruiting firm Korn Ferry as one of the “Most Influential South Asians In Media and Entertainment.”

On a personal level, Rohit is married and lives with his wife and two boys in the Washington DC area. He is a lifelong fan of anything having to do with the Olympics (he’s been to five so far and is really looking forward to Paris 2024!) and actively avoids anything having to do with cauliflower (yuck!). Outside of work, Rohit believes that the most entertaining and impactful job he will ever have is being a great dad and teaching his sons to be kind when no one expects it, curious about the things others take for granted, and confident enough to change the world.

Steve Blank has led one heck of an interesting life. He’s had 3 careers: First, in the U.S. Air Force for 4 years during the Vietnam War. Next, as a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in 8 start-ups in 2 decades (with 4 IPOs). Currently as an academic, teaching at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, and NYU.

Steve, the Father of Modern Entrepreneurship, has changed how startups are built; how entrepreneurship is taught worldwide; how science is commercialized in the U.S., and how companies and the government innovate.

He is the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, credited with launching the Lean Startup movement and the bestselling Startup Owner’s Manual. His May 2013 Harvard Business Review cover story on the Lean Startup defined the Lean Startup movement.

Steve is widely recognized as a thought leader on startups and innovation. Named to the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of 12 Masters of Innovation, Steve is also Senior Fellow for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University.

His Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford, Berkeley, and Columbia is taught in more than 75 universities around the globe. More than 300,000 people have signed up for a free version of the class, offered through Udacity.com.

The Innovation Corps class Steve created for the National Science Foundation is the standard for science commercialization in the U.S.  And his Hacking for Defense class at Stanford is revolutionizing how the U.S. defense and intelligence community can deploy innovation with speed and urgency. Its sister class, Hacking for Diplomacy, is doing the same for foreign affairs challenges managed by the U.S. State Department.

A prolific writer, speaker and teacher, Steve blogs at www.steveblank.com and his articles regularly appear in Forbes, Fortune, The Atlantic and Huffington Post.

His talk “The Secret History of Silicon Valley” has become the standard history of why entrepreneurship blossomed in Silicon Valley while stillborn elsewhere. It has made him an unofficial expert and frequent speaker on the rise of entrepreneurial clusters as well as the role of the U.S. government and military’s influence on entrepreneurship.

From 2006-2013 Steve served as a public official in California as Commissioner on the California Coastal Commission, the public body that regulates land use and public access on the California coast.  He is on the board of the California League of Conservation Voters (CLCV); is a past board member of Audubon California, the Peninsula Open Space Land Trust (POST); and was a trustee of U.C. Santa Cruz.

Steve is a frequent commencement speaker. National Public Radio listed his speech at Philadelphia University as "one of the best commencement speeches, ever".

• Talks about disruptive trends and ideas, and how to apply them to develop new business concepts

• Teaches audiences action-based tactics that use small, incremental innovative changes to create huge ripple effects on business

• Bestselling author of Kill the Company and Why Simple Win, and taught innovation at both American University and Fordham University

• Past clients include: IBM, Merck, Microsoft, Novartis, Procter & Gamble

FutureThink CEO Lisa Bodell ranks among the Top 50 Speakers Worldwide and is the best-selling author of Kill the Company and Why Simple Wins. She’s a global expert on simplification and innovation, who inspires audiences to stop their old ways of working so they can do more work that truly matters.

A thought leader and serial entrepreneur, Bodell's transformational message has inspired executives at top-ranked organizations such as Google, Novartis, Citigroup, LinkedIn, and CVS/Aetna.  Her provocative yet practical approach enables leaders and their teams to eliminate the unnecessary complexity and time-sucks that hold them back and make simplicity their competitive advantage.

Bodell is a monthly contributor to Forbes and has frequently appeared in Fast Company, WIRED, The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and more. She's been featured in many major books such as Warren Berger’s A More Beautiful Question, Adam Grant’s Originals, and After Shock, the 50-year celebration of futurist Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. 

Bodell has taught at both American University and Fordham University and has a TED talk on the topic of simplification. She's served on the board of advisors of several organizations, including the Global Agenda Council for the World Economic Forum, the United States National Security Agency, the Association of Professional Futurists, and the Novartis board of Culture, Diversity & Inclusion.

René C.W. Boender is a renowned and inspiring speaker - capturing his audience right from the start. He began his career in marketing and advertising in his early twenties. The U.S.-based agency McCann discovered his talent - and immediately threw him into the deep end of the international advertising market. He was responsible for their largest accounts: Black & Decker, Coca-Cola, CNN, L’Oréal, H&M, and Levi’s. In the late-80's, people called him the “Rainmaker on Madison Avenue” - the Best New Business Driver in Advertising.

