Some meetings have a “Wow” factor stamped all over it and this intermediate INAA meeting certainly had that special “Wow” factor. Barcelona is a fascinating city to soak in the Spanish culture and the sheer brilliance of the architecture of Antoni Gaudi is both exalting and captivating.
The meeting had a record attendance of 90 delegates and 33 guests, making it the highest attended meeting of INAA ever!!! The previous highest being the Nice (France) meeting in October 2010 attended by 80 delegates. It was really heartening that there were 30 delegates (from old and new firms) who attended an INAA meeting for the first time and there were 7 firms that were represented for the first time.
The Programme Committee had organised excellent speakers to share their expertise on how to be ready for the next evolution brought about by the confluence of technological changes, political upheavals and the emergence of new age professionals –the millennials. See them below, in video !
How to do business in Spain
Eladio Acevedo, Persevia Audit & Advisory - Joan Balaguer, Becerra Group
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Smart Cities : Technology and Opportunity for Companies and People
Carles Agustí i Hernàndez - Open Government Director, Diputació de Barcelona
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Biography
Carles Agustí i Hernàndez is an expert in international relations, open government, transparency, open data and new governance models, innovation and management. He speaks about these issues internationally. He has been nominated by the World CSR organisation as one of the world’s 50 best experts in Smart Cities. With his team he launched Barcelona Open Government (governobert.bcn.cat) and ensured that Barcelona met 100% of international transparency criteria. He’s now Open Government Director at Diputació de Barcelona, a member of the advisory committee of the Open Data Institute Barcelona and member of the Leading Cities Advisory Board. He’s also a member of National Board of Partit Demòcrata (PDECAT, the Catalan European Democratic party), where he is responsible for transparency and participation.
Summary
For many years now, our society has been using the term «Smart Cities», but it’s only recently that we have started planting our feet on the ground and exploring what it means, what it wants to say, and what direct benefits it could offer to citizens. We could say that the Smart City is technology in the service of people, technology that brings improvements to the everyday life of the people. We will try to see what the term Smart Cities means, where it comes from and in which fields it has been developed, and what are the benefits that each one of these areas can bring to the citizens of the world.people. We will try to see what Smart Cities is, which derivations or in which fields has been developed, and what is the benefit that each one of these areas can bring to the citizens of the world.
The state and impact of AI in Chinese society
Managing Director, China Inroads
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Biography
Seasoned sinologist Valérie Hoeks provides out-of-the-box strategic advice to companies at a crossroads with their Chinese partners (takeovers, mergers, investors, JV partners, distributors, agents). With 19 years’ experience in the Chinese market working in various sectors including hi-tech, chem-tech, energy and agri&food, Valérie collaborates at the executive level to solve complex China-related business challenges. Valérie Hoeks’ services include leading strategy sessions, crisis and risk management, mediation, 1-on-1 executive coaching and facilitating critical negotiations with Chinese partners in both Europe and China. She takes a diplomatic and hands-on approach to finding strategic solutions to commercial, legal and/or financial disputes, helping companies establish sustainable and effective business models in the Chinese market.
Summary
President Xi Jinping set a goal of spending $150 billion on achieving global leadership in high-tech artificial intelligence by 2030. In fierce competition with the USA, China is developing all kinds of AI techniques in order to become less dependent on imported goods. It also seems that China’s government has realised the potential of AI for increasing authoritarian control within China.
Newspaper headlines talk about advanced technologies that can combine dozens, even hundreds, of unmanned drones into a single devastating wave. Face recognition technologies allow Chinese consumers to buy products without a mobile phone or wallet. But those same technologies also allow the Chinese police to take pictures of vehicles that violate traffic rules, providing an image not only of the car’s number plate but also the driver’s face, which is then placed on a large screen along highways for everybody to see.
These developments fascinate and frighten us at the same time. What is happening in China? What are the interests of the Chinese government ? How does the Chinese population view these developments? And how can we understand the nuances of the news that we are presented with daily? Let’s take a look at AI developments in China from a different perspective.
May robots substitute accountants and auditors? How a technical issue becomes an ethical matter
Carme Torras - Head of Research, Institut de Robotica i Informatica Industrial
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Biography
Carme Torras is Research Professor at the Robotics Institute (CSIC-UPC) in Barcelona, where she leads a research group on Carme Torras is the Research Professor at the Robotics Institute (CSIC-UPC) in Barcelona, where she leads a research group on Assistive Robotics. She received M.Sc. degrees in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Barcelona and the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, respectively, and a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC). Prof. Torras has led sixteen European projects in artificial intelligence and robotics, the latest being her ERC Advanced Grant project CLOTHILDE – Cloth manipulation learning from demonstrations. She is currently an elected member of the Administrative Committee of the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, and a member of the Scientific Committee of the Spanish Research Agency. She is a EurAI and IEEE Fellow, member of Academia Europaea (2010), and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts of Barcelona (2013). She is a recipient of the Narcís Monturiol Medal from the Generalitat de Catalunya. Convinced that science fiction can help promote ethics in robotics and new technologies, one of her novels - winner of the Pedrolo and Ictineu awards - has been translated into English with the title «The Vestigial Heart» (MIT Press, 2018) and published together with online materials for teaching a course on Ethics in Social Robotics and AI. More information at http://www.iri.upc.edu/people/torras
Summary
Collaborative robots and learning algorithms are being designed to interact with people in all aspects of their everyday lives, including social, assistive and work contexts. This poses very attractive research challenges to Robotic AI and also raises fundamental ethical questions, which have led to the establishment of a new discipline: Roboethics. Not only regulations and standards are being developed by governing boards and professional societies, but also many education and dissemination initiatives are underway. The much looked-for confluence between technoscience and the humanities is finally happening as philosophy, social sciences and law are shedding principled light on these new ethic issues, whereas the arts and science-fiction help picture the benefits and risks of the possible roles the human being and the machine may play in this “pas à deux” in which we are irremissibly engaged.
Intergenerational Management - 4 generations in 1 workplace
Benjamin Chaminade - Specialist in the future of work and managerial innovation
Biography
An international specialist in leadership, innovation culture and the impact of the digital on the private sector, Benjamin Chaminade is an entrepreneur, author and consultant. Chaminade began his career as an Attraction Manager at Disneyland Paris, where he found out that culture and people were the key to an efficient organisation. He then decided to create Aditia, a Human Resources consulting firm, specialising in employee loyalty and engagement. He has also written two books: Identify and Retain Your Talented Employees and Become a Reference Employer. He then moved to Australia where he launched C3job, the first job site specialised in customer relations, which became the country’s fourth largest job site and was bought the following year. He then co-founded Big Fish, a startup specialising in recruitment, and InsideHR, a series of tools dedicated to improving employee motivation and commitment. After 10 years in Australia, Chaminade left to travel and began giving talks all over the world. Upon returning to France, he ended up taking on a different project, taking over Technoraid, a Rally-raid competition stable and the maker of the 4 wheel drive 400hp Renovatio. At the same time, he launched several blogs about intergenerational management, discussing Generation Y and innovation. In 2014, he became the curator of Creative-Day, an annual event about corporate innovation culture. Today, Benjamin Chaminade works with many companies, helping them understand current cultural changes and how they might impact HR. He also travels the planet as a keynote speaker, speaking about managerial innovation and the future of work.
Summary
From time to time a new generation enters the workforce with different codes and values, leaving recruiters and managers perplexed.
This time however, it goes beyond generational change. You can’t simply label this phenomenon as a “Millennial” issue.
The concept behind this keynote speech is not about making your company millennial friendly; but 2020 compatible.
Starting from the cultural groups you can find in any of your companies, this keynote speech covers the 6 steps that will transform your management to appeal to any generation.
EP 2019 elections: Trends and possible impacts on trade and business
Pieter Cleppe - Head of Brussels office, Open Europe
Biography
Pieter Cleppe is the Head of the Brussels office of Open Europe. He is a frequent contributor to the broadcast and print media across Europe, frequently discussing EU reform, the refugee crisis, Brexit and the eurocrisis. A trained lawyer, Pieter previously practiced law in Belgium, and has worked as a cabinet advisor and speechwriter to the Belgian State Secretary for Administrative Reform. Pieter also previously worked as an analyst at Belgium’s Itinera Institute, which he helped to found. He received his legal training at the Catholic University of Leuven, and also studied law and economics at the universities of Hamburg, Bologna and Vienna.
Summary
It’s unlikely that the European Parliament elections will directly threaten the status quo in Europe. According to opinion polls, the anti-establishment forces from both the right and the left won’t conquer more than one third of the Parliament’s seats. This may however lead to the current “grand coalition” of centre-right and centre-left forces being in need of a third partner, which would then be the centrists or the Greens. Nevertheless, indirectly, there are grave risks. The current consensus in Europe is that it’s fundamentally a good thing for the continent to be open to trade with the rest of the world and also to be open to trade internally. That consensus may come further under siege. It has never been a 100% consensus anyway, but to a degree it was unchallenged in principle. Most Europeans instinctively support the fact that a foreign airline can offer its services in Europe or in their country. Whenever they display anger with the EU, it’s because a supranational bureaucracy is making key choices that are already hard for national politicians to defend: choices on national spending, taxation and migration. In several cases, EU control over this has led to more hostility to the EU’s core business, which is about opening up trade, not about top down control. Therefore, to become popular again and fend off the protectionist forces, the EU should simply re-focus on its core business and no longer provide the protectionist forces with arguments to lure more centrist voters towards their camp.
Capitalising on your errors - Presentation and panel discussion
Benjamin Chaminade - Specialist in the future of work and managerial innovation
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Biography
An international specialist in leadership, innovation culture and the impact of the digital on the private sector, Benjamin Chaminade is an entrepreneur, author and consultant. Chaminade began his career as an Attraction Manager at Disneyland Paris, where he found out that culture and people were the key to an efficient organisation. He then decided to create Aditia, a Human Resources consulting firm, specialising in employee loyalty and engagement. He has also written two books: Identify and Retain Your Talented Employees and Become a Reference Employer. He then moved to Australia where he launched C3job, the first job site specialised in customer relations, which became the country’s fourth largest job site and was bought the following year. He then co-founded Big Fish, a startup specialising in recruitment, and InsideHR, a series of tools dedicated to improving employee motivation and commitment. After 10 years in Australia, Chaminade left to travel and began giving talks all over the world. Upon returning to France, he ended up taking on a different project, taking over Technoraid, a Rally-raid competition stable and the maker of the 4 wheel drive 400hp Renovatio. At the same time, he launched several blogs about intergenerational management, discussing Generation Y and innovation. In 2014, he became the curator of Creative-Day, an annual event about corporate innovation culture. Today, Benjamin Chaminade works with many companies, helping them understand current cultural changes and how they might impact HR. He also travels the planet as a keynote speaker, speaking about managerial innovation and the future of work.
Summary
In a VUCA world, where disruptions occur at an ever-increasing rate and reinvention has become a condition for survival, making mistakes and going though failures are no longer optional; they are part of the process!
From the historical example of Alexander Fleming to the modern day cases of Twitter and Uber, this keynote will demonstrate the personal and professional benefits of errors and failures. Benjamin will share examples and tools used by well-known companies to make your company more resilient, efficient and attractive.
You will also go through the hard truth that allowing failure in your company comes at a price…
Company introductions
@ The Office - Belgium
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Absoluce, France
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China Integrated - China
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Countus - The Netherlands
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FINC - The Netherlands
Drummond Advisors - USA | Brazil
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Revision Vadestedet
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The Accountancy - USA