Category Archives: Futurist

New York, NY (PRWEB) September 04, 2014

Jack Uldrich, global futurist and best-selling author of "Foresight 20/20" will be presenting seven keynote speeches nationally and internationally throughout the month of September.

Uldrich is a renowned business trend expert and the author of eleven books, including: "The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology will Change the Future of Your Business" and "Jump the Curve: 50 Strategies to Help Your Company Stay Ahead of Technology." A former naval intelligence officer and Defense Department official, Uldrich also served as the Director of the Minnesota Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning under Governor Jesse Ventura.

His schedule for speaking during the month of September is currently as follows:

Sept. 4: GameStop Executive Summit, Southlake, TX

Sept. 8: Western Energy Institute Annual Meeting, Kelowna, British Columbia

Sep. 16: AgBank District CFO Meeting, Minneapolis, MN

Sep. 17: Packaging Machine Manufacturers Institute (PMMI), Chicago, IL

Sep. 21: CPSU Society, Anaheim, CA

Sep. 29: The National Council for Continuing Education & Training, Denver, CO

Link:
Internationally Acclaimed Futurist Jack Uldrich to Headline 7 Events in September

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) September 04, 2014

GameStop Corp, a Fortune 500 company, is one of the largest multichannel video game retailers in the world, and on Thursday, September 4th they will be hosting their Executive Summit featuring Futurist Jack Uldrich as a keynote speaker.

GameStop's entire network of retail stores and family of brands are spread over 6,650 company operated store locations, which are placed in 15 countries in the world. So obviously they are committed to future-proofing themselves when it comes to the future of gaming. Uldrich, as a futurist, best selling author and international speaker aims to deliver insightful information on how to prepare for that future.

Uldrich says, "It is too soon to know whether all the latest and greatest technologies will work as promised but its not too soon for financial planners, healthcare professionals and environmentalists along with countless other industry professionals, especially those in the gaming industry, to begin exploring how augmented reality tools can be used to help their clients and customers achieved their stated goals."

His talk, "Business as Unusual: How to Future-Proof Your Business" is custom designed for GamesStop's Executives who will be making key decisions in the coming years on the industry's future. Combining predictions, his business acumen, tangible examples, and his key principle of unlearning, Uldrich intends to arm the GameStop executives with all the power they need in order to continue their tremendous success. Lending even more credence to GameStop's motto of "Power to the Players."

Jack Uldrich, in addition to speaking on future trends, emerging technologies, innovation, change management and leadership, is also a leading expert on assisting businesses adapt during times of transition. He has served as an advisor to Fortune 1000 companies and is noted for his ability to deliver provocative, new perspectives on competitive advantage, organizational change and transformational leadership.

Highly regarded for his unique ability to present complex information in an entertaining, understandable and digestible manner that stays with his audiences long afterwards, Uldrich has spoken to hundreds of businesses and organizations, including the American Medical Association, Fiatech, FS Systems, Cisco, and United Healthcare, along with hundreds of other clients in both the corporate and non profit sectors all over the world.

Following his keynote for GameStop, and throughout the month of September, Uldrich will be speaking in Vancouver at the Western Energy Institute Annual Meeting, AgBank's District CFO Meeting in Minneapolis, the PMMI in Chicago, the CPSU Society in Anaheim, The National Council for Continuing Education & Training in Denver and the Textile Rental Services Association in Las Vegas, NV.

Parties interested in learning more about Jack Uldrich, his books, his daily blog or his speaking availability are encouraged to contact Amy Tomczyk at (651) 343.0660.

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Power to the Players: Futurist Jack Uldrich to Address GameStop's Executive Summit

009 Dave Evans, Cisco Chief Futurist Retail Models and Dressing Rooms of the Future

By: Sophia Wight

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009 Dave Evans, Cisco Chief Futurist Retail Models and Dressing Rooms of the Future - Video

Technology illusion specialist Adam Trent is in New Zealand as part of The Illusionists 2.0 show and 3 News was invited to sit down with him and discuss magic.

Adam Trent's role in The Illusionists is as The Futurist.

"I'm trying to present magic in a way that I believe has not been seen before and the way it will be in the future," says Trent.

"Incorporating technology is a very big part of my show, I think the future of magic does lie in incorporating technological aspects. I have giant LED screens, I jump inside them, I smash into them, I clone myself on stage, I teleport across the stage. There's a bit of everything."

Check out a taste of The Futurist here.

"You're seeing thousands of faces, hearing gasps, hearing laughter and applause - that feeling as a magician is addictive," says Trent.

"It's like a comedian how they have a strive for laughter, for a magician you want to hear people gasp and see that 'oh!' expression on their faces. It's an amazing feeling."

More information on Trent is available on his official website and more information on The Illusionists 2.0 is available on the Auckland Live website.

Watch my video interview with Trent - and a couple of his tricks.

3 News

Read the rest here:
The Illusionists - a conversation with The Futurist

Future of business, technology, app economy. Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard at CAExpoAU
This is a video of my keynote at CA Technologies #39; 2014 Expo in Sydney, Australia, see http://www.ca.com/au/lpg/ca-expo-2014-australia.aspx for more details and http://gerd.fm/CAExpoAUS for...

By: Gerd Leonhard

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Future of business, technology, app economy. Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard at CAExpoAU - Video

Brittany Hillen

Our robotic future, so full of promise, could be our undoing. So says futurist and CEO of Poikos, Nell Watson, who recently spoke at The Conference in Sweden about all things robots. The issue lies in artificial intelligence and a robot's acquisition of knowledge, and the lack of understanding about ethics that are present in both.

Watson talks about the nature of intelligence as it relates to robotics, and goes on to describe ways they've already been implemented into our lives -- as well as ways they will start replacing so-called menial jobs in the near future. Artificial intelligence will eventually provide robots with a sense of intuition, and even, she says, with a degree of self-awareness.

Jobs with emotional components will be "safe for now, but not forever" -- nursing is used as one example. Watson says robots will one day be better at understanding humans than humans themselves, however, and that will present some unique challenges. She goes on to discuss things like "triggers" and how robots are better at understanding them than humans, in the sense that robots can make the pragmatic choice whereas humans are influenced by their emotional components.

This all leads into a bigger issue, one that has been at the heart of ethical discussions for decades: "When we start to see super-intelligent artificial intelligences, are they going to be friendly?"

Yes, if we make them that way, but says Watson, even if robots are friendly, it won't be enough. Future robots could decide that "the kindest and best thing for humanity is to end us," she warns, leading into a call for the need to make sure robots can understand ethics from a human perspective, not merely from a pragmatic one.

Of course, this isn't the first time we've heard concerns raised about the future of possibly lethal robots. Back in May, for example, an informal UN meeting took place to discuss the topic of autonomous robots capable of killing, and the ethical questions at play. At the heart of that discussion was a similar issue: how much an intelligent robot understands about the nuances of its decisions.

VIA: Gizmodo

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Futurist warns robots may one day kill us all as an act of kindness

Futurist at Ford Motor Company | Sheryl Connelly | TEDxOaklandUniversity
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Sheryl provides ideas on how we can learn how to think about, and e...

By: TEDx Talks

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Futurist at Ford Motor Company | Sheryl Connelly | TEDxOaklandUniversity - Video

Sheryl Connelly A Ford Futurist Gives Perspectives On The Female Frontier
Sheryl Connelly, Global Trends and Futuring Manager at Ford, explores why women are reaching new levels of achievement, shifts in society and the female frontier. Friendly Ford Geneva Rte...

By: Friendly Ford

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Sheryl Connelly A Ford Futurist Gives Perspectives On The Female Frontier - Video

Nell Watson is an engineer, a futurist, and the founder and CEO of Poikos. As such, she knows a lot about the machines we use today, and the ones we're planning for tomorrow. And she's worried that the artificial intelligence of the near-future might decide the most benevolent thing to for mankind is to destroy it.

That's the concern Watson raised at The Conference, an annual gathering in Sweden focusing on technology and human behavior. In her talk, "Helping Computers to Understand Humans," Watson brings up a terrifyingly interesting point: The machine learning powering the artificial intelligence we have right now can't learn the nuanced lessons of human ethics.

You should really watch Watson's entire talkat just under 17 minutes long, it's jam-packed with insights on the current and future state of machine learning and artificial intelligence. Here, you don't even have to go anywhere:

Here's the brunt of Watson's argument, in case you can't watch the video for some reason:

When we start to see super-intelligent artificial intelligences, are they going to be friendly, or are they going to be unfriendly? [. . .] Having a kind intelligence is not quite enough, because to paraphrase Arthur C. Clarke, "any sufficiently benevolent action is indistinguishable from malevolence." If you're really, really, really kind, that might be seen as really evil. A truly kind intelligence might decide that the kindest and best thing for humanity is to end us.

Yeesh. Maybe Kubrick was right about HAL-9000 after all.

It's not all doom and gloom though (that would be a real downer of a lecture!). Watson ends her talk by issuing a challenge, saying "perhaps the most important work of all of our lifetimes may be to ensure that machines are capable of understanding human values."

Better get to work, engineers. We haven't got much of a head start. [The Conference; Wired via CNet]

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Top Engineer and Futurist: Tomorrow's Robots Might Mercy-Kill Mankind

Sheryl Connelly, Ford futurist, looks into her crystal ball on Driving the Nation
http://www.drivingthenation.com/?p=4207 Sheryl Connelly, Ford futurist, looks into her crystal ball on Driving the Nation.

By: DrivingTheNation

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Sheryl Connelly, Ford futurist, looks into her crystal ball on Driving the Nation - Video