In the early 90's, René Boender started his own successful agency: BBCW. After ten more years in business he then started to give talks at international conferences - and worked as a guest lecturer - and continues to be involved in innumerable high profile projects.

From 2012 to 2014, René Boender was named the Best Foreign Speaker in the USA with his keynote “The Chance to Change is now.” As the author of the best-selling Great to Cool - René Boender shares his knowledge, his experiences and vision. He focuses on increasing business happiness - and believes that everything hinges on the power of communication. Furthermore, he is an expert on Gen Z and published a best-selling book on this target group, which made it to number one on the Top 100 Management Books list - twice! Again a big success, René Boender’s third book, Cool is Hot, also rose to number one!

René is an innovator with professional vision and energetic communication skills - that enable him to give exciting talks and connect with his audience. René Boender speaks on various topics. He looks at the way one deals with difficulties - and helps you to start with yourself and take the reins. His keynotes are about pushing boundaries and the courage to change.

Liz Bohannon is the Founder and CEO of socially conscious fashion brand Sseko Designs, which she founded in 2008 as a way to provide educational and economic opportunities for women in East Africa. Liz shares the lessons learned from her 10-year journey growing Sseko from three women under a mango tree, into a successful international fashion brand that provides employment, educational and entrepreneurial opportunities to thousands of women across the globe.

Her story is filled with lessons for success that are grounded in the principle of having a beginner’s mind, which Liz sums up in her new book, Beginner’s Pluck: Build Your Life of Purpose and Impact Now. In it, as in her presentations, she shares uncommon ideas toward success like, Own Your Average, Stop Trying to Find Your Passion…Create It, and Dream Small so you can do big things. Liz continues to channel her inner beginner as she manages 100s of employees across multiple continents, and her mindset sets her apart as a courageous, creative and effective leader.

The Sseko story has been featured in dozens of publications including, Vogue Magazine, Redbook Magazine, O Magazine, Inc., Fortune and others. Sseko has appeared on national broadcasts including ABC's Shark Tank and Good Morning America.

Among other notable honors, Liz was named a Top Three Transformation Leader by John Maxwell, Forbes listed her as a top 20 public speaker in the U.S. and Bloomberg Businessweek named Sseko as a top social enterprise to watch.
Liz now splits her time between Uganda and Portland, Oregon, where she and her husband Ben run Sseko Designs and raise their two young sons.

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Andy Boynton is Dean of Boston College’s Carroll School of Management, one of the world’s leading business schools, the author of several books and Co-creator of DeepDive™, the world’s preeminent methodology for helping leaders harness the power of teams to significantly improve problem-solving speed, innovation and results.

Prior to joining Boston College, Boynton was a professor of strategy at the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) - in Lausanne, Switzerland for 10 years. At the IMD he led a faculty team and was program director of one of the world’s top ten Executive MBA programs - as recognized by Business Week.

Boynton has recently launched new research projects to explore how distinguished experts from a variety of knowledge-domains work with ideas to achieve professional success and improve their effectiveness in social networks. His latest book, The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make them Happen (Jossey-Bass), is based on this research and is co-authored with Bill Fischer and William Bole.

He has also published extensively on factors underlying high-performing teams across a variety of disciplines - including art, science, exploration, and design. His previous books include Virtuoso Teams: Lessons from Teams That Changed Their Worlds (Financial Times-Prentice Hall) and Invented Here: Maximizing Your Organization’s Internal Growth and Profitability (Harvard Business School Press).

He is a 1978 graduate of Boston College. Boynton earned his MBA and PhD at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has served on the MBA faculty at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business and at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia.

In addition to his publishing career and role as Dean of the Carroll School of Management, Boynton has over twenty years of experience speaking - and designing powerful executive education sessions and seminars for firms around the world. He is often utilized by organizations looking to build more innovative and effective teams - and his articles in this area have appeared in elite management journals such as Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and The California Management Review.

• Talks about developing game-changing strategies based on his proven methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact.

• Audiences learn about Anticipatory Thinking, a learning system that provides a framework for identifying certainties in the market, and for leaping ahead of competition with much lower risk by acting on HARD TRENDS.

• Author of seven books, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller Flash Foresight; One of the world's leading futurists who the New York Times called “…one of the top three business gurus in the highest demand as a speaker…”

• Past clients include: Microsoft, GE, American Express, Google, Toshiba, Procter & Gamble, Honda and IBM

Click Here to Watch Daniel's Virtual Presentation

Daniel Burrus is considered one of the world's leading futurists on global trends and innovation. The New York Times has referred to him as one of the top three business gurus in the highest demand as a speaker.

