Conference News: Still not in Davos; Auto Tech Week; MWCS CFP
WEF Event Update: Earlier this week, the World Economic Forum announced another update to its event plans for 2021. They will now convene the Special Annual Meeting from13-16 May in Singapore instead of Switzerland, where COVID-19 cases are on the rise. This in-person meeting will “bring together leaders to focus on shaping solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.” During their previously announced “Davos week” (25-29 January) the Forum will be hosted virtually and again feature participation from heads of state and government, chief executive officers, civil society leaders, global media and youth leaders from across the globe. WEF also noted that ahead of the Special Annual Meeting in May, they will host a Global Technology Governance Summit in Tokyo from 6-7 April 2021. This will feature “global stakeholders from government, business and civil society dedicated to ensuring the responsible design and deployment of emerging technologies through public-private collaboration.”
You Auto Know: TU-Automotive, now part of the Informa Tech Automotive Group, has announced a new event experience for 2021: Automotive Tech Week: Megatrends. This new event will span 5 days with each day dedicated to a particular auto-tech megatrend for 2021. Monday, 25 January, the week will begin focused on Mobility, Tuesday looks at Electrification, Wednesday is dedicated to “The Cockpit of the Future” (in-car entertainment, payments, etc), Thursday is all about Connectivity & V2X and Friday wraps the week with sessions on Software Architectures.
Speaking Opportunity: First up in GSMA’s 2021 event lineup, planning for Mobile World Congress Shanghai (23-25 February) is now underway. While this important event for the Asian mobile ecosystem will convene physically, there will also be virtual components to accommodate a global audience. If you or your company is pushing the barriers of connectivity and wants to talk about it at MWC Shanghai, submit your proposal any time between now and 5pm (CST) on Friday 8 January 2021.
Lunchtime Learning: Last week, Techonomy hosted the three-day Health+Wealth of America virtual conference. As the country moves into the new year, this event explores why tech is more relevant to making our country better than ever. If you were not able to view the sessions in real time, you can still see the videos here. Some of the speakers included Dr. David Agus, Stav Shaffir, Maelle Gavet, Anthony Scaramucci, and Michael Wolff and sessions covered the state of the pandemic, our national mood, the role of business, our push for inclusion and equity, and the state of innovation.
Coming Up Next Week: International Economic Forum of the Americas/IEFA Conference of Montreal gets underway 14 December and provides a platform for the world’s top public and private sector leaders to foster dialogue and collaboration. At Future of Video (14-16 December), attendees will hear talks by experts and key players in OTT, pay tv, and digital media. The Yale CEO Summit series has scheduled a virtual meeting on 15 December that is designed for chief executives and leading scholars to address finding common ground across a divided land, with best practices getting workforce, shareholders, customers, and communities back to business. Self-described as “friendliest XR event,” Stereopsia Europe will run 15-16 December featuring immersive technologies, XR/AR demos, and keynotes. Last but not least, Shift Remote – a series of live-streamed events for developers – will hold its DevOps edition 15 December, offering deep dive technical talks.