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The ‘Leadership Summit for the Future' event at this year's ITU is going to be fantastic, and it is a great pleasure to serve as curator and moderator. Please note that this an internal ITU / invitation-only event; please contact the ITU staff directly if you are interested in more information. Download the PDF: Leadership Summit for the Future at ITU TeleWorld Doha Dec 7
Opening Keynote: Towards 2020: Future Scenarios and Wild-Cards, and their Impact on Telecommunications, ICT and our Cultures and Societies
In his introduction to the future summit, Gerd will present the most important developments that are likely to impact that next 5-7 years in telecom and ICT, including the Internet of Things/Internet of Everything, Big Data and the advent of business ‘super-intelligence’, artificial intelligence and its pros and cons, digital money and the future of currencies, drastically-increasing digitisation and automation and its impact on the future of work, jobs and education, 3D printing and the maker movement, the rise of the sharing economy, and more. Gerd will depict some likely immediate future scenarios, and deliver some select ‘wild cards’ to get the audience ready for the rest of the event.
Speaker
Mr Gerd Leonhard, Futurist and CEO, The Futures Agency, Curator and Moderator of the Leadership Summit
Keynote Speech and Live Demonstration of Roboy
Living with Robots – The Next Generation of Intelligent Machines
Robots have changed our world in fundamental ways: without them, we wouldn’t have all the things we love such as cars, airplanes, television, computers and mobile phones. While initially they were confined to factory floors, they have more recently begun to move into our own living space, a space that humans and robots will be sharing, which implies that the design requirements are completely different: robots need to be able to communicate smoothly, quickly, and safely with humans. Roboy will be introduced as a messenger of this new breed of robots. Its – or his? – movement capabilities and its capacity for emotional expression will be briefly demonstrated. Roboy provides the inspiration for a “robot lounge”, in which robots, rather than humans, will take care of the well-being of customers, giving them a glimpse of tomorrow, a feel of what it will be like to closely and continuously interact with robots in a real-world environment. The robot lounge will be launched in 2015/16 in an Asian metropolis.
Speaker
Prof Rolf Pfeifer, Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Informatics, University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland
Keynote Speech: The Singularity, Exponential Organizations and the Future of Technology
Based on analysis of the 100 fastest-growing startups and corporates in the world since 2008, we have detected a new kind of organization with completely new attributes. These are exponential organizations, scalable, flexible, responsive and collaborative.
Speaker
Mr Yuri van Geest, Managing Director of the Singularity University Summit Europe (SUSE), Singularity University, Netherlands
Panel discussion: How Intelligent Software, Artificial Intelligence and Smart Machines will Impact Humanity: Challenges and Opportunities
Technology has now reached a pivot point where exponential leaps in machine intelligence, interfaces and design are certain. The combination of big data, social media, mobile broadband and cheap mobile devices as well as rapid advances in machine learning, semantic understanding, artificial intelligence and robotics will change our society, culture and economics forever. Technological unemployment seems like a certainty, privacy-as-we-know-it may be of thing of the past, robots will become the new normal, and smart – even self-learning – technology is already appearing in many consumer products from wristwatches to kitchen appliances to sensor networks and medical devices. Where will this development take us by 2020? Will augmented humans become normal? What are the benefits for society and people, and what may some of the unintended consequences be? Will we need regulation to deal with tremendous new possibilities? Who will define what is allowed and what is not? If the so-called singularity is near, and if indeed ‘technology has no ethics’ and ‘software is eating the world’, what will happen to still-linear humans in a rapidly technologized world?
Speakers (among others, tba)
Prof Rolf Pfeifer, Director, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Department of Informatics, University of Zurich (UZH), Switzerland
Mr Yuri van Geest, Managing Director of the Singularity University Summit Europe (SUSE), Singularity University, Netherlands
Mr Gerd Leonhard, Futurist and CEO, The Futures Agency, Curator and Moderator of the Leadership Summit
Video Session: Futuristic Products and Services
A look at some of the products, services and applications on the cutting-edge of technology today, but set to shape our experience of tomorrow and the near future with sometimes unpredictable consequences.
Moderator
Mr Gerd Leonhard, Futurist and CEO, The Futures Agency, Curator and Moderator of the Leadership Summit
Keynote Speech: The Key Demographic and Data Trends Impacting the ICT Sector in the Next Decade 
Speaker
Prof Hans Rosling, Edutainer and Chairman, Gapminder, Sweden
Coffee Break
16:00 – 16:30
Keynote Speech: The Zero Marginal Cost Society – and What This Means for Telecom and ICT *presented by Cisco
The first new economic paradigm to evolve since the onset of capitalism and socialism in the 19th century is now emerging on the world stage – the Collaborative Commons. The trigger for this transformative new economic system is the zero marginal cost phenomenon, which has already wreaked havoc across the information goods sectors as millions of consumers begin to produce and share their own music, video and news at near zero marginal cost, bypassing the capitalist market. The expansion of the Internet of Things will bring this phenomenon to the world of physical goods and services, allowing millions of people to produce and share their own green electricity, 3D printed products and other products and services at near zero marginal cost. We are seeing a shift from exchange value in the capitalist market to shareable value in the Collaborative Commons as a younger generation transitions from ownership to access. We are witnessing a whole new hybrid economy – part capitalist market and part Collaborative Commons – that will transform our economic life in the years ahead.
Speaker
Mr Jeremy Rifkin, Founder and President, The Foundation on Economic Trends, Live from Washington
Keynote Speech: The End of Competitive Advantage – and What This Could Mean for the Telecommunications and ICT Sector 
In an economic environment in which competitive advantages are increasingly short-lived and unpredictable changes in technology can upend once-stable systems, leaders need to be challenging taken-for-granted assumptions about what the future will hold. In this provocative talk, Columbia Business School’s Rita Gunther McGrath will describe a new playbook for strategy and how information and communications technologies need to be built to adapt.
Speaker
Prof Rita Gunther McGrath, Professor, Columbia Business School, USA
Keynote Speech: How Governments Can Prepare for a Hyper-Connected Future”
The next two decades will see society, business, government and the lives of individuals being transformed beyond all recognition by a powerful set of interconnected forces and developments, characterised by ultra-fast communication, widespread adoption of robotics and artificial intelligence and the ‘internet of life’ – embedding connected sensors and intelligence in everything from roads to our clothing. At the same time business and industry sectors will resha
ped through new business models, advanced manufacturing techniques such as 3D and 4D printing, synthetic biology, grown structures and a multi-sensory and highly immersive internet. The number and complexity of resulting issues for policy makers is growing all the time and the pace of change is quickening. What are the critical actions and options for governments to ensure they are preparing society for the impact of developments shaping the next two decades? How can we create the foundations for the sectors of the future, encouraging innovation and facilitating entrepreneurship? How can we equip society for radical advances in human health and life expectancy, rethink the education system to meet the changing learning needs of all age groups, or develop new economic models to accommodate the rise of behaviours such as barter, resource sharing and freecycling?
Speaker
Mr Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive Officer, Fast Future Research United Kingdom
Keynote Speech A New, More Dynamic Role for Telecoms in the Digital Economy
The digital economy is evolving fast across all parts of the world, creating huge efficiency gains but also enormous upheaval and disruption to traditional business. Telecoms operators have a golden opportunity to re-think the scope of their role in this changing world, to leverage their latent assets and capabilities to support new levels of innovation in Digital Healthcare, Education, Commerce, Money, Content and Social Inclusion, increasing their value to citizens, consumers, and 
businesses as a result and creating new growth stories for shareholders and investors.
Speaker
Mr Simon Torrance, CEO, Metaflight
Panel Discussion: Global Digital Transformation – Challenges and Opportunities
We have heard many exciting and some potentially worrisome things today – all of them pointing towards the fact that in the very near future rapid changes in just about every segment of our lives are certain. Therefore, our societies, our businesses and our economic logic must not just change but transform in order to thrive in this future. How should companies and organisations get ready for these developments? What kind of framework will they need? Will we need more regulations to ‘put ethics and humanness back into technology’?
Speakers (Other speakers tba)
Prof Rita Gunther McGrath, Professor, Columbia Business School, USA
Mr Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive Officer, Fast Future Research United Kingdom
Mr Simon Torrance, CEO, Metaflight
Mr Michel Combes, CEO, Alcatel-Lucent
Mr Jeremy Rifkin, Founder and President, The Foundation on Economic Trends, Live from Washington
Wrap Up and Closing Session
What We Heard Today, What To Take Away, How To Start Wire-Framing The Future
Speakers
Mr Gerd Leonhard, Futurist and CEO, The Futures Agency, Curator and Moderator of the Leadership Summit
Mr Simon Torrance, CEO, Metaflight