Burrus has delivered over 2,800 keynote speeches worldwide, and is a strategic advisor to executives from Fortune 500 companies, helping them to develop game-changing strategies based on his proven methodologies for capitalizing on technology innovations and their future impact. His client list includes companies such as Microsoft, GE, American Express, Google, Toshiba, Procter & Gamble, Honda and IBM.

He is the author of seven books, including The New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-seller Flash Foresight, as well as the international best-seller Technotrends. His latest book, The Anticipatory Organization: Turn Disruption and Change Into Opportunity and Advantage (2017), is an Amazon #1 Hot New Release for Business.

Burrus is also a featured writer with millions of monthly readers on the topics of innovation, change and the future for CNBC, Huffington Post, and Wired Magazine to name a few.

He has been the featured subject of several PBS television specials and has appeared on programs such as CNN, Fox Business, and Bloomberg - and is quoted in a variety of publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Fortune and Forbes.

Burrus is an innovative entrepreneur who has founded six businesses, four of which were national leaders in the United States in the first year. He is the CEO of Burrus Research, a research and consulting firm that monitors global advancements in technology driven trends to help clients profit from technological, social and business forces that are converging to create enormous, untapped opportunities.

His accurate predictions date back to the early 1980s where he became the first and only futurist to accurately identify the twenty technologies that would become the driving force of business and economic change for decades to come. Since then, he has continued to establish a worldwide reputation for his exceptional record of predicting the future of technology driven change and its direct impact on the business world.

Michael C. Bush is a global chief executive with over 25 years of experience leading small and mid-sized organizations through transformational growth. Driven by a love of business and an unwavering commitment to fair and equitable treatment, in 2015 Michael acquired ownership and currently serves as global CEO of Great Place to Work® headquartered in Oakland, California with operations in more than 60 countries worldwide. Great Place to Work® is a global people analytics and consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes produce better business results by focusing on the work experience for every employee. Through certification programs, Great Place to Work® recognizes outstanding workplaces and produces Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Companies to Work For, the World’s Best Workplaces™ list, the 100 Best Workplaces for Women™ list, the Best Workplaces for Diversity™ list and dozens of other distinguished workplace rankings around the world.

Originally hired to help the founder of Great Place to Work® exit the business, Michael accomplished this successful exit and within six months of taking control set an aggressive new course for the business and brand. This new, market-shifting course began with setting a clear mission for the company: to build a better world by helping every organization become a Great Place to Work For All™ by the year 2030. Re-building the business out of virtual bankruptcy, he created a valuable new set of algorithms and globally launched a new methodology known as “Great Place to Work For All™.” This bold move expanded the market for employee surveys to improve business performance and productivity from employee surveys only for the sake of employer branding. This new For All™ methodology analytically captured renewed interest in the business value that diversity and inclusion bring to innovation. A new SaaS product, “Emprising™” was born in 2018 to enable Michael’s vision for the market shift and transformation of Great Place to Work®’s financial trajectory. Emprising’s remarkably rapid customer adoption rate has resulted in a 15% annual revenue increase with the entire business currently exceeding 100 million dollars annually with EBITDA of 25%.

In addition to the book Michael Bush authored “A Great Place to Work For All™” (2018, publisher Berrett-Koehler), he is a sought after keynoter and regular contributor to Fortune and has been featured along with Great Place to Work® in numerous publications including Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., ThriveGlobal, Chief Executive Magazine, Huffington Post, CNBC, and TED.

Prior to his current role, from 2003 to 2015, Michael led private equity backed turn-arounds. In two different businesses he became the CEO and managed both exits that substantially rewarded all investors and stakeholders. In addition, Michael founded an online training platform for small business entrepreneurs that led to him becoming a member of President Obama’s White House Business Council where he focused on Inner City Job creation.

During this time, 2002-2012, Michael served on the Board of Inner City Advisors – a non-profit helping small business create jobs and pay a living wage. He also founded the non-profit private equity firm Fund Good Jobs in 2012. This fund provides capital to small business who cannot attract capital from the traditional sources.

From 1996 to 2003, Michael spent one year as the COO of Whalen and Company a global telecommunications project management firm that was purchased in 1997 by Tetra Tech Communications. Following that acquisition, Michael was promoted to CEO of Tetra Tech Communications, where revenues grew from 40 million dollars annually to 300 million, until 2003.

Michael was a member of the Board of Directors at Workday, Inc. until September 2021 when Great Place to Work was acquired by UKG, Inc.

Michael Bush received his MS in Management from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business in 1994. Michael is a student and teacher of business having taught Entrepreneurship at Stanford University and Mills College from 2003 to 2015.

Dr. James Canton is a leading global futurist, social scientist, keynote presenter, author, and visionary business advisor. For over 30 years, he has been insightfully predicting the key trends that have shaped our world. He is a leading authority on future trends with an emphasis on harnessing innovation. Dr. Canton has advised three White House Administrations and global business leaders.

He is the author of Future Smart: Managing the Game-Changing Trends that will Transform your World, The Extreme Future: The Top Trends that will Reshape the World in the 21st Century and TechnoFutures: How Leading-Edge Innovations will Transform Business in the 21st Century.

Dr. Canton is CEO and Chairman of the Institute for Global Futures, a leading think tank he founded in 1990 that advises business and government on future trends. He advises the Global Fortune 1000 on trends in technology, innovation, financial services, health care, population, life sciences, energy, security, workforce, climate change and globalization. From a broad range of industries, clients include: IBM, BP, Intel, Philips, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, Boeing, FedEx, and Proctor & Gamble.

Dr. Canton has served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Research in Innovation at the Kellogg School of Management, the MIT Media Lab Advisory Board in Europe, Motorola’s Visionary Advisory Board and the International Advisory Council, Economic Development Board, State of Singapore. He has been an advisor to the National Science Foundation.

Recognized as “one of the top presenters in the 21st century” by Successful Meetings Magazine, Dr. Canton is a highly sought-after keynote presenter. He has spoken to thousands of organizations on five continents. He is noted for his fascinating, informative, dynamic and entertaining keynotes.

A frequent guest of the media, Dr. Canton is a commentator on CNN. He was named "the Digital Guru” by CNN and “Dr. Future” by Yahoo. Dr. Canton’s media coverage has included CNBC, Fox, PBS, ABC, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg Report, The New York Times, US News and World Report, CEO, CIO and CFO Magazines. His Huffington Post blog and Twitter feed is followed by a global audience.

Jim Carroll is recognized as the world’s leading futurist, trends and innovation experts, with a massive global blue-chip client list. Over the last 30 years, more than 2 million people have shared his insight at his events. Jim’s global client list gives him a front-row seat to the high-velocity change that is occurring as disruption comes to take hold of every industry and every organization.

With that insight, and the customized research that he undertakes for every engagement, he helps to transform growth-oriented organizations into high-velocity innovation heroes!

Jim provides high-energy keynotes for audiences of 50 to 5,000, as well as intimate, customized strategic planning sessions for CEO/CxO, board, and senior management meetings. He has researched key innovation success factors for dozens of organizations and industries including life sciences, health care, insurance, automotive, manufacturing, agriculture, technology, education, government, consumer products, retail, banking, and countless others.

He has been invited in by NASA (twice) to share his insight on the future of the space industry; by Disney, to advise on new strategies for creativity and innovation; by the PGA of America for his thoughts on how to accelerate the golf industry; by Pfizer for insight on the future of medical science; by the World Bank for his thoughts on opportunities for economic development; and by the Wall Street Journal for his perspective on disruptive trends. Among countless others…

Jim Carroll is an author, with numerous books including Now What?, Think Big, Start Small, Scale Fast;, Surviving the Information Age, The Future Belongs To Those Who Are Fast, Ready, Set, Done: and What I Learned From Frogs in Texas.

• Talks about how to thrive in this new economic landscape and how to recruit, manage, and retain the entrepreneurial employees your business needs to succeed in the networked age.

• Audiences learn you will learn the Silicon Valley strategies that can jump-start your career and why it pays to empower your employees to build their personal brands and expand their professional networks.

• Ben Casnocha is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and executive in Silicon Valley. He is co-author (with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman) of the New York Times best-seller The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age.

• Past clients include: Deloitte, Harvard Business School, PepsiCo, Adobe, Pfizer, IBM and McKinsey & Co.

Ben Casnocha is an award-winning entrepreneur, author, and executive in Silicon Valley. He is co-author (with LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman) of the New York Times best-seller The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, which has become one of the most sought-after management frameworks on how to recruit, manage and retain entrepreneurial employees. He is also co-author (again with Reid) of The Start-Up of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career, the best-selling guide to the new world of work.

Ben is also a technology entrepreneur and executive. He founded Comcate, Inc., a leading e-government software company, at age 14 and incubates startups at Wasabi Ventures. He recently served as Chief of Staff to the Chairman at LinkedIn. Business Week named Ben “one of America’s top young entrepreneurs.” He’s been featured on CNN, Charlie Rose, CNBC, and in The Economist. Human Resources Magazine named Ben "one of the top trendsetters in the talent industry" for 2015.

Ben has led inspiring conversations about the future of work, innovation, and entrepreneurial thinking with large audiences in more than a dozen countries around the world.

Click Here to Receive Your Customized List of Speaker Ideas

Virtual Events can:

1. Reach a wider audience
2. Offer a great experience at a much lower cost
3. Create long term impact with recorded elements that allow for content to be watched over a period of time
4. Have an increased impact over time, as viewers re-watch, discuss and connect over social media and other channels

And, most importantly: offer the ability for inspiring and impactful presentations to connect in a one-on-one way, directly to the attendee.

WHO is your audience?

Who are your virtual event attendees? Are they across a specific group within your organization, or are you serving clients across a wide range of levels? Determining who you are speaking to will help you determine a format for your event that will captivate your audience.

WHAT is your key message?

Are you focusing on change? Innovation? Leadership?

Creating a single focus or mission will allow you to hone in on the type of speaker(s) you need to engage your audience and help event producers to format the event into a dynamic program that balances inspiration with information and audience interaction.

WHAT type of event suits your audience?

• Virtual Conference
• Webinar
• Hybrid Event

Virtual event technology has come a long way over the last few months, offering a huge range of different options from pre-recorded webinars, to multi-day virtual conferences, to hybrid events with some attendees in the audience while the event is live streamed.

OUR ADVICE

A COMBINATION of live and pre-recorded elements will allow your virtual event to run smoothly and stay on time.

Many of our clients are also opting for multi-day virtual conferences with shorter segments spaced over a few days.

This allows some flexibility for attendees in different time zones and accommodates different teleworking situations for attendees, allowing them to tune in when it is convenient.

WHERE? It’s all about Tech.

Virtual meeting technology has exploded over the last few months as teleworking became the norm.

Consider your needs:

• Interactive elements like breakout rooms, polls & Q&A
• Seamless blend of live & pre-recorded elements
• Ability to replay segments
• Live tech support

If you plan for rain, it’s likely the sun will shine…

Tech isn’t perfect so don’t forget to test, rehearse and have a back up plan ready to go for your virtual event.

Pro Tip: Think of a virtual presentation like a podcast. Viewers can view the content multiple times and refer back to it.

  WHEN? A Date… or Dates?

As we have all noticed, our attention spans for meeting in real life versus meeting online are a lot longer.

When deciding on a date, consider spreading your virtual event out over a few days, with a variety of speakers, interactive elements and information.

The benefits of a multi-day format:

• Viewers watch content fresh for a short period every day
• Allows attendees in different time zones to stay on top of the content
• Attendees can review & re-engage with content

Virtual Event Checklist:

Is your event?

• Interactive?
• Informative?
• Able to be rewatched?

WHY? Pandemic 2020

Just because you are online instead of in person, it doesn’t mean you are missing out on connection.

Using the technology that we have become so accustomed to over the last few months, our keynote speakers have the ability to connect to your viewers one-on-one, in a way that was impossible in live events.

FIND YOUR WHY…

What do you want the audience to leave thinking at the end of the presentation?

Apply this question to all the presentations and segments in your event to create a cohesive, impactful virtual event.

  HOW? Virtual Event Checklist

To wrap it all up

• TECH: Find the right tech platform & don’t forget to test drive before your event
• AGENDA: Use a mix of live and pre-recorded segments, mixed with interactive elements, to ensure a smooth flow of events & audience engagement
• ANTICIPATION: Build up your event with emails, teasers and sneak peeks into what content will be offered
• NETWORKING: Create and encourage online chat functions, an event specific hashtag or even a dedicated event page to allow attendees to network virtually. Maximize the networking opportunities offered by your tech platform.
• EXTEND YOUR IMPACT: A dedicated social media page is a great place for attendees to connect after an event to discuss ideas and implement some of the learnings from the event.

Offer a password protected, limited time recording of keynote presentations to continue the conversation long after the virtual event has ended.

Continue the conversation with post-event touch points like emails or questions based on the key presentations.

To find a GREAT Speaker for your Virtual event, get in touch.

Click Here to Watch Andrew's Virtual Presentation

Andrew Davis is recognized as one of the industry's "Jaw-Dropping Marketing Speakers" - and is a mainstay on global marketing influencer lists. Wherever he goes, Andrew Davis puts his infectious enthusiasm and magnetic speaking style to good use teaching business leaders how to grow their sales and businesses, harness innovation, inspiration and performance, transform their cities - and leave their legacy.

Andrew is also best-selling author and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker. Before building and selling a thriving digital marketing agency, Andrew produced for NBC’s Today Show, worked for The Muppets in New York - and wrote for Charles Kuralt. He's appeared in the New York Times, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal - and on NBC and the BBC. He has crafted documentary films and award-winning content for tiny start-ups and Fortune 500 brands.

