Welcome to Techonomy Detroit

Kirkpatrick: Welcome to Techonomy Detroit, our third edition. We’re very proud to be here. What we do here is both about Detroit and not about Detroit. We think of Detroit as iconic in many ways, among them being that it represents a lot of the challenges and opportunities that face all of our economy both globally, but especially for the United States. And for us at Techonomy, what we do in Detroit is very much about the United States, how we as a country can get a grip on the extraordinary range of changes that are underway here and move forward collectively, particularly in our cities. Detroit is sort of exhibit A for what needs to change and we think there’s extraordinary ideas here of how to change things. I think you’ll hear a lot of them today as we go forward. There’s a lot of ideas from, literally, all over the world that’ll be represented on our stage here today.
We’re delighted to be back at Wayne State, this beautiful auditorium, and this beautiful university, and it’s really great when we have people coming in from out of town, of whom we have many today, who will experience Detroit in a new way in this great place.
I just want to make one comment about Techonomy itself. People think, “Oh, Techonomy is a tech conference.” But really, we are more interested in how technology creates progress and solves problems than we are in the technology itself. We talk about ourselves as a company about progress, not about tech. We see gigantic challenges in education, in healthcare, in equality, even at a global level, peace and some of these more macro issues—the most macro issues that you can identify, we believe, a more conscious embrace of technology by citizens, and leaders can have a big impact. And we think that the challenges are big enough and the opportunities great enough, created by tech, that we really don’t have a choice but to think in those terms. So, we’re going to look at a lot of issues about individuals, enterprises, cities, and countries today.
With additional thanks to our host, Wayne State University, I’d like to welcome Jocelyn Benson who was a speaker last year here at Techonomy Detroit and she is the Dean of the Wayne State University Law School which focuses on public interest issues and a lot of tech related stuff and entrepreneurship even, among many other things. Jocelyn, please join me.
Benson: Thank you.
Kirkpatrick: Thank you.
Benson: Thank you David. [APPLAUSE]. Good morning everyone. I just want to welcome you here on behalf of Wayne State University and thank you all for joining us today for this very important conversation. We here at Wayne State believe we have a unique role to play in the city’s re-emergence and growth, and economic development, and educational development. Techonomy is a great marriage of all of those goals. We believe we have responsibility at the university not just to train the next generation of leaders and advocates in the state, but also to help solve our problems today in the city, the state, this region, and in the world. So, bringing together people today for the conversations that we’re all going to have about education, technology, healthcare, and government, economic development, people from all walks of life, from all different avenues, coming together to talk about these problems together and collaborate on the next generation of solutions is what we seek to promote here at the university. So, thank you all for being here today and I look forward to great conversations.
[APPLAUSE]
Kirkpatrick: Thanks so much Jocelyn. Thanks again for hosting us in this beautiful place. This is really one of my favorite auditoriums anywhere. I love that you can get in and out of the rows without dislodging people which is a rare capability.
We’ve got a lot of things we’ve packed into today and we worked super hard to produce it. The first thing we’re going to talk about is the American dream and is it still alive, is it possible, what does it mean in an age of technology and rapid change? We’ll look at sharing economy, how transformative that is, can that bring enough people into the workforce in the—can that transform the economy enough to keep generating additional opportunities for masses of Americans? How does technology empower citizens and disrupt cities? We’ll have a conversation with Jack Dorsey and Beth Niblock, the CIO of Detroit, to discuss that later in the morning. Then after lunch we’ll have our breakout sessions, one of them being about how urban agriculture and vertical farming will transform food production, and believe it or not, there’s a gigantic opportunity there. And then, is Silicon Valley a state of mind or is it something that really has to be out there in California? How are cities like Detroit playing into the new tech ecosystem? What’s properly private, what’s part of the function of business? will be another section of our program as we talk to some leaders of philanthropies that have been deeply engaged in Detroit and nationally. Plenty more. We’ll have representatives from the White House, a lot of startups, big businesses, small businesses, citizens, and government officials. There’s a lot.
Now, I want to just give you a few housekeeping points. Everything here is on the record. That’s probably not a shock in such a big auditorium. We also think that your participation is really essential. For most of the sessions, as many as we can, we will have Q&A. It doesn’t have to be a questions, it can be a comment, although we would like you to keep your comments to the themes at hand. The microphones are going to be on each side so when we ask for Q&A come to one of the microphones and the moderator will call you from there. We are live streaming the entire conference from this room today. That has begun already. At lunchtime the session on diversity in the tech industry will be in this room. That will also be livestreamed. We are very active on social media as you won’t be surprised to learn. I’m sure many of you are also. The hashtag, unfortunately, is a lengthy one, #techonomydetroit, so please use that liberally on whatever social media you prefer, particularly Twitter, Instagram; Facebook, the hashtag doesn’t matter quite as much, but you can use it there too. And we have an app which I hope you’ve all downloaded called Techonomy powered by Mobile Roadie. You can get it in the app store for iPhone and IOS, and Android devices. Any up to the minute change in the program is in the app. There aren’t too many changes from the printed brochure that you’ve all received, but there are a couple of minor changes there. One change is that Andrew Keen’s the “Internet is not the Answer” will now appear a little later where the Magisto “Love My City” video contest was originally going to be and now the contest results will be at that point where Andrew Keen’s “Internet is not the Answer”—which is going to be an interesting session by the way—was initially positioned.
Please, silence your cell phones. Do you need to be told that? Probably. The Wi-Fi network, the WSU-public doesn’t require a password so you can use that freely. I want to, before we bring up our panelists for the first session, thank the organizations that have facilitated Techonomy Detroit happening, and really, without whom we couldn’t be doing it. The number one thank you goes to the Michigan Economic Development Corporation, which is our host for the second year in a row, an arm of the governor’s office that aims to bring more development, particularly tech-oriented development to Michigan, and is doing an extraordinary job. Our presenting partners, Quicken Loans and Detroit Venture Partners who were the host for breakfast this morning. Ford a presenting partner, and Ford, as you probably have already seen, has cars on both sides of the auditorium so please, at the breaks feel free to check out the Ford cars. You can get in them and everything. We also really thank the Detroit Free Press, the Detroit News, they have a re-charge lounge outside in the lobby where you can plug in your devices if you need a little juice; Airfoil, Edelman, Detroit Technology Exchange, Invest Detroit, Magisto, and also Pitch Black Media, which did the design of the stage, the programs, and a lot of other stuff. Mackenzie and Company is our knowledge partner, you’ll see some of their leaders on stage today.