Date: 2 October 2020
Time: 8:45 to 17.00 CEST
Location: Digital conference. Registration required. 

Rather than looking at the promises of new digital technologies, and from this inferring how to build organizational and societal readiness for the future, in this conference we focus on things that are already happening. Borrowing from science fiction writer William Gibson, we adopt the premise that the future has already, partly, arrived.

The prospects of digital innovation for citizens, organizations, and society have over just a few years become more visible and vivid, and more salient and far-reaching. The disruptive consequences, the challenges and the opportunities for societies, organizations and individuals, have also become more articulated.

In our 2020’s conference, a salient theme is that opportunities and challenges related to digital innovation and AI increasingly require thinking broadly, engaging and collaborating across societal sectors, and developing a vision that prioritizes long-term resilience and prosperity for society, firms and other organizations, and citizens. Attention to social and societal aspects, including sustainability, are inherent in this view. We highlight the subtle but fundamental importance of attending to the social aspects of technological change through the theme, from connectivity – what technology provides – to connectedness. 

We explore this in three intertwined themes, where the word “smart” denotes the attention to meaningful and responsible change that we want to highlight: smart regions, smart global knowledge networks, and smart organizations.

This conference is organized in collaboration with the Wallenberg Foundations and Digital@Idag, and part of the outreach program of the Jacob and Marcus Wallenberg Center for Innovative and Sustainable Business Development, and the Scania Center of Innovation and Operational Excellence, at the SSE House of Innovation. The SSE House of Innovation is co-funded by the Erling Persson Foundation.