Thought Leaders

It’s an exciting time to be in Detroit. In 2024 alone, we’ve seen the restoration of Michigan Central, a century-old train station turned mobility innovation hub; hosted the NFL Draft with record-breaking attendance; and attracted billions of dollars in commercial and public space development. At TechTown, we celebrate all the...

Missouri has not one, but many, outstanding research institutions— Washington University in St. Louis, the University of Missouri, Saint Louis University, and Stowers Institute for Medical Research among them. As the Executive Director of the Missouri Cures Education Foundation, I cultivate and maintain relationships with key policymakers, business leaders, researchers,...

Innovation to me is working to never settle… and to continually be obsessive over creating a continued better experience and product. This means that status quos need to continually obsess over all spectrums and that we need to realize that the greatness that got us to this point will not...

I joined GenIbet Biopharmaceuticals in 2006, as a Project Manager, shortly after its creation as a spin-off company from iBET, a private nonprofit research organization in Biotechnology and Life Sciences. We were going, as I remember being told by iBET founder and then CEO Prof. Manuel Carrondo, to leverage iBET...

Joshua Baer is the founder of Capital Factory, a coworking community and mentorship-based accelerator designed to help startups find their first investors, customers, and employees. Joshua founded his first startup in 1996 in his college dormitory at Carnegie Mellon University and now teaches a class at the University of Texas...

Brands have the potential to deliver tangible value to consumers – and more broadly to society – by being purpose-led and value-driven. South Africa is undeniably a land of opportunity and possibility. The issues we face are challenges and call-to-actions for innovators and innovation-enablers to provide the tools to overcome...

Benoit-Antoine Bacon is President and Vice-Chancellor of Carleton University, an innovative and socially minded institution that is at the forefront of technological and social change for a better future. A Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, he previously served as Vice-President, Academic, at Queen’s University and at Concordia University in his...

The Glenrose Hospital Foundation plays a pivotal role in supporting Canada’s largest comprehensive tertiary rehabilitation hospital, supporting patients of all ages who require complex rehabilitative care. The need for innovation in rehabilitation healthcare has never been greater, given the significant percentage of Canadians with disabilities, the surge in demand for...

Innovation means different things to different people. For me it’s not about petri dishes and lab coats, it’s about the process through which great ideas are turned into tangible, measurable value. It’s an iterative process. It’s not just about having the idea, but about taking the necessary practical steps to...

LEVERAGING OUR DIFFERENTIATOR IN THE AGE OF AI – PEOPLEWe are entering a new age of innovation where artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way we work, interact with our customers, and drive business outcomes. It’s going to impact all industries, including banking and financial services. Yet, while everyone rushes up...

Many of the early conversations around artificial intelligence have focused on whether this nascent technology is friend or foe. But as a lawyer whose passion is AI and technology, I find that dialogue to be quite complex. As with all technologies, AI poses risks as well as rewards. Some of...

Imagine meeting (finally!) someone that you have long waited to meet. An investor. A potential officer. Leader. New business partner. Someone who is going to be big and influential to you or your project and work. And imagine that they asked you to reach out to them again later when...

  I’ve been doing angel investing since the early 1980s after I took my first venture, a computer terminals manufacturer in Waterloo, public on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Since then, I’ve invested in well over 200 startup ventures. I often hear entrepreneurs complain about the lack of funding. One of...

By 2030 , Quebec will witness the emergence of a tidal wave of new skills and therefore new companies in digital intelligence. Technical, professional and scientific profiles will be revisited, merged, transmuted into workforce profiles combining creative genius and advanced techniques that more effectively integrate the benefits of research. The...

Gil Petersil is a man who understands science and the essence of human networking as intimately as only a handful of other people in the world do. His mission? It is one grounded in its simplicity: to serve people and add value through authentic human-to-human relationships. He shares: “I’m really...

It is hard for me to accept being a visionary leader, as it is difficult for me to reconcile where I am now, with where I was 15 years ago. I didn’t envision a future where I’m the CEO/Founder of a multi-million dollar Biotech company on the precipice to lead...

I was born in Antwerp, having lived my life in the northern Antwerp suburbs, and still do, now together with my wife and two teenagers. After secondary school, I wanted to pursue a career as a pilot. I therefore studied Mathematics and Science at the University of Brussels, followed by...

A LEGACY IN THE MAKINGOur clients are the heartbeat of our existence. They remind us why we chose this path. They are the reason we fight, innovate, and care. We carry their battles as if they were our own because, in truth, they are. The discipline of law falls under...

The early seventies saw the launch of the pocket calculator. As a kid at that time growing up in Palo Alto, I went door to door selling the Litronix 1100, one of the early pocket models. My father, an attorney who represented many startups including Litronix, would bring them home for me to sell....

CognitiveScale The next frontier: Building AI systems you can trust Today, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has grabbed a foothold in the enterprise and is poised to become as ubiquitous as the internet – touching every aspect of our lives. From detecting and impacting climate change to advancements in disease diagnosis to aiding...

My journey with RJ Young began while I was still a student at Ole Miss, working alongside my father and learning the business from the ground up. Back then, Nashville was a very different city – still rooted in tradition, but the seeds of change were beginning to sprout. Today,...

In this life, some our greatest joys and successes are deeply connected to our relationships. It’s easy to remember and see it in our personal lives, but it can be easy to forget in our professional and business lives. All too often, we get mentally and physically stuck behind our...

Israel prides itself in being an Innovative Nation, and has long term diplomatic presence in New Delhi and Mumbai. It chose Bengaluru, with its futuristic ethos, as its third destination to reinforce its economic connection with India. “The bigger economic diplomacy is in creating the right ecosystem involving the best...

I am a physician and a scientist, and I study the human immune system. When I was a senior medical student training to be a physician, I worked for several months as a pediatrician in a rural hospital in East Africa. The work was challenging to me, because of the...