December 7, 2018
The Blue Circle organized its latest event on 3rd Dec 2018 at The Leela, Gurgaon where noted futurist David Wood spoke on “Predicting 2025”. The talk was moderated by public intellectual, Pavan Choudary and was attended by a distinguished audience of 80+ CEOs and Industrialists.
David Wood, Symbian Co-founder and Futurist
The discussion began with David Wood making an eye-opening presentation on what the future of Business & work would look like in 2025. In summary, David underlined the importance of why leaders need to develop better agility to respond to current business challenges as well as hone their foresight by following closely the Technological, Human and Social Trends.
David added, “However this (adapting) cannot be done alone. It needs a platform where individuals and businesses can come together and learn. The Blue Circle provides an excellent platform for leaders to handle present disruptions and prepare for the future jointly.”
David prophesied that the new wave of artificial intelligence and deep learning will take away many a job but also added that if this wave is ridden well, it could lead to greater creativity and fulfilment for the society at large.
“As new technologies come in, they will take away backbreaking and soul deadening work and man will be able to explore creativity in different fields like art, music, philosophy or just business innovation,” he said.
Pavan Choudary said, “The manager of the future will need the ability to reorganise, lead people who have more than one employer and work with contrarians.”
He added, “Our ability to think, learn and adapt have helped humans stay indispensable and ahead of the machines in the march of progress. However now machines are fast becoming capable of thinking, learning and adapting. This will put many people out of work and the society will need to consider social security solutions like a Universal Basic Income. Governments will need to lead the way with alacrity." He also said, “A very reassuring point about the current government and our Prime Minister is that they are well cued in to AI, Block Chain and IoT and this awareness may keep India at the vanguard of this 4th Industrial revolution.”
Founder of The Blue Circle, Siddharth Anand said, “The Blue Circle is an exclusive community of like-minded and thinking Business leaders. Our objective is to assist this group of leaders in adapting to the Disruptive Present & getting Future Ready by curating events which provide bursts of new and relevant knowledge. We are attempting thus to nurture a fraternity of Business leaders which learns, evolves and grows together in spirit of true camaraderie.”
The session ended with questions from the audience which deepened the theme.
The complete discussion with David Wood can be viewed at https://youtu.be/-ml_gy9cd5s
Speaker Profiles
David Wood is one of the pioneers of the smartphone industry and a renowned futurist commentator. He has spent 25 years envisioning, architecting, designing and implementing smart mobile devices. He Co-founded Symbian, the world’s first successful smartphone operating system which was used in half a billion smartphones between 2001 and 2012, later headed Technology Planning for Accenture Mobility and co-led Accenture’s “Mobility Health” business initiative, “Mobility innovation for dramatically better healthcare”. He now chairs the London Futurists, a 7000+ strong futurists’ community and sits on the board of Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies. His book “Smartphones and beyond: lessons from the remarkable rise and fall of Symbian” has been described as “One of the most candid and revealing books a technology executive has ever written”. He holds a triple first class mathematics degree and doctorate in the philosophy of science, both from Cambridge, UK. He has also received an honorary Doctorate in Science from the University of Westminster, in recognition of his services to the smartphone industry and is considered as one of 100 most influential people in technology.
Pavan Choudary is the MD of Vygon India, a French Multinational, Trustee – Lal Bahadur Shastri National Memorial Trust, Chairman – Medical Technology Association of India, Independent Director Transasia Biomedicals and is consulted by many on business and life. He is a Public Intellectual and author of critically acclaimed best sellers like 'How a Good Person can Really Win' which was earlier published as 'When you are Sinking become a Submarine', 'A Trilogy of Wisdom' (on Chanakya, Confucius and Kabir), 'Machiavelli for Moral People' and 'The Rx Factor', a seminal work in Healthcare Marketing. Pavan has also co-authored path breaking books with Anil Shastri & Kiran Bedi. He also hosts the TV program 'Hum Aise Kyun Hain', has written columns for Times of India and Financial Chronicle. To know more, please visit www.pavanchoudary.in and twitter@writerpavan.