Conference News: New Fortune Forum; MWC Debated; EarthX Chats
Inaugural Innovation Forum: Fortune announced that it will be hosting a new Innovation Forum in Hong Kong from 27-28 March 2024. The idea behind the conference is to bring the best of Fortune’s flagship events to Hong Kong, “to explore global issues with a spotlight on Asia, the world’s most economically dynamic region.” The gathering will take place under the theme of New Strategies for Growth and include topics such as The Future of Finance; The AI Revolution & Web 3.0; China’s “Greater Bay Area”; The Global ‘War for Talent; Asia’s Innovation Ecosystems; The Climate Crisis and the Global Energy Transition. Participation in the Fortune Innovation Forum is by invitation only. More information on the event may be found here.
Debating in Barcelona: The GSMA announced that after debuting the Debate Stage at MWC Las Vegas a few months ago, they will now bring the concept to Barcelona. Similar to the Vegas set up, the MWC debate stage will invite speakers with varying perspectives to discuss and debate topics affecting the connected ecosystem. The Vegas event considered ideas around XR, 5G and OpenRan. The Barcelona programme will be complete within the next few weeks so check out the stage if you are at MWC from 26 – 29 February 2024.
Submission Opportunity: The International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP) Privacy. Security. Risk. (PSR) Conference focuses on industry trends and insights into the operational issues facing privacy industry. The event will be in L.A. on 23 – 24 September 2024 but is seeking speaker proposals now. Past popular breakout sessions included managing data subject access requests, tips for presenting to boards of directors, defining vendor relationships, and tips for building a strong privacy program in a turbulent regulatory ecosystem. If you have a topic idea that could benefit the privacy professionals, data protection officers and others responsible for data privacy who attend the conference, submit your idea via their online form before the 25 February deadline.
Conference Organizer Q&A: The goal of EarthX (22-26 April; Dallas) is for leaders and influencers from a wide range of disciplines, interests, political leanings, and perspectives to meet and represent a broad spectrum of sustainability efforts around the globe. We recently spoke with co-curator of EarthX 2024 Bill Shireman, who shared why he is inspired to do this work.
Speaker Strategies: What about your next event excites you the most?
I am most excited about the opportunity to mobilize very different stakeholders with different kinds of power, from corporate leaders to environmental scientists, for a common purpose that has the potential for incredibly significant real-world positive change.
Speaker Strategies: Are you doing anything differently this year?
Yes. This year at EarthX, all the conferences are part of an interactive two-year engagement, including monthly Zoom calls with a growing community of leaders.
Speaker Strategies: What is the most important element of a successful event?
For me, what makes an event a success is its ability to catalyze tangible real-world impact.
Speaker Strategies: What do you love most about your job?
Working with incredible changemakers with the power and the passion to realize solutions. They drive and inspire me every day.
Coming Up Next Week: Fortune Brainstorm AI – which began in 2021 to help enterprise-size company executives learn how to best deploy AI effectively – runs 11-12 in San Francisco. Another conference in the AI/ML space, Neural Information Processing Systems Conference (more succinctly known as NeurIPS) also kicks off next week on 10 December in New Orleans. NeurIPS got its start way back in 1987 as a humble little conference on a then-obscure branch of machine learning called neural networks and for years has been considered one of the most reputable technical gatherings of its kind. Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit gets underway 11 December in Washington, DC, with an ambitious agenda spanning the economy, energy, sustainability, the impending U.S. presidential primaries, and the outlook for AI. At SIGGRAPH Asia (12-15 December; Sydney), attendees can expect to meet with fellow technical and creative professionals working in research, science, art, animation, gaming, interactivity, education, and emerging technologies. Finally, for those interested in improving the quality and safety of health care, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) National Forum on Quality Improvement in Healthcare is held 10-13 December in Orlando.