Technology Future Shock: Society, Policy and Innovation in the Digital World

Population growth and shifting demographics, rising global energy demand and climate change, personalized medicine and exploding health care costs, global communications and digital empowerment, workforce shifts and global economics – these and other societal factors are reshaping our world. These trends are both influenced and driven by the rise of inexpensive and now ubiquitous hardware and software, massive social networks and wireless communications, the consumerization of information technology, ubiquitous sensors and explosive data growth ("big data"), and new models of human-computer interaction.

The rapid rate of technical change is challenging the ability of our social structures to adapt in new and novel, and the resulting "future shock" has profound implications for all of us. This talk will examine both the technical trends and their policy implications, spanning Internet governance, telecommunications and global spectrum policy, privacy and security, research and innovation, and environmental sustainability.

Speaker: Dan Reed, Corporate Vice President of Technology Policy and Strategy, Microsoft