Thought Leaders

A visionary serial entrepreneur, physIQ co-founder, Chairman and CEO Gary Conkright has a passion for taking game-changing technology from the laboratory to the commercial marketplace to solve important problems. A University of Chicago MBA and Purdue Aeronautical Engineer, Gary previously served as the founding CEO and Chairman of SmartSignal (acquired...

Ideas matter. They spark possibility and set direction. But what transforms possibility into progress is the steady, deliberate work that follows. Over time, I’ve come to believe that the most innovative organizations are not defined by moments of brilliance, but by their commitment to doing the right things, the right...

As the co-founder of Cescaphe, I never set out to disrupt the hospitality and events industry, I set out to create an experience I couldn’t find elsewhere. When we launched Cescaphe, the traditional wedding and event model was fragmented, making for an unpleasant client experience, when it should be a...

Prior to Founding AutonoMe William was a local lecturer teaching adults with Learning Disabilities and Autism for a number of years. It was here that he established his passion and began to see the world through the eyes of people with Learning Disabilities. This helped William see how his skills...

Innovating means giving yourself as an organization the ability to lead the pack—a key position that enables you to exert a positive pull in your community. It is a strength that brings together the various players in a given industry towards a common goal, a collaborative strength that is fundamental...

I was born in 1980, I’m married and a proud father of three young children. I joined Impresa in 2009 and became CEO in 2016. My background is in Law (Lisbon and Oxford) and I undertook several international post-grad management courses. I also had a brief spell at the Portuguese...

In order to understand what GHO Ventures is, we need to talk about Dr. Gregory Olsen. Greg started the company EPITAXX, a fiber-optic detector manufacturer in 1984 together with Vladimir Ban. It was sold in 1990 for $12 million. He then founded Sensors Unlimited, a near-infrared camera manufacturer in 1992...

I’ve never been afraid of weird ideas. In fact, that’s kind of the point with K-märkt. When we started, we didn’t just want to run a great restaurant – we wanted to challenge the entire way restaurants operate. Why? Because if we’re going to make food more sustainable, we can’t...

I obviously knew of the proximity to the Rocky Mountains, but I didn’t know about all the wonders such as the Drumheller Valley, Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park and Jasper National Park. I also didn’t know that Calgary is the third most diverse major city in Canada. Or that in 2022 it...

As of the writing of this article in October 2021, the Twitch Influencer payment hack was making its way through the metaverse, enabling a comparison between the compensation that influencers and broadcast anchors enjoy, and the relative engagement they have with theiraudiences and the business models that underpin their ecosystems...

For an activity (like playing video games) to turn into a publicly-observed competition (like esports), first there needs to be a demand to know who is best. Then, for the competition to grow a mainstream appeal and audiences to expand beyond the initial enthusiasts, it needs to have entertainment value....

Experience Selling Is Here To StayWith the creativity of design professionals combined with the power of web-based analytics, we’ve been able to give leaders in organizations across the spectrum unparalleled opportunities to make presentations come alive. How? By transforming information and design into experiences that viewers can hear, see, and...

  Claude Brulé, President – Algonquin College When Claude Brulé was appointed Algonquin College’s ninth president in mid-2019 he quickly embarked on an innovation agenda to establish experiential, personalized learning as the institution’s guiding educational principle for the future. “We know the people who walk through our doors, both physically...

Chicago’s rich history of financial innovation is world-famous for a reason. In 1848, the Chicago Board of Trade launched to promote commerce—most notably around agricultural commodities. Today people recognize Chicago for its role in revolutionizing global finance. It’s here where financial futures, options, and derivatives trading began. This vibrant and...

No matter how big or small, they face strong competition in an unstable environment. In this context, the development of an IP strategy is essential to establish a path to the market. Although IP is a current topic in the business world, it is still too often misunderstood. According to...

Having a background in physics and engineering, I have approached leadership challenges for many years from the angle of building the best possible team and environment where people can bring out their best talent. Like in engineering where every next iteration is slightly improved and closer to perfection. Today, 20...

For most of my career, I’ve watched the same cycle play out whenever a transformative technology arrives. At the start, everyone rushes to adopt it: speed is rewarded, efficiency is celebrated, and early movers get headlines and high-fives. Then something quieter – and dangerous – sets in: sameness. In business,...

From South Carolina’s thriving aerospace and automotive hubs to its vibrant academic institutions, I see the ingredients of South Carolina’s transformative growth. We are establishing ourselves as leaders in composites,robotics, manufacturing, batteries, electric power, and autonomous systems. To realize this potential, we must prepare our workforce for a future as...

A Perspective on InnovationInnovation can take many forms. For the tech industry, innovation is abusiness tool. This entails engineering new solutions to old problems,designing different approaches and different processes, and creating newstrategies and products to keep the company competitive. Austin hasnurtured a culture of innovation and groomed its tech industry...

VISIONARY “BRILLIANCY COMPLEXITY SCIENCE METHODOLOGIES” INTEGRATE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI), BLOCKCHAIN, AND QUANTUM TECH TO DELIVER SOLUTIONS THAT ESCAPE TODAY’S LIMITS WITH TOMORROW’S CAPABILITIES In the fast-paced world of frontier technologies, Phil Abraham stands out as a transformative leader, expertly connecting legacy systems with cutting-edge innovations. As the visionary founder of...

Dès mon arrivée à La Cité en 2010, j’ai constaté l’engagement et la passion de la communauté collégiale, la vitalité et la joie de vivre francophones, la culture de l’excellence dans un environnement des plus stimulants et fertiles, le désir profond de voir nos étudiants réussir, et des projets plus...

Yet only a small fraction of these ideas, inventions, and potentially game-changing solutions ever make it off campus. Institutions likethe University of Washington have a responsibility to help more of them make it out into the world. Human health, the environment, theeconomy, and society depend on it. In this spirit,...

Demystifying innovation is trying to break it into what we see are the building blocks of getting from creating ideas to realising the value of innovation. There are three parts to it, and these are not necessarily sequential – ideating and shaping, designing and killing ideas and lastly scaling. Many...

“We have little evidence that we are achieving success in one of the core challenges in Australia and internationally – breaking intergenerational cycles of disadvantage in all its forms.” (BetterStart, 2023) The quote above is from a submission by Dr Rhiannon Pilkington and Professor John Lynch to our Royal Commission...