• Jeff DeGraff talks about creativity and innovation in the New World of Work

• Audiences leave with an understanding of how to use a creative mindset to spot incongruities and anomalies that are happening today, and how they can help you recognize emerging opportunities and act upon them.

• Jeff DeGraff is the Professor of Management and Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and author of several best selling book on Innovation

• Past clients include: General Electric, Coca-Cola, American College of Surgeons, and Google.

Jeff DeGraff is the Professor of Management and Organizations at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. He teaches MBA, EMBA, BBA, and Executive Education courses on leading creativity, innovation, and change. Jeff’s research and writing focuses on innovation strategy, change and innovation competency development, creativity and innovation practices and methods, create communities and innovation networks, and leadership development.

He is an author and co-author of the books Innovation You, Creativity at Work: Developing the Right Practices to Make Innovation Happen, Leading Innovation: How to Jumpstart Your Company’s Growth Engine and Competing Values Leadership: Creating Value in Organizations. His book, Making Stone Soup, was a finalist for several book awards. In his newest book Innovation Code: The Creative Power of Constructive Conflict, he argues that diversity of thought is essential to innovation. He urges everyone to practice constructive dialogue and work in diverse teams to find hybrid solutions and develop unique approaches to solve difficult problems.

Jeff’s mission is “the democratization of innovation.” He brings innovation to everyone, every day and everywhere through his books, his public television program (Innovation You), columns (Inc.) and radio program (The Next Idea).

His articles and thought leadership on contemporary business matters have been covered by Business Week, US News and World Report and the Wall Street Journal, to name a few.

His client list reads like a ‘who’s who’ within the world of innovators, including, among many others, General Electric, Coca-Cola, American College of Surgeons, and Google. In working with these prominent firms, he has developed a broad array of widely used change and innovation methodologies and tools. Jeff was a member of the executive team at Domino’s Pizza when it was one of the fastest growing businesses in the world in the 1980’s. Jeff’s creative and direct take on making innovation happen have made him a world-renowned thought leader and have prompted his clients and colleagues to dub him as “The Dean of Innovation.”

Jeff is a Managing Partner of Innovatrium, an innovation center and consulting practice that specializes in teaching companies how to grow and become more innovative. He serves as an advisor to think tanks and governments. Jeff has worked all over the world, with significant experience in Europe and Asia, and in most industry and market segments.

• Erica talks about how to break team silos, drive exponential growth and innovate through teamwork. 

• Audiences leave her presentations with the tools to break down silos and keep teams aligned, accountable, and motivated both in-person and online, and how to create a culture of collaboration and innovation

• Erica is the Founder & CEO of Cotential, co-author of the bestselling book Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, and was named by Thinkers50 as “The Oprah of Management Ideas."

• Past clients include: Coldwell Banker, McDonalds, World Economic Forum Annual Meeting at Davos, Google, The Walt Disney Company, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, The United States Army, Bank of America, The Miami Heat, The Association for Talent Development, and Lockheed Martin. 

Erica Dhawan is the world’s leading authority on 21st-century Collaboration and Connectional Intelligence.

She challenges audiences and organizations to innovate faster and further, together. Her newest book – Digital Body Language – decodes the new signals and cues of effective collaboration and teamwork in a digital-first human workplace.

Erica Dhawan is the Founder & CEO of Cotential, a global organization that helps companies, leaders, and managers leverage 21st-century collaboration skills and behaviors to improve game-changing performance.

She is the also the co-author of the bestselling book Get Big Things Done: The Power of Connectional Intelligence, named #1 on What Corporate America is Reading. Dhawan was named by Thinkers50 as “The Oprah of Management Ideas” and featured as one of the Top 20 Management Experts around the world by GlobalGurus. She hosts the award-winning podcast ‘Masters of Leadership.’ Erica speaks on global stages ranging from the World Economic Forum at Davos to TED and for companies such as Coca-Cola, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, Walmart, SAP, and Cisco. Erica writes for Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company. She has degrees from Harvard University, MIT Sloan, and The Wharton School.

Erica is based in Manhattan, where she lives with her husband and two children. She travels internationally for events and offers virtual keynotes and workshops.

• Talks about how to drive and incentivize breakthrough thinking within organizations in order to achieve clear, measurable and objective results.

• Audiences leave with an understanding of how to create a culture of innovation and how to incentivize the outside world to help solve an organization's biggest challenges.
• Dr. Diamandis is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, and with Dr. Ray Kurzweil, co-Founder of the Singularity University.

• Past clients include: Google, Microsoft, the United Nations, Facebook, TED, PhRMAs CEO Conference, Autodesk and Activision-Blizzard.

Named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter Diamandis is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the Executive Founder of Singularity University.

As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 25 companies in the areas of health- tech, space, venture capital and education. He is Co-founder and Vice-Chairman of two public companies, Celularity and Vaxxinity.  Dr. Diamandis is Co-founder & Chairman of Fountain Life, a fully-integrated platform delivering predictive, preventative, personalized and data-driven health. Finally, he also serves as Co-founder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with a half-billion dollars under management investing in exponential technologies and longevity companies.

Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of four books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think,  BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World and The Future is Faster Than You Think. Most recently he co-Authored the #1 best seller LIFE FORCE with Tony Robbins which chronicles the extraordinary healthcare and biotech revolution unfolding before our eyes.

He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Diamandis’ favorite saying is “The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”

Named by Fortune Magazine as one of the Top 50 World’s Greatest Leaders, a recipient of the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian of the Year Award and listed as one of the world’s most influential creative people by The Creativity 50’s, Mick Ebeling is a maker, hacker and inventor who has sparked a movement of pragmatic, inspirational innovation. As a career producer and filmmaker and now founder and CEO of Not Impossible, Ebeling consistently speaks to companies and audiences all over the world inspiring them to change their world, and the world.

Ebeling founded Not Impossible, a multiple award-winning social innovation lab and production company, on the premise that nothing is impossible. His mantra of “Commit, Then Figure it out” allows him to convene a brilliant teams of hackers, doers, makers and thinkers to create inventions and creations that better the world by bringing accessibility for all.

Called the “Elon Musk of Good," Ebeling is only person to ever be honored 2x as a TIME Magazine Top Invention of the Year recipient, a 2x Tribeca Disruptor innovation winner, a 2x SXSW innovation of the year award winner, as a WIRED Agent of Change, a fellow with The Nantucket Project, and a recipient of every major creative and advertising award, Ebeling is on a mission to change the world by creating “Technology for the Sake of Humanity.”

John was most recently Global Technologist and Head of the Ford Developer Program with Ford Motor Company. Under his leadership, John’s team delivered a number of automotive industry firsts including SmartDeviceLink, the open source version of Ford’s award-winning AppLink technology connecting brought-in devices to vehicles and the genesis of Google, Apple and MirrorLink technologies, developer.ford.com, Ford’s developer program with over 10,000 unique and global content providers all committed to developing for AppLink/SmartDeviceLink as well as a 2014 software developer conference attended by over 175 world-class developers from 15 countries. John’s team also delivered a ground-up design and development of a service delivery network that helped propel the MyFordMobile product to award-winning status.

During most of his career, John worked for Motorola where he held key leadership positions in engineering, product management, software & services, and marketing and strategy. While there, John participated in developing, marketing and selling Motorola’s mobile software and services, their software developer ecosystem (developer.motorola.com), and their industry-leading Open Source Software program (opensource.motorola.com).

For the past 19 years, John has been the managing director of Ellis & Associates, the management consulting firm he founded in 1997. Originally established as a boutique training firm focused on international business and culture, the firm now serves clients in the world where automotive, consumer, connectivity and software intersect.

As a designer and lead instructor of the Connected Vehicle Professional certificate course for the Society of Automotive Engineers, John is frequently called upon as a software expert for interviews, keynotes and panels to discuss software security and the new business models traditional “ship and forget” companies like automotive companies need to adopt in order to be “ship and remember” companies and adequately address cybersecurity concerns and pending legislation.

John served as an adjunct professor at Notre Dame University teaching financial math to Executive MBA students from 2002-2010 as well as a translator in the 1992 Summer Olympics

• Peter talks about the 5 Megatrends that are shaping the world right now, affecting how we live and work.

• Audiences leave understanding how these 5 megatrends will affect the world in the next decades, and what they mean for businesses and global organizations today.

• Peter Fisk the founder of GeniusWorks, an innovative business accelerator, based in London, and is professor of leadership, strategy and innovation at IE Business School in Madrid. He is also a bestselling author.

• Past clients include: Microsoft, Global Business Travel Association, Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Skoda Auto, Adidas, SDL and Visa.

Peter Fisk is inspirational, provocative and practical. He helps you to see the world of business and brands, marketing and innovation in new ways. He was recently described by Business Strategy Journal as "one of the best new business thinkers", and also featured in the Thinkers 50 Guru Radar.

Best-selling author, his first book Marketing Genius explores the left and right-brain challenges of success, and is translated into 35 languages. It was followed by five others, most recently Creative Genius defining what it takes to be Leonardo da Vinci in the 21st Century. He has also written books on leadership and strategy, customers and experiences, and sustainable innovation.

His new book Gamechangers - Are You Ready to Change the World? is now out, based on extensive research into the 100 companies who are shaking up markets, and making sense of how they innovate and win. It explores the challenges of new markets, changing customers, brand building, digital media, new business models, inspiring leadership and positive impact.

From nuclear physics Peter moved to managing brands like Concorde at British Airways, and through American Express and Microsoft got to know what works in the real world. As CEO of the world's largest marketing organisation, the Chartered Institute of Marketing, he became a global authority on what's best and next.

He now leads the GeniusWorks, an international accelerated innovation firm, working with clients including Aeroflot and Coca Cola, Nestle and Red Bull, Tata and Virgin, Visa and Vodafone. He combines keynote speaking with strategic consulting, facilitated venturing and executive development.

Click Here to Watch Kevin's Virtual Presentation

Named one of the "Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership" by Leadership Excellence Magazine, Dr. Kevin Freiberg possesses the kind of disruptive thinking that helps companies adapt to changing conditions and to rise strong together. His books and speeches have shaped the thinking of executives in more than 2,000 companies in 60 industries across the globe—leaders who now believe they have the power to change themselves, disrupt their businesses and revolutionize their industries. Dr. Freiberg is on a short list of global thought leaders that Fortune 1000 CEOs turn to for the kind of disruptive thinking that drives growth and gets people excited about the future.

Dr. Freiberg has appeared on CNBC, CBS Sunday Morning and the CBS Morning News for his views on the critical links between leadership, corporate culture, change, and innovation. Dr. Freiberg is also a Leadership Contributor for Forbes.com. He has also appeared on the television series Lessons in Excellence for CNBC India. His articles and interviews have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Washington Post, Investor's Business Daily, India's Economic Times, India's Business Standard, India's Financial Times and Capital Business & Finance Magazine of Dubai.

His books include: the international bestseller, NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, its sequel GUTS!, BOOM! (7-timeless choices for inspiring leadership and accountability), NANOVATION (a how-to on innovation), DO SOMETHING NOW and Be a PERSON OF IMPACT, (two quick reads that will change your organization and your life), CAUSE! A Business Strategy for Standing Out In A Sea of Sameness, and most recently, BOCHY BALL!, a book about building team chemistry with Bruce Bochy, manager of the 3-time World Champion San Francisco Giants.

Kevin holds a Doctorate in Leadership from the University of San Diego, and from San Diego State University, he earned a Master’s in Organizational Communication and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature.

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• Vinh talks about how leaders and teams can create and cultivate the RIGHT influence in our lives to make the difference between tremendous success or limited mediocrity.

• Audiences leave inspired and entertained by how Vinh teaches leaders how to achieve the right mindset through a presentation interwoven with entertainment, magic and powerful messaging.

• Vinh is a magician, powerful storyteller and CEO of Luminary Productions which produces exceptional video for individuals and companies all around the globe.

• Past clients include: Intuit, American Equity, Microsoft, Flinders University, American Dental Education Association, Western National Group, NALCO Champion, and Tetra Pak. 

Click Here to Watch Vinh's Virtual Presentation

Vinh Giang had only 6 months to graduate when he left his degree program in commerce and law to become an online magic teacher - ultimately building a hugely successful online business, 52kards, which now serves over 800,000 students around the globe. This earned him the award of Top Young Entrepreneur in Australia.

Vinh Giang’s real magic journey began when he finally understood what Robert Houdin (an amazing magician) meant when he said: “A magician is an actor playing the part of the magician.” Once Vinh understood the meaning behind this quote, he focused all his energy on studying the art of performance - and not the art of presentation. He has spent the last 15 years mastering the art of performance-enhanced communication - helping thousands of professionals worldwide to learn these skills.

Vinh is also the CEO of Luminary Productions which produces exceptional video for individuals and companies all around the globe.

Vinh’s presentations will bring out the magic in you! Prepare to be captivated by Vinh - as he:

• unlocks your mindsets - by presenting innovating concepts that produce deliberate and definitive action
• is an Entrepreneur who knows what it takes to lead and sell ideas
• is a Young Entrepreneur of the Year and award winning magician
• shares three key business ideas - and demonstrates them using the art of magic with on-stage audience participation
• creates a fun and highly entertaining atmosphere of illusion - where each key business concept is driven home in a truly profound and creative manner
• carefully crafts each performance creating the most powerful emotional experience for attendees - making the conference theme stick in their minds long after the event

“I believe that magicians are salespeople; they sell one of the most difficult products in the world. They sell magic - they sell the illusion. The way they’re able to sell magic is by working ridiculously hard. It takes thousands and thousands of hours to be able to sell the illusion, to be able to really sell the magic. Imagine if you applied the same mindset to your company - imagine if you applied the same dedication to your business - think about what you could achieve.” - Vinh Giang