• In today’s fast-changing tech landscape, the most impactful innovations emerge where engineering meets business. Engineers develop cutting-edge technologies, while business leaders ensure they reach markets and create real-world value. Strong partnerships between engineering and business schools drive economic growth, entrepreneurship, and societal change.

    Strategic business insights play a crucial role in advancing both applied and fundamental engineering research. When applied research is guided with precision and foresight, it not only enhances its impact but also influences fundamental discoveries, expanding innovation potential.

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      Dean of the Jacobs School of Engineering, University of California San Diego, USA

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      Dean of Rady School of Management, University of California San Diego, USA

  • Innovation has always been the engine of national prosperity, but in today’s hypercompetitive, technology-driven world, managing innovation is not just an opportunity—it’s an imperative.  There is a call to action for leaders across industry, government, and academia to rethink how we develop, deploy, and govern transformative technologies. This keynote will explore the forces shaping the innovation landscape, and the challenges of scaling breakthroughs, managing risk, and ensuring that innovation drives inclusive economic growth. In an age where technology leadership defines global power, the question is not whether we innovate, but how we manage innovation to shape the future we want.

  • Global power and energy systems are deeply interconnected with communication, transportation, logistics, finance, and the environment. Addressing climate change, resource constraints, and rapid technological shifts requires ethical, innovative, and data-driven leadership grounded in real-world solutions.

    By 2050, global electricity consumption is projected to rise by 50%, with overall energy demand increasing by about 30%. This is driven by economic growth, population expansion, and the electrification of industries and transportation. This makes renewable integration, grid modernization, and infrastructure resilience more critical.

  • The application of artificial intelligence in the social sector offers unique technical affordances for creating public good. Unlike traditional methods, AI enables interventions like adaptive personalization, large-scale qualitative data analysis, and sophisticated recommender systems that can be tailored to individual user needs. However, leveraging these capabilities requires moving beyond bespoke, client-by-client services toward productized solutions designed for systemic impact. Achieving this version of scale demands a systems-thinking approach focused on incentive alignment, user-centered design, and sustainable organizational structures. This session examines the technical and strategic challenges of building AI-powered products that are designed not just to serve a single organization, but to meaningfully change an entire system.

  • At a time when technological change is accelerating across every industry, understanding and shaping the forces behind that transformation has never been more critical. Drawing on insights from the IEEE Technology Megatrends 2024 report, this talk explores the three dominant forces expected to shape the next decade: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), Digital Transformation, and Sustainability.

    These megatrends are converging in ways that promise exponential innovation—enabling breakthroughs in energy, mobility, healthcare, education, and beyond. But they also demand urgent attention to ethical frameworks, inclusive design, and forward-looking policies. How do we govern AGI responsibly? How do we build equitable access to digital infrastructure? And how do we ensure that sustainability is not an afterthought, but a foundation of our technology roadmaps?

  • Technology is driving tremendous change across the healthcare industry, fundamentally reshaping how care is delivered, how organizations operate, and how innovation reaches patients. The role of technology leaders in this transformation is more critical than ever—requiring not just technical expertise, but also strategic vision, adaptability, and the ability to navigate complex challenges. As healthcare embraces AI, automation, precision medicine, and digital health, leaders must not only drive innovation but also ensure its successful implementation and adoption.

    Yet, healthcare is not alone in facing these disruptions. Almost every industry is now a technology industry—from banking to agriculture—where success depends on integrating emerging technologies, fostering innovation, and leading teams through rapid change. This session will explore the universal principles of technology leadership, drawing on lessons from healthcare while providing insights applicable across sectors.

  • The fuzzy front end (FFE) of new product development (NPD) is critical to project success, as activities like idea generation, concept development, and market analysis often determine final outcomes. However, the FFE is prone to errors, leading to costly failures later in development.

    AI in later NPD stages—product design, development and testing—faces higher barriers due to technical complexity and higher costs. The front end, on the other hand, presents a low-risk, high-reward entry point for AI integration. Yet, and despite the availability of low-cost tools, AI adoption in the FFE remains low—only 22% in 2024.