Beyond the iPad

What IT and telecoms could do for innovation, productivity and the economy

Thursday 8 July, 6:15 for 6:30 pm (One Queen Anne’s Gate, London SW1H 9BT)
In partnership with spiked and in association with Epoch

Today IT and telecoms are two of society’s greatest tools for advancement, not simply out of the present economic crisis, but more importantly in moving society forward in the future. Around the world, IT and telecoms are being pushed in new directions, from China and India to South Korea and Brazil, and a new workforce of professionals is being created.

After the indecisive UK election, can we be decisive about setting an agenda for IT and telecoms for the next decade? How can these technologies promote efficiency, productivity, quality and innovation beyond their own domains – from medicine and health to manufacturing and transport – to qualitatively transform society? And what new (and old) models of innovation do we need within IT and telecoms to further develop their value?

New technologies offer intriguing possibilities like realtime translation, tele-medicine, voice interaction, the pervasive internet, thought-powered computing, robotics, location-based services and more. But where should our priorities lie? How should we allocate investment, both public and private? The previous government offered us the low horizons of two-megabit broadband while promoting IT and telecoms in areas like security, ‘social inclusion’ and education. Is there any value in these areas?

Please join BIG POTATOES and spiked for this agenda-setting debate in association with Epoch.

Speakers

Alan PatrickBroadsight, and BIG POTATOES co-author

Alan Patrick

Alan Patrick co-founded Broadsight after a career both consulting to, and working at, senior level for leading global multimedia companies such as the BBC, British Telecom (OpenWorld and Ignite), AOL Time Warner, ntl and UPC. He has worked in the US, Europe, South Africa and the Far East. Broadsight specialises in providing strategic and system design consultancy for clients working with cutting edge digital broadband media, much of it real time and video. Prior to setting up Broadsight, Alan held positions as VP Corporate Development for Globix Corporation in New York, Head of Internet Business Development at British Telecom, and consulted widely on multimedia to a number of major TV and cable companies in his consulting career at McKinsey and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He was involved in the design of broadband networks in the early days of their inception and has written several articles on the impact of lean operations on digital supply chains. [Read more at the Broadstuff blog]

Peter CochraneCochrane Associates

Peter Cochrane

Peter Cochrane was Head of BT Research from 1993–99, in 1999 he was appointed Chief Technologist. At the end of November 2000 Peter retired from BT to join his own startup company, ConceptLabs – which he founded with a group out of Apple Computers in 1998 in Silicon Valley. In 2006 Peter moved on to form a new virtualized global operation (Cochrane Associates) to exploit the new business freedoms and opportunities afforded by the latest technologies. A graduate of Trent Polytechnic and Essex University, he was the Collier Chair for The Public Understanding of Science & Technology at The University of Bristol from 1999 to 2000. He is a Fellow of the IEE, IEEE, Royal Academy of Engineering, and a Member of the New York Academy of Sciences. He has published and lectured widely on technology and the implications of IT and was awarded an OBE in 1999 for his contribution to international communications, the IEEE Millennium Medal in 2000 and The City & Guilds Prince Philip Medal in 2001. [Read more about Peter on the Cochrane Associates Global site]

JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist, BT Group

JP Rangaswami

JP Rangaswami is Chief Scientist for BT Group. He is and economist and financial journalist who has become an ‘accidental technologist for over a quarter of a century’. He is former MD at BT Design, CIO at BT Global Services and Head of Alternative Market Models at Dresdner Kleinwort. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and of the British Computer Society. As part of his role at BT he is chairman of future voice company Ribbit, and independently is chairman of The School Of Everything.

Matt Warman, consumer technology editor, Daily Telegraph

Matt Warman is consumer technology editor of the Daily Telegraph.

Chair

Helene Guldberg, managing editor, spiked

Preparation

What’s the future for innovation?, Tim Black, spiked, 7 July 2010: Preview of the event based in a piece based on quotes form the speakers

See the spiked debate The Internet Crunch which took place on July 8, 2008. Video of the introduction by cScape CEO Rob Killick.

Documentation

Documentation will be posted soon after the event.

Real time documentation

Please use the Twitter tag #ICTagenda [Twitter results]

Photographs

Photographs will be posted soon after the event.

Recording

An audio recording of the talks and discussion will be posted soon after the event.

Costs and booking

£5.00. Please book via the spiked events page.