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The program book for the conference–now on the presses!

With about two weeks until Techonomy 2106, November 9-11, we’re in the midst of lots of deadlines here at Techonomy! There are so many remaining final touches, fine tuning and inevitable last minute claims of amnesia by some speakers who shall remain nameless.
The big program news this week has been that Mark Zuckerberg will be joining us, but that really is just one component of a three day program with (if I do say so myself) an already great roster of cross industry and multi-disciplinary speakers from around the country and world.
This year’s program features 78 speakers (40% of them women) talking about everything from the election (How can we not?) to planetary-scale computation, the modernization of currency and the impact and potential of gene modification on…well, everything.
There are a number of threads woven into the program.  We’ll kick off by discussing the election.  And looking forward towards a new, incoming administration, a number of sessions will address policy recommendations for the government.  CEO’s Jeoren Tas of Philips Healthcare Informatics and Bernard J. Tyson of Kaiser Permanente will discuss the future of healthcare policy. Intel’s Murthy Renduchintala will give a talk on “Why the US Government needs an IoT Strategy.”  We’ll also interview Estonia’s former foreign minister (and current cybersecurity advisor) Marina Kaljurand. Estonia is renowned for being in many respects the world’s most digital country.
A theme called “United States of Data” is threaded throughout the program. It will start with a macro-level exploration of the economic impact of data on business, industry and society, with JPMorgan Institute’s Diana Farrell and GE’s Chief Economist Marco Annunziata.  We’ll also get into the weeds on the issue of access to and ownership of data. That session, “The New Knowledge Trust” will be moderated by the New York Times’ Katie Benner and will include Eli Broverman of Betterment, Brett Hurt of data.world and Sarah Telford, the head of Data Services for the United Nations  Office for the Coordination  of Humanitarian Affairs.
This year we’ll be discussing climate change in a couple of sessions.  One, “Taboo Techs”, will focus on solar geo-engineering and nuclear energy.  The other “Is Combating Climate Change IoT’s Killer App?” will focus on what else…IoT.
If you’ve been to Techonomy before, or if you’re a regular reader of our articles or newsletter, you’ll know I LOVE geo-engineering.  Here’s a session we did at TE12 with David Keith and Andy Parker on, among other things, the geopolitical implications of geo-engineering.   Which leads me to the next segment I want to highlight.  ”Toward a Self Aware City & Is Data Really the Solution to Better Urban Environments” will be moderated by Jeff Goodell of Rolling Stone (he also moderated the TE12 session on geo-engineering).  This segment pulls together the threads of data, urbanization and resilience.
Artificial Intelligence will feature prominently throughout, including what will certainly be a fascinating interview with IBM’s Francesca Rossi on “In Pursuit of the Ethical AI.” Others who we will interview onstage include Fitbit’s James Park, GE Digital CEO Bill Ruh and NextEV USA CEO Padmasree Warrior.  And who knows where the November 9 evening conversation with Ray Kurzweil, UCSD’s Benjamin H. Bratton and neuroscientist and entrepreneur Vivienne Ming will go? It’s called The Evolution Revolution.
There’s so much more…so check out the full program on our website.
For those of you who will be joining us in Half Moon Bay, I look forward to seeing you soon.  And for those of you who cannot, we will be livestreaming here at Techonomy.com.