This is a brief demo-style keynote by Dr. Mark van Rijmenam focusing on how emerging technologies—particularly the metaverse, artificial intelligence, blockchain, and big data—will converge to reshape organizations and society. He emphasizes responsible, decentralized construction of the metaverse, democratization of creativity through AI, and the need for new mindsets and organizational change to harness these technologies over coming decades.
Chapters
I'm a strategic futurist, which means that I think about emerging technologies and how they change the future, organizations and society. We are in for an absolute wild ride. And therefore I think it's also a catalyst for other technologies, other technologies, such as blockchain, such as artificial intelligence. We don't want to end up in a metaverse which is owned and controlled by one company or one person or one entity. That with AI we now can democratize creativity. And I think that's a really awesome thing to show of how this new technology is going to change our society. It was great seeing Mark present today. I really loved hearing how he distills information, uses the latest technology in his presentation. So it's really unique when someone's able to not only talk about the future, but embed that future into their presentation. It's just a really immersive experience and I really enjoyed it. Today the world is changing, but what's also true is that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. And that's also true for the metaverse, because in the coming years we can expect to see the metaverse completely changing and revolutionizing our society. If you want to innovate in today's world, it really requires a different mindset, a different approach, how to deal with your organization. We're going to talk about three technologies and as you will see that the more they converge, the more they will have an effect on your business. Big data analytics, blockchain and artificial intelligence. My shortest definition of the metaverse is where the physical and the digital worlds converge in a so called digital experience, augmenting both the virtual and the physical worlds. Because we are creating something not for the next year, not for the next five years, but we are creating the Internet for the next two, three or even four decades. So we want to make sure that we build this metaverse correctly. With computing power still increasing and quantum computing on the horizon, AI is likely to engulf and redefine creativity. As such, anyone that's stating that they are building a metaverse is the same as a company stating that they are building an Internet. And in the coming years we can say that the convergence of the worlds of generative AI as well as the metaverse, they will deliver this magical experience. I love this presentation on various fronts, he explained to the audience, in a very easy to understand way. You know how AI is going to be a game changer and when you shift between the different images, that is a gestalt shift that occurs. You look at the world from a different perspective, and that is what you need to achieve within your organization as well. Very interesting keynote, especially as someone who's been following him for a while on LinkedIn. I've read his book. So Blockchain, big data and artificial intelligence are the holy grail. What I think for the organization of tomorrow, A brave new metaverse or a nightmare scenario? I really think it's up to us. It's up to us how we use this very, very powerful technology in building the next iteration of the Internet. Thank you very much.
