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On December 2nd, all of the students of LEAF Academy had the opportunity to visit the FutureNow Conference and the Startup Awards Slovakia 2017. Some of us already volunteered there last year and we all knew that this event would be very interesting to learn more about the future trends. This year, Startup Awards and Future Conference, normally two separate events, collaborated to give the participants an even greater experience. Overall, the day was a great opportunity to learn, to network and to enjoy the event.
FUTURENOW CONFERENCE – HOW WILL OUR FUTURE LOOK LIKE?
The three overall topics of the conference were the future of the internet, government, and mobility. The conference was opened by Mark Turell, the founder of Vork and a faculty member of the Hult International School of Business. He briefly addressed some future trends and one that particularly intrigued us LEAF students was the future of education because instead of moving forward, we seem to be moving backward. What is desperately needed according to him is an educational revolution.
One topic that really interested me a lot was the topic of the government and how it should deal with startups and technological advancements. Nitika Argawal from Apolitical, for example, talked about how richer countries can learn from poorer ones. Or, Riikk Erkkila from FinestLove talked about how Argentine is learning from Finland and Estonia.
Next up was the topic of mobility. A lot of the talks focused on autonomous cars and technology that makes cars much more safer, such as the one Mobileye provides. It was fascinating to see how this kind of technology can detect accidents even before you can see them with your bare eyes.
The conference came to an end with a talk by Amin Toufani from Singularity University, which is a Silicon Valley think tank. He talked about some of the future trends and the ways we are coming closer to them. After the speech, all of us students walked out of the auditorium and said to each other: “this was so inspiring”.
