The world will never move this slowly again. As the exponential rise of large language models, generative AI, robotics, bioinformatics, quantum computing, and neural interfaces reshapes industries, leaders are faced with an urgent dilemma: how do you plan for a future where the pace of change is accelerating beyond imagination?
David Rowan, founding editor-in-chief of WIRED in the UK, and author of the bestselling business book "Non-Bullshit Innovation: 17 Proven Ways to Transform How You Work", will share strategies for embedding genuine innovation inside your organisation. He will offer examples from his 20-country book research to explore strategies that help build resilience and adaptability within teams to optimise for future-facing opportunities.
You will learn concrete examples from a range of industries and geographies to tease out strategies intended to offer practical guidance to the Aurora Live community. This masterclass session will explore why mindset and culture are just as important at technology in ensuring that successful teams remain relevant in an era of transformational tech disruption.
In this engaging session, David will share concrete examples/case studies from defence, manufacturing, gaming, entertainment, financial services and more, in numerous geographies. He will encourage leaders on the call to challenge their own assumptions of what their business could become.
This masterclass will showcase effective case innovation-promoting case studies, with examples of:
• How leaders empower teams to solve problems and devise strategy independently?
• Why sometimes you may need to embed "pirates" within teams that otherwise risk too many management layers?
• How to design workplaces for serendipitous collisions?
• The importance of building an ecosystem with external partners to create mutual benefits?
• Why there is long-term value in ringfencing budgets and employee time for "playful" exploration of emerging technologies with no immediate pressure to generate revenue?
Our speakers
David Rowan
Founding Editor-in-Chief of WIRED and Author of the bestselling book Non-Bullshit InnovationUnited Kingdom
David Rowan, founding UK Editor-in-Chief of WIRED and author of the bestselling book Non-Bullshit Innovation (Penguin), is today’s leading speaker on how emerging technologies will impact business — and how leaders should prepare now. David has given 700 keynotes around the world, and has moderated events for governments, the World Economic Forum and the biggest global companies. An investor in more than 170 early-stage tech companies, he runs venture funds that invest in health-tech and climate-tech. David has been a technology columnist for The Times, GQ, Condé Nast Traveller and The Sunday Times, and at WIRED he got to know the founders of tech giants such as WhatsApp, LinkedIn and Spotify. And he is still searching for the